First Nations and Fire.

Victoria’s Aboriginal population prior to European settlement remains very uncertain but is thought to have ranged between 30,000 and 100,000 people. But it’s known that their numbers plummeted primarily due to introduced infectious diseases and displacement from their traditional lands.

The Administrator of Gippsland, Charles James Tyers, in his 1846 Annual Report, estimated the Aboriginal population in the area to the west of Lake Tyers at between 1,000 and 1,300 people. But this was followed by a catastrophic decline to 131 by 1853, and a low of 126 by 1854.

East of the Snowy River, the pre-contact population was estimated at between several hundred and maybe one thousand. But in 1844, George Augustus Robinson, the protector of Aborigines, on his visit through to Mallacoota and Eden reported very few Aborigines between Buchan and Twofold Bay.

But these figures are possibly only those people easily counted in mission settlements or camps and are therefore probably underestimates.

Victorian Aboriginals lived in the forests, coasts, plains and woodlands and were dependent on them for food, shelter, warmth, clothing and all the necessities of life. The forests were an integral part of their lives, and they fashioned them through the sustainable harvesting of resources and the use of fire.

Early colonial explorers and settlers commonly noted that indigenous people possessed great skill shaping the bush by burning to clear the undergrowth, for protection, for food, maintaining travel routes, hunting and complex cultural reasons.

Arguably, before European settlement, indigenous communities had little capacity, or need, to extinguish fires started by lightning, or indeed many of the fires that they had lit themselves.

What happened to these fires would have been variable and they would have been let to travel where topography, fuels and weather took them. And they could have remained smouldering and burning for months.

It’s also often recorded that the Victorian bush was more open, and when conditions were right, fires lit on the grasslands would act as a kind of conveyor belt and burn freely through the forests.

It’s believed that thousands of years of indigenous burning, in combination with fires started naturally by lightning, created the sweeping plains, the open foothill forests and woodlands near the rivers and lakes that the early settlers found across much of Victoria.

However, the presence of large areas of magnificent old wet forests in the mountains at the time of European settlement indicates that they had probably not been burnt by a hot bushfire for many centuries.

It’s often said that indigenous burning was linked to the rhythm of the seasons, were typically small, low intensity, patchy and frequent. Tree crown scorch was said to be minimal. This is important.

But Aboriginal connection with the forests ended abruptly shortly after the arrival of Europeans. Within a little over 20 years, a way of life which had existed for thousands of years, and which had shaped Victoria’s forests, was gone for ever.

A shift to indigenous or cultural burning ?

It’s often said that one of the most effective techniques used by indigenous groups to manage the bush was the application of controlled fire, now frequently referred to as “cool burning”, “cultural burning” or “fire-stick farming”.

“Caring for country” rather than allowing vegetation to accumulate and create the conditions for large and destructive bushfires, indigenous communities carefully applied small fires at specific times of the year.

Cultural burns no doubt helped maintain healthy ecosystems by encouraging the growth of new plants, creating habitats for wildlife, and reducing the risk of catastrophic bushfires.

The practice was guided by thousands of years of accumulated knowledge built through careful observation of local weather patterns, soil conditions, plant life, fire and animal behaviour, and then passed down through generations.

It’s also fascinating to ponder how the nature of intentional indigenous burning may have intersected and overlapped with “natural” fires caused by lightning.

So why not have both ?

Some commentators on modern bushfire policy argue for a return to indigenous or cultural burning, without being precise about exactly what that means and how it could be implemented.

Traditional knowledge can, and unquestionably should, contribute to modern land management and restoration of forest ecosystems damaged by fire, particularly in understanding seasonal patterns and improving local mosaic burning.

And indigenous communities should be at the forefront of the renaissance.

Indigenous burning is subject to considerable debate and speculation with many “expert opinions” but, to me, the underlying purpose, location, scale, area, patchiness, intensity, frequency, season and application of fire need some more clarity. 

I don’t personally believe the solution is as simple as returning to cultural burning and dumping modern fuel reduction burning or relying solely on traditional knowledge versus modern science and lived experience.

I also understand that traditional cultural burning generally occurred on a much smaller scale and with a very set of different objectives to current fuel reduction burns which are primarily designed for the protection of life and property.

Furthermore, it’s also hard for me to say whether indigenous burning is even feasible anymore at a scale necessary to recreate an imagined pre-European landscape while, at the same time, reduce overall bushfire risk in a modern built-up society with linear boundaries, towns and settlements.

But one consistent theme of indigenous burning is that it was low intensity and slow moving which aimed to protect the tree crowns from scorch and damage. It also helps to recycle nutrients held in the leaf and bark litter but doesn’t expose or damage the soil.

Transposing the indigenous burning practices used widely in the deserts and open forests of northern Australia to Victoria is problematic and doesn’t seem appropriate.

It also seems to me that much of the intricate indigenous knowledge about land and fire applicable to the diverse Victorian forests has been irretrievably lost. There is a lot to relearn.

I certainly don’t have the answers, but, in the meantime, I remain curious and open minded…

https://www.ffm.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/535209/The-Victorian-Traditional-Owner-Cultural-Fire-Strategy.pdf

Moray Douglas (2007). A History of the Forests and Forestry in East Gippsland. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2586554133/view

Victor Steffensen (2020). Fire Country.

Bill Gammage (2012). The Biggest Estate on Earth. How Aborigines made Australia.

Ron Hateley (2010). The Victorian Bush: its original and natural condition.

The terrorist attack at the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, was one of those significant events that shocked and reshaped the world, and where most people will remember exactly where they were at the time.

Today, many people around the world will be quietly reflecting on the tragedy that occurred in New York City 25 years ago.

But the story of the Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana) is less well-known but is one of hope and resilience.

Also known as the “Survivor Tree”, it was discovered buried deep in the rubble after about a month .

Almost unbelievably, the shattered and burnt trunk was still alive. It was replanted and nurtured at a nursery in the nearby Bronx, but its chances were slim.

This remarkable tree returned to the site nine years later in December 2010 and now bursts into blossom each spring.

Saplings from the tree have also been shared across the globe.

So, if you ever get the chance to visit Ground Zero make sure you also visit this amazing tree.

Note – Some images enhanced to make them sharper

Judge Stretton & Lane-Poole.

The 1939 Stretton Royal Commission transcripts reveal debate amongst foresters and graziers about the extent, impact and purpose of pre-colonial Aboriginal burning – a debate occurring decades before current academics and the media popularised their understandings of Aboriginal cultural burning to broader Australia.

Charles Edward Lane-Poole, renowned forester and Inspector-General of Forests for the Commonwealth stated that the nature of pre-European bushfire patterns was “one of the most important investigations” being examined by the Commonwealth’s Forestry Bureau.

Lane-Poole presented evidence of tree ring growth patterns and pollen particles found in lake sediments to argue that “fires in the Blackman’s country” were less intense and less frequent than those following the arrival of Europeans.

Importantly, Judge Stretton noted in his final 1939 Royal Commission report about the lasting impact of frequent hot bushfires caused by early settlers and graziers. (Chapter II).

The Condition of the Forests.— When the early settlers came to what is now this State, they found for the greater part a clean forest. Apparently for many years before their arrival, the forest had not been scourged by fire. They were in their natural state. Their canopies had prevented the growth of scrub and bracken to any wide extent. They were open and traversable by men, beasts and wagons. Compared with their present condition, they were safe. But the white men introduce fire to the forests. They burned the floor to promote the growth of grass and to clear it of scrub which had grown where, for whatever reason, the balance of nature had broken down. The fire stimulated grass growth, but it encouraged scrub growth far more. Thus, was begun the cycle of destruction which cannot be arrested in our day. The scrub grew and flourished, fire was used to clear it, the scrub grew faster and thicker, bush fires, caused by the careless or designing hand of man, ravaged the forests; the canopy was impaired, more scrub grew and prospered, and again the cleansing agent, fire, was used. And so today, in places where our forefathers rode, driving their herds and flocks before them, the wombat and wallaby are hard put to it to find passage through the bush.

Stretton’s comments support the observation that in most Victorian foothill forests, removing or damaging the overstory tree canopy with a very hot fire lets the sunshine reach the ground which can lead to a pulse of understory regrowth. In no time, the leaf litter, surface, elevated and ladder fuels return which has a major impact on overall fire hazard. Although, bark fuel can take 10-20 years to return.

Repeated low intensity patch burning does not have the same effect on the regrowth of a shrubby understory as a frequent hot fires that damage or destroy the tree canopy.

Many assume (or at least I have) that, just like the North American forests, the bush changed and the understory thickened because of…

• disruption to the extent and frequency of deliberate low intensity indigenous burning.
• the forests became disturbed by mining, farming, settlement, frequent hot bushfires and timber harvesting once Europeans arrived and were not able to stablise and grow old as they may once have.
• active suppression of all bushfires, including those caused lightning, by the Forests Commission and Country Fire Authority (CFA), following the 1939 bushfires. (See: Let Burn Policy).
• reduction in the area of low intensity landscape fuel reduction burning.
• a reduction in the number of fires lit by mountain cattlemen and other landholders after the 1946 Stretton Royal Commission into forest grazing and its impacts on soil erosion and the environment.
• an increase in the area and frequency of hot bushfires.

https://www.voltscommissar.net/docs/Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdf

The significance of lightning.

The number of bush and grass fires started by lightning varies across Australia, but in the remote mountains of eastern Victoria, they are very frequent – maybe several hundred in a dry summer season. (see: Gippsland Zig – Zag).

But interestingly, the early explorers, and even the 1939 Stretton Royal Commission, makes very little reference to bushfires caused by lightning.

Arguably, before European settlement, indigenous communities had little capacity, or need, to extinguish fires started by lightning, or indeed many of the fires that they had lit themselves.

These fires would have been let to burn where topography, fuels and weather took them. And they could have remained smouldering and burning for months.

Professor Brian Egloff from the University of Canberra suggests –

that there is a likelihood that at least some, if not the majority, of the ignitions attributed to Aboriginal agency were caused by lightning strikes.

It’s also fascinating to ponder how the pattern and extent of deliberately lit indigenous burning may have intersected and overlapped with “natural” fires caused by lightning.

And while there are a few points of evidence, the bigger question of how all these fires translated into a complex mosaic of fuel structures and forest ages across the wider landscape of Victoria remains largely speculative.

Reconstructing and understanding pre-colonial forest landscapes is a bit like being given a few random pieces of an epic jigsaw puzzle but without having the picture on the cover of the box as a guide. And maybe a few too many people try to interpret and guess the gaps in between.

Forest Age Structure.

It’s often thought that Victoria’s tall and wet mountain forests, which were perhaps not often visited by Aborigines, would have only burned very infrequently under hot and dry conditions, probably when fires spread from the drier adjoining forests and grasslands.

Many of the tree species found in these wet forests, such as mountain ash (E. regnans), are very susceptible to hot bushfire but will readily regrow from seed. The resultant even-aged stands of these fire sensitive tree species can provide a date estimate of the last severe bushfire.  

Tree ring studies around the Errinundra Plateau point to widespread bushfires in about 1730, 1760, 1800 and 1840.

Early foresters and surveyors often noted extensive stands of old mountain ash trees in the Central Highlands that had regenerated after the great fire of 1851.  But most were then lost in the 1926 and 1939 bushfires which then “wiped the slate clean” and “reset the clock”.

But there were some significant unburnt remnants. The wet forests of the Wallaby Creek near Mt Disappointment and the O’Shannassy catchment in the Upper Yarra Valley originated from bushfires in about 1700, which predates European settlement. But sadly, both stands were also burnt and killed in the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

However, not all eucalypt tree species are killed by bushfires and one study in the Cobon Forest (north-west of Cann River), identified 12 fires over a 300-year period. A similar study at Glenbog in NSW, not far north of the border, showed a long-term fire frequency of 14 years in a moist forests and 8 years for a dry forest.

A mountain plumb pine (Podocarpus lawrencei) found in the rainforests on the Errinundra plateau dates from about 1538, which is nearly 500 years old.

Huon Pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii) is found in the rainforests of Tasmania and is also very fire sensitive. It can live for up to 2,000 to 3,000 years and a stand on Mount Read is estimated to be over 10,000 years old.

River red gums are often said to live for 1,000 years or more, but their diameter increment (mm/year) is highly variable depending on the site, so tree girth is not an accurate measure of tree age on its own.

Grass Trees.

About 40 years ago, Dr David Ward examined the fire scars on the stems of ancient Balga grass trees (Xanthorrhoea preissii) in Western Australia.

The grass trees are resilient to bushfires, and the skirt readily resprouts after fire. But unlike a “normal” tree, they don’t lay down circular growth rings radiating out from the core of the trunk that mark the passing years. Instead, the growth marks on the stem show the passage of time in a vertical direction. They grow very slowly at only 2-3 cms in height every year, and a circular mark is left on the stem by each year’s growth and so bushfires can be dated.

Dr Ward’s reconstruction of the early fire regime showed that most of the drier parts of WA’s southwest forests experienced fire, on average, every 2-4 years.

Believing the Balga

Pollen Records – Snowy River.

An 1867 painting of the junctions of the Buchan and Snowy Rivers in Gippsland (aka – Balley Hooley) by the famous colonial artist Eugène von Guérard, together with recent pollen records found in nearby swampland, indicates that the forest was once more open and “park like” and that fires became more frequent and intense after European settlement.

The pollen records also indicate that the number of eucalypts and scrubby understory species has increased.

Other studies of sediments at Delegate River and Rooty Break near Bendoc, as well as at Sperm Whale Head on the Gippsland Lakes, all indicate an increase in charcoal deposits coinciding with the arrival of the Europeans.

Singh, G., Kershaw, A.P. & Clark, R.L. (1981). Quaternary Vegetation and Fire History in Australia. In: Fire in the Australian Biota, (eds) Gill, A.M., Graves, R.H. & Noble, I.R. Australian Academy of Science, Canberra.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Kershaw-3/publication/313070143_A_History_of_Fire_in_Australia/links/5e6301eaa6fdcc37dd0b49c7/A-History-of-Fire-in-Australia.pdf

Moray Douglas (2007). A History of the Forests and Forestry in East Gippsland. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2586554133/view

Colonial Art.

Early colonial art provides some tantalising glimpses into the nature and structure of the pre-European forests and woodlands and the impact of bushfires.

While some of the works are topographically and botanically accurate, others are more romanticised and impressionist to cater to the tastes of a British audience.

But these early paintings and sketches help to reconstruct the openness of the forests and woodlands of the precolonial period which had been under the influence of indigenous burning regimes for thousands of years.

Some also portray the wet forests in the mountains that seem almost impenetrable and probably had not been burnt by a hot bushfire for centuries.

In 1813, Joseph Lycett was sent to Australia as a convict after being sentenced for forgery. While in the Newcastle settlement he was encouraged by commandant of the settlement, Captain James Wallis, to paint scenes of Aboriginal life. His famous painting of “Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroo” was done in about 1817 and the open nature of the landscape and the skilful use of fire is noticeable. Lycett painted many other landscape scenes depicting traditional cultural practices of Aboriginal people of Sydney, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.

While amateur painters arrived on the first fleet, it was the famous professional artists like Eugene von Guérard who probably best depicted Victoria’s forests and landscapes. Surveyors like Robert Hoddle and explorers such as Major Mitchell also provided valuable historic sketches.

Michael Ryan (2009). Does early Colonial Art provide an accurate guide to the nature and structure of the pre-European forests and woodlands of South-Eastern Australia? ANU.

https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/46296ead-9739-4849-9932-245878fb2ea5/content

This is a hotly debated and controversial topic, and I don’t have the answers, only curiosity and questions. Please moderate any comments you may wish to contribute…

Unquestionably, Victoria’s forests have changed over the past two and a half centuries since European settlement. But what were they like, and how, and why, have they been changed forever?

Firstly, the extent of Victoria’s forests has reduced significantly.  A map produced by the Mines Department in 1869 indicates that prior to European settlement nearly 88% of Victoria had been forested, with the remaining 12% made up of open grasslands, coastal and alpine heathlands, lakes and mallee deserts. Alienation and sale of Crown Land, with associated clearing of native forests for mining, roads, railways, pastures, agriculture, cities, towns and settlements over the subsequent century reduced this figure to about 36% by 2013.

It’s well recorded that the first European explorers, surveyors, foresters and settlers marvelled at the large old trees in the thick forests in the mountains but were able to move freely and graze their stock on the foothills and open plains.

They also noted the frequent fires that had been lit by indigenous groups, or started by lightning, that were left smouldering, or raging, according to the nature of the fuel and weather conditions.

There is a serious risk of misinterpreting, over-generalising or extrapolating these references to Aboriginal use of fire. They may well have been ignited by lightning.

And what does “original” and “natural” condition of the pre 1788 forests really mean? Forests and woodlands were often in a state of flux well before European settlement. They were not necessarily idyllic and pristine and in some static balance.

However, despite the gaps in knowledge there are some intriguing, but conflicting clues of what the precolonial fire regime in Victoria might have been like. 

The fire regime for any particular forest-type and location is generally described in terms of the long-term cycles and patterns of fire intensity, fire frequency and season of the year when the burning occurs.

Explorers & Settlers.

Nearly every early navigator, explorer or settler mentions fire or makes comments in their diaries on the amount of bushfire smoke.

As early as 21 April 1770, Captain James Cook, sailing north of Cape Howe, near the current NSW/Victorian border, noted

In the afternoon we saw smoke in several places by which we knew the country to be inhabited.

Joseph Banks, who was on the same voyage with Cook, observed a few weeks later the fires burning from Smokey Cape to the Glasshouse near Coffs Harbour. Banks also noted in his journal while at Botany Bay:

very barren place without wood … very few tree species, but every place was covered with vast quantities of grass…the trees were not very large and stood separate from each other without the least underwood.

The new Governor of the NSW Colony in 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip, wrote regularly to the British Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, where he stated.

and they (the Aborigines) are seldom seen without fire, or a piece of wood on fire, which they carry with them from place to place, and in their canoes.

George Bass, in January 1798, while opposite the Ninety Mile Beach in Gippsland observed many large smoke plumes behind the beach west of the Wingan Inlet.

Later, Angus McMillan, in January 1840, saw an immense number of fires near the Macalister River.  And on his visit to Gippsland in 1842, William Adams Brodribb recorded near the Thomson River:

The natives had burnt off the grass in Gippsland late in the summer. Heavy rains must have fallen before we reached there in March. The whole country was green; it had the appearance of a corn field.

It’s also well recorded that when the Europeans first arrived on the land, they found vast areas of thick forests in the mountains, contrasting with open grassy plains which largely appeared to be an artefact of the previous Indigenous and natural burning regime.

In 1840, explorer Count Paweł Strzelecki abandoned his horses after crossing the LaTrobe River and nearly perished trying to cross the almost impenetrable forests of southern ranges to reach Western Port.

But it’s worth noting that the early European occupiers were mostly graziers and were probably only interested in the land as a source of grass for their stock, or timber for their farms, so their accounts probably reflect this strong bias.

They commonly used terms, such as “good forest” for timbered areas with a good grassy ground cover and “poor forest” for areas with little grass which reflected their grazing values.

Tree size and their usefulness for timber was mentioned. “open forest” could mean widely-spaced trees such as woodland, but it could also mean free of regrowth or scrub. The size of the trees was rarely commented on except in the magnificent wet forests or the massive river red gums.

Nicolas Baudin.

Between 1801 and 1804, the voyage of the French explorer Nicolas Baudin charted much of the southern coastline of Australia including Western Port Bay and French Island.

He included the description of “La Terre Napoleon”, covering much of what is now Victoria and South Australia.

Onboard was artist Charles Alexandre Lesueur who drew exquisite sketches of the east coast of Tasmania in 1802 which show many small plumes of smoke from fires.

A. W. Howitt.

The notable explorer and bushman, Alfred William Howitt was a towering figure in eastern Victoria between 1860 and 1890.

He was fascinated by the culture and society of Indigenous Australians and wrote many detailed accounts including.

“These annual bushfires tended to keep the forests open, and to prevent the open country from being overgrown, for they not only consumed much of the standing or fallen timber, but in a great measure destroyed the seedlings which had sprung up since former conflagrations.”

“After some years of occupation, whole tracts of country became covered with forests of young saplings…and at present time these have so much increased, and grown so much, that it is difficult to ride over parts which one can see by the few scattered old giants were at one time open grassy country.”

The annual crop of grass which covered the country was more or less burnt off by the Aborigines, either accidently or intentionally, when travelling or for the purpose of hunting game. These annual fires tended to keep these forests open for they not only consumed much of the standing or fallen timber but in a good measure destroyed the seedlings which had sprung up since former conflagrations. The influence of these bushfires also served as a check on insect life; destroying amongst others the insects which prey on eucalypts.

In his 1890 paper on the “Eucalypts of Gippsland”, Howitt commented on the extent of forest regrowth after 1830. He also made references to scattered gigantic and dead alpine ash near Mt Wellington, large box trees in the upper Snowy River valley and a few very large yellow box found in the Wellington and Macalister river valleys. The same prolific regrowth was observed in South Gippsland.

But Howitt arrived after the Aborigines had probably ceased their traditional lifestyles so his views on the frequency of burning must have come from the accounts and conversations with early squatters or older Aborigines. 

It is also hard to know exactly how many indigenous people lived in Gippsland and how far they roamed when Howitt was writing his notes. One estimate suggests there were only about 126 people living on the Gippsland Plains by 1854.

A. W. Howitt.

Edward Curr.

Edward Curr, in his famous book “Recollections of Squatting in Victoria 1841─1851”, made several comments that support Howitt’s observations. He concluded that the state of the country when the white man arrived was largely due to the customs of its Aboriginal inhabitants and their use of the fire stick:

The aborigine was constantly setting fire to the grass and trees both accidently and systematically for hunting purposes. Living principally on wild roots and animals he tilled his land and cultivated his pastures with fire.

Curr concluded that almost every part of the country was swept over by a fierce fire on an average of every five years.

The 1st of September marks the official beginning of spring in the southern hemisphere, and wattles are starting to flower in the bush and in gardens around the country.

Wattles feature prominently in Australian ceremonies, literature, poetry, art and song from the 1830s to the early 1900s.

Noted naturalist Archibald James Campbell established the Victorian Wattle Club in 1899 and organised excursions each spring in search of wattle.

Later in 1908, Campbell made an impassioned speech promoting wattle as our national floral emblem and momentum grew.

The first celebrations of Wattle Day occurred in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia in 1910 and in Western Australia and Queensland in 1912.

By January 1913, the Commonwealth Coat of Arms was gazetted, with wattle featuring prominently in the design together with the iconic kangaroo and emu.

And black wattle was included as an element in the Victorian School of Forestry emblem in 1916.

In the early days after Federation in 1901, arbor days, along with bird and wattle days, became popular in Australian schools.

The rise of nationalism that began with Federation continued into the First World War, reinforced sentiment for home and country through images of wattle.

Wattle was a poignant reminder on postcards and letters sent to the Diggers in the trenches.

But the push for a national wattle day petered out after the war ended in 1918 and remained more-or-less dormant throughout the rest of the mid-twentieth century.

However, there was a resurgence of national pride in 1975 when the golden wattle featured in the new Order of Australia medals which replaced the old British Imperial awards.

Green and Gold were adopted as our national colours in 1984 and have been worn proudly by Olympic teams ever since.

During the 1988 Bicentenary celebrations, golden wattle was officially gazetted as Australia’s national floral emblem.

There had been a confusion of dates used beforehand, as each state tried to coincide with local flowering patterns, but finally National Wattle Day was officially declared as the 1st of September by the Australian Governor General in 1992.

But despite all this, a national day of celebration for our magnificent wattles has never really taken hold…

The blame-game and climate conspiracies immediately run hot in the press and social media whenever there are major bushfires, floods, storms or other natural catastrophes. Some of the language is toxic.

Many commentators quickly find an expert opinion, a slogan, a website, an article in the newspaper, or quote the “settled science“ pointing to the impending crisis… or not…

But it seems to me that the answers are rarely as straightforward and one dimensional as many would hope… or claim.  Climate Change often being the most convenient and simplistic explanation for just about every natural disaster.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not a climate change denier… but, like lots of people, I’ve become a bit sceptical and desensitised to the daily deluge of doomsday prophecies.

And there is so much material out there too, some of it is very confusing, some seems very biased and selective, often with a predetermined outcome, depending on your point of view. I readily admit I’m not an expert either.

However, this document published in 2019 by Sarah Harris from the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and Chris Lucas from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) seems very balanced and makes some important points.

In Summary.

The researchers looked at the weather data from 39 BOM stations across Australia from 1973 to 2017 – admittedly only 44 years – but which, by pure coincidence, neatly straddles my career as a Victorian forest firefighter.

For the Victorian region, the BOM sites included Sale, Mildura, Laverton, Mt Gambier, Launceston and Melbourne Airport.

They then examined seasonal variations in the MacArthur Forest Fire Danger Indices (FFDI), which are a function of the drought index, rainfall, temperature, relative humidity and wind.

The authors also examined the relationship of FFDI with El Niño, the Southern Annual Mode (SAM) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

It’s a bit of a slog to read but the main study findings were:

• There is a lot of variation (noise) in the data.
• The trend of FFDI over the 44 years is slightly upwards.
• In Victoria, fire activity (i.e. annual number of fires and total area burned) is strongly correlated to the annual accumulated FFDI.
• For Victoria, the number of days with an FFDI over 25 has increased by nearly 50%.
• For most of Australia, particularly the eastern seaboard, fire weather is strongly influenced by El Niño.
• But there are variations to this general rule. For NSW, particularly the central coast, a negative SAM is a big influence. Spring conditions are the key.
• For Victoria and Tasmania, the impact on FFDI is increased with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole.

Importantly, the authors propose, but do not conclude, that climate change may be the primary driver of higher mean temperatures and a shift in large scale rainfall patterns.

S. Harris, G. Millsa, and T. Brown (2019). Victorian fire weather trends and variability.  International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, Canberra https://mssanz.org.au/modsim2019/H7/harris.pdf

From the Gregor Wallace collection…

Mt Blackwood – 1977.

These photos were taken during a family outing in April 1977 and show Gregor Wallace, his son Neil on the trig station and daughter Kerryn. His wife Norma took the photo.

The old wooden tower (37°33’25.9″S 144°21’37.6″E) had a great view over to the Brisbane Ranges and the plains towards Melbourne, and over much of the Wombat State Forest. The lookout man lived in Blackwood.

It was replaced with the current metal tower in about 1980.

Sulky – 1961.

These photos were taken in February 1961 and the figure on the ladder is Bruce Ross, Norma’s brother. Jack New is behind the binoculars inside the cabin.

Gregor’s camera then was a very basic 35mm Braun Paxette.

The site was on the highest point on the road between Creswick and Ballarat (37°27’13.6″S 143°52’18.3″E).

The metal tower was erected in about 1930 and is long gone but it had a good view over the young pine plantations of the time, which were bordered on their west and north by the railway line to Mildura and frequent steam engine passes.

Sulky is one of the few lookouts actually on the Great Dividing Range. Mt. Skene being another one.

https://www.firelookoutsdownunder.com/Victoria/sulky.html

https://www.firelookoutsdownunder.com/Victoria/mtblackwood.html

https://www.firelookoutsdownunder.com/Victoria/creswick.html

North America adopted a strident fire suppression and exclusion policy on its National Forests after the Great Fire of 1910, also known as the “Big Burn”. The firestorm razed over three million acres, obliterated several townships and killed 87 people, mostly firefighters. The fire shaped and cemented the US Forest Service for many decades to come.

But in the late 1960s and 1970s the US Forest Service and National Parks Service developed a “Let Burn Policy” as a major shift away from total fire suppression, recognising fire as an essential ecological process. 

The policy allowed natural, lightning-caused fires to burn under controlled conditions in wilderness areas for ecological purpose and to reduce fuel buildup.

But major fires in Yellowstone National Park in 1988, which became uncontrollable and deadly, forced a serious rethink.

Some people occasionally suggest that a similar let burn policy should be implemented for lightning strikes in remote State forests and National Parks of Victoria.

But letting fires burn freely in the flammable Australian bush during the hot summer months and then waiting until they break out onto private land before attempting to suppress them presents an unacceptable risk to a modern built-up society living along the interface with roads, fences, farms, livestock, houses and permanent settlements, as well as forest visitors.

Victoria’s Code of Fire Practice has provisions to deliberately let bushfires burn and just be monitored. It generally only occurs late in the fire season and when there are minimal risks, but there is a huge amount of paperwork to get approval.

But if it goes wrong and escapes, the community, armchair experts, politicians and the media are quick to criticise and are very unforgiving.

U.S. Forest Service Fire Suppression

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988

North America adopted a strident fire suppression and exclusion policy on its National Forests after the Great Fire of 1910, also known as the “Big Burn”. The firestorm razed over three million acres, obliterated several townships and killed 87 people, mostly firefighters. The fire shaped and cemented the US. Forest Service, which at the time was only a fledgling organisation.

Victoria followed a similar pathway after the disastrous 1939 bushfires and the Stretton Royal Commission.

Furthermore, by the turn of the century, European settlement and western expansion had severely disrupted traditional native American land management, hunting and burning. Like Australian Aboriginal people –

they burnt lightly and burnt often.

But the forests of western North America are now markedly different.

During the 1930s, the US Forest Service visited more than 800 fire lookouts across the Pacific Northwest to capture sweeping photographs of the landscape.

At each site, three 120-degree black-and-white images were taken using unique panoramic cameras designed by a forestry graduate from Yale, William Bushnell Osborne Jr, who worked at the Mt Hood National Forest between 1909 and 1953. He also invented the famous Osborne fire finder and a collapsible fire knapsack.

The Osbourne cameras were manufactured by Leupold-Volpel & Company in Portland Oregon and only about ten of the awkward and heavy (75 lbs – 34 kg) instruments were ever made.

The cleverly designed cameras had curved rails inside the film chamber to maintain a constant distance from the lens to the film surface to minimise distortion.  A wind-up clock motor rotated the lens during each “transit” to take a sweeping 120-degree photo.

At the height of the project in 1934, six photographers – mostly forestry students from the University of Washington, or Oregon State College – were employed.

The three interlocking photos taken with the Osborne camera faced different directions and were taken at staggered intervals throughout the day to take advantage of the light and avoid shadows. The south-west view was taken at 9 am, the north view around noon, and the final south-east view at 3 pm. (remember, this is the northern hemisphere).

Many of the images were taken using infrared film to reduce the effect of atmospheric haze. A compass bearing was directly recorded onto the top of each photo.

The large (14-1/4 inch by 5-1/2 inch) contact prints were later “stitched together” to create a full circle panorama. 

Reference copies of the photos were held in the US Forest Service regional office in Portland to help identify landmarks when smoke sightings were reported from lookouts, and then to despatch firefighters.

As far as I’m aware, there are no similar panoramic images taken from Australian fire lookouts, which is a pity.

Fire Ecology – “The Power of the Patch”.

The amazing collection of about 3000 images is called the Osborne Panoramas, and nearly a century later they are helping US foresters understand the impacts of modern fire management practices.

US Forest Service ecologist, Professor Paul Hessburg, arranged for a professional photographer, John Marshall, to visit and rephotograph as many lookout sites as possible in a project that took many years.

The paired photos tell an amazing story.

The forests of the Pacific Northwest had traditionally experienced regular low-intensity fires. They may have started by lightning or were deliberately lit by native Americans.

These forests once had a grassy and open understory which carried the fires and cleaned out the undergrowth of shrubs and saplings, leaving only the big, thick-barked old trees standing.

The forests were also once part of a broader mix of conifers, deciduous woodlands, open meadows and wetlands in a patchy broth of diverse habitats.

The “cross-talk” between the patches of burnt and unburnt forests, of different structures and ages, sizes and species, in combination with fuels, weather, topography and frequent low intensity fire, created an incredibly complex ecological mosaic.

And furthermore, it was this patchiness that provided some inherent protection from large mega-fires that the US now commonly experiences.

Hessburg convincingly argues that because of the absence of frequent low-intensity fires, together with the removal of larger trees through logging over the last century, the forests have now become overgrown, uniform aged and dominated by younger trees and understory shrubs. They also have tonnes of woody debris on the forest floor which presents an increased risk of dangerous mega-fires.

The debates about the future of forests and fire management, and how to protect communities, are strongly echoed here in Australia.

So why not do yourself a favour and watch this fascinating 14-minute Ted Talk by Paul Hessburg about “the power of the patch” and make up your own mind.

Paul Hessburg (2017). Why wildfires have gotten worse — and what we can do about it.

https://www.wildlandnw.net/osborne-panoramas-historic-and-modern

All forests change over time, but the changes can be slow and not immediately apparent, unless there is a major disturbance like a windstorm or a very hot bushfire.

These photos of Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) are from the Bitterroot Mountains in Western Montana. They were taken by the US Forest Service and follow the subtle changes to the structure of the forests from 1897 through to 2015. (AKA – Forest Succession).

Before European settlement of the Pacific Northwest, the forests had repeatedly experienced low-intensity fires which burned, on average, every seven years.

The fires may have started by lightning or were deliberately lit by native Americans who burned a lot.

The frequent burning created a complex mosaic of open forest with a grassy understory that carried low-intensity ground fires which cleaned out the dead wood on the forest floor as well as the undergrowth of shrubs and saplings, removing the elevated ladder fuels and leaving only the big, thick-barked trees standing.  

Because of the historic fire regime, these ponderosa pine forests were once dominated by scattered old trees with about 50 large stems per acre, but with patches of younger trees in the bigger gaps.

This sequence of amazing photos was taken from a fixed vantage point and clearly illustrates the loss of openness and thickening of the understory.

Also, in the absence of fire to clear out the undergrowth, Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) which is an evergreen conifer, has begun moving onto these sites and threatening the once pure stands of Ponderosa Pine. In wildfire conditions the thick regrowth of Douglas Fir forms very flammable ladder fuels.

US Forest Service ecologist, Professor Paul Hessburg convincingly argues that because of the absence of frequent low-intensity fires, together with the removal of larger trees through selective logging over the last century, the forests have now become overgrown, uniform aged and dominated by younger trees and understory shrubs.

They also now have tonnes of woody debris on the forest floor which presents an increased risk of dangerous mega-fires.

And furthermore, Hessburg says it was the previous openness and patchiness that broke up the continuous fuels and provided some inherent protection from the large fires that the US now commonly experiences.

The debates about the future of native eucalypt forests, fire management and low intensity burning, and how to protect communities, are strongly echoed in Australia.

I’m not aware of any long-term photo study plots in Victorian native forests but I sense the changes would be similar.

https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/56719

Desmond (Des) John Collins had never really travelled far from Daylesford until he was conscripted into National Service in September 1965.

Sent to nearby Puckapunyal, Des completed his basic recruit training before being posted as Trooper (3787452) to the newly formed 1st Armoured Personnel Carrier Squadron (1 APC Sqn).

Des trained as a driver of an M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), and in May 1966 sailed on the HMAS Sydney to South Vietnam to join the 1st Australian Task Force at Nui Dat.

Upon its arrival, the first tasks for the APC squadron were to secure the new base by erecting defences and keeping the road between Vung Tau, on the coast, and Saigon open.

Because there were so few APCs at Nui Dat, the squadron was constantly busy supporting infantry, fire support, reconnaissance, cavalry roles, offensive manoeuvres against enemy positions, troop transport, moving equipment, towing artillery guns and casualty evacuation.

The squadron’s most notable battle was on 18 August 1966 to transport soldiers from A Company to relieve 108 soldiers of D Company holding out against overwhelming odds of about 2500 Vietcong, in the pouring rain, in a rubber plantation at Long Tan.

The day was supposed to be relaxing for the troops at Nui Dat with a concert by entertainers Little Pattie and Col Joye.

An artillery barrage began around mid-day on enemy positions 2.5 km away while RAAF helicopters flew over the beleaguered solders of D Company to resupply them with ammunition.

The rain became very heavy as Des Collins rumbled his APC out through the wire surrounding the base around 6 pm. It was a typical tropical downpour, but it muffled the noise of the engines and squeaking of the tracks which confused and surprised the Vietcong.

On arrival on the battlefield across the soggy rice paddies and flooded creeks, the APCs fanned out to make a sweep through enemy lines where they inflicted heavy casualties, before the Vietcong broke off and melted back into the jungle.

The battle ended and the monsoonal storm abated, as suddenly as both began. Under cover of darkness, the Australian units withdrew and regrouped while the dead and wounded were evacuated by helicopters. Soldiers spent a restless night as artillery and air strikes continued to pound the battle site and likely enemy withdrawal routes.

The next morning, a combined force of infantry and armoured personnel carriers went back into the battlefield to conduct a thorough clearance.

The Australians lost 18 men killed and 24 wounded. One of those killed was from 1st APC Sqn, and for their actions, three men from the squadron received gallantry awards.

After spending 12 months overseas in Vietnam, Des was honourably discharged in September 1967 and returned home to Daylesford and got married.

Around 1969, Des got a job on the crew with the Forests Commission at Daylesford, a job he loved.

One of his good friends was Alan Lynch, who also worked for the Commission on the crew, and they often walked to work together.

Both Alan and Des had many practical bush skills including roadbuilding, firefighting and driving heavy machinery.

Tragically, both Des and Alan were killed in a bushfire at Greendale on Saturday 8 January 1983 when their machine was overrun by fire.

But their deaths were somewhat overshadowed by the major Ash Wednesday bushfires of 16 February 1983 only a few weeks later.

We will remember them..

Providing timber for housing and domestic use from the State’s native forests, together with expanding softwood plantations to support Victoria’s rapidly expanding population, had long been a stated goal for the Forests Commission.

There had also been a very clear directive to the Commission from the State Government to meet Victoria’s timber needs and to expand the State’s rural prosperity.

While there was a local sawmilling industry from the 1850s, Victoria relied heavily on imported timber until about 1900.

There was also an imperative to restore some of the damage done to the State’s forests caused by the indiscriminate cutting during the gold rush, and the mad scramble for land settlement that followed in the late 1800s.

There were loud calls, particularly after shortages experienced during World War One, to increase timber production from the State’s native forests to reduce the dependence on imports.

The timber supply shock was no doubt a factor in the State Government creating the Forests Commission as an independent entity immediately after the War in 1918.

Experimental seasoning workshops and kilns had been established by the Department in 1911 to investigate the properties of local hardwood timbers and to develop a sawmilling industry.

The State Seasoning Works at Newport demonstrated the potential uses of Victorian hardwoods and this pioneering work done in partnership with the CSIRO bore fruit. By 1931 it was estimated that 80% of the flooring laid down in Melbourne was kiln-dried mountain ash cut from the State’s forests.

The research work at Newport and by Dr Herbert Eric Dadswell and his colleagues at the CSIRO from 1929 until 1964 expanded the understanding and uses of native timbers.

Experimental softwood plantations had been established  at Frankston and Harcourt in 1909. The largest plot was some 2,500 acres at the McLeod Prison farm on French Island in 1917, but the major softwood expansion wasn’t until the early 1960s.

Victoria’s native forests continued to provide sawn timber, heavy construction timbers, railway sleepers, power and telephone poles, fencing materials, firewood and pulpwood for papermaking.

Timber for Homes.

The rate of house construction between 1920 and 1939 was relatively steady, except for the period of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Green scantling timber was used for wall and roof framing and sub-flooring. Dried and dressed hardwoods, particularly messmate and mountain ash, were used for internal flooring, door and window frames and architraves.

Softwood weatherboards were imported from the Baltic States for external cladding, while old-growth Oregon was imported from North America for large structural timbers. Asbestos cement sheet was also widely used.

With the outbreak of World War Two, the Commission’s efforts were directed towards salvaging the mountain forests burnt across the Central Highlands in 1939 and supporting the War effort.

Sawn timber production for domestic housing increased rapidly in the five years after the War, and then more than doubled by 1955, during the post-war housing boom.

From the mid-1950s the volume of sawn timber remained relatively stable, even though the number of new houses constructed each year increased steadily by an average of about 900 per year, from 20,700 in 1956, to 38,100 in 1976.

The increasing demand for housing during this period was coupled with a trend towards larger homes.

But while local green hardwood timber remained the main material for wall and roof framing, concrete sub-flooring and brick-veneer exterior cladding became increasingly popular, which reduced the demand on native forests.

By the mid-1960s, sawmilling was recognised as one of Victoria’s largest rural industries which provided wide opportunities for decentralised employment.

Techniques for cutting and seasoning eucalypt timbers were well established while builders, architects and homeowners had come to appreciate the strength, versatility and beauty of Australian wood.

The Victorian Timber Promotion Council (TPC) was created by an amendment to the Forests Act in 1969. The TPC was supported by the Commission and the sawmilling industry with a levy on all sawlogs. It strongly promoted the uses of local hardwood and softwood timbers and produced the popular Timber Framing and Stress Grading Manuals to support builders and architects.

But there was a trend in the 1970s for particleboard flooring with carpet or cork covering instead of kiln-dried local hardwoods. 

Victoria’s softwood plantation estate (both private and Government) also expanded during this time, but local softwood timber supplies remained very limited until the late 1970s when harvesting from the significant areas of maturing plantations increased.

In the decade from 1974 to 1983, it is estimated an average of 39,500 houses per year were constructed using timber from Victoria’s State Forests.

And while average house size continued to increase, the use of timber per unit of floor space decreased steadily over that period. For example, the average house size in Victoria in 1974 was 150 m2 but then increased to 170 m2 by 1983. However, over the same period the volume of timber per square metre of floor space decreased from an average of 0.14 m3 in 1974, to 0.11 m3 in 1983.

Over the period that reliable figures were reported (1900 – 2022), the volume of sawlogs harvested from Victoria’s native forests was about 90 million cubic meters.  Production spiked during the 1939 salvage and then peaked in the early 1950s, but then steadily declined.

And from 1932 to 1992, which coincided with the separation of the Victorian Plantation Corporation (VPC), the production of softwoods from the state-owned plantations was a further 9.5 million cubic meters and was continuing to grow.

Over the decades, hardwood’s share of the traditional house framing market was rapidly eroded by radiata pine.  But hardwoods were still sought for applications requiring strength, durability and appearance, including sub-floors, beams, decking, fencing, and furniture.

There is no doubt that the Forests Commission contributed significantly to Victoria’s economic prosperity for more than six decades by ensuring there was a renewable and sustainable supply of timber from the State’s native forests and softwood plantations to build millions of family homes across Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Source: David Williams. Hardwood Timber for Victoria’s Houses. https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/activities1/producing/681-hardwood-production-and-houses.html

Galbraith (1943). Timber Resources of Victoria and Their Relation to Housing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FPjht6smoS8vxfGzcrupTQdQ9kdU9cTr/view

Particleboard was developed in Germany in the late 1940s and introduced to Australia in 1957 when Coreboard Ltd. (later purchased by Softwood Holdings Ltd.) established a plant at Mt. Gambier.

The Coreboard plant created a much-needed market for early thinnings from the rapidly expanding radiata pine plantations as well as for sawn waste.

Before mechanisation, the 6-foot timber billets were hand cut, stacked in the plantation in heaps and extracted to the roadside before loading and transport.

At the factory, the bark was then removed, and the logs converted into thin flakes which were dried, mixed with urea-formaldehyde resin and then continuously extruded and pressed through a heated die.

A second plant was built in 1960 at Oberon in NSW by Pyneboard Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR).

The Oberon plant used an improved process which formed the board onto an endless steel wire mesh, cut it into lengths and then pressed it between heated platens.

Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM), based in Gippsland and operator of the major pulp mill at Maryvale, also owned a substantial pine plantation estate and acquired a 50% share in the Oberon plant in 1964.

The acquisition led to another Pyneboard factory, jointly owned by CSR and APM, being established at Rosedale with production commencing in 1964. But because of its small size, the factory became unprofitable and was closed at the end of 1978.

The Rosedale factory was subsequently used as a leather tanning works and then to manufacture industrial cable.

https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/244.html

Note – Pyneboard is a tradename and is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Pineboard.

The “Normal Forest” is a theoretical condition where the growing stock of trees has a more or less even series of age classes, with an even spread of tree sizes, with full stocking on each site growing with normal increments (AKA –  The Trinity of Norms).

The idea of the normal forest emerged in the 1800s in Germany as a simplified mathematical framework for forest management, particularly to produce timber.  It works best for single aged stands rather than complex multiple aged forests.

For example, in a hypothetical 100-ha forest, where each age class is equally represented in 1ha plots from 0-100 years, and each hectare is fully stocked and grows normally at 1 m3/ha/year, then each plot will carry 100 m3 of timber at age 100. Then if the harvesting rotation is 100 years, a mature 1 ha plot can be cut each year and then replanted, which will yield 100 m3 per year in perpetuity.

A normal forest serves as a doctrine of faith that allows for a balance of growth that matches the area harvested and creates an even and sustained yield of timber. It also serves as a standard to which actual forests can be compared.

The normal forest is possible in managed short-rotation softwood plantations but is not found in Australian native forests, particularly when they have either been heavily harvested in the past, like the Wombat State Forest during the gold rush, or burned by extensive bushfires, such as the ash forests in the Central Highlands which have large stands of uniform, single-aged, 1939 and 1983 regrowth.

Masonite is an engineered panel board that was patented in 1924 by American inventor William H. Mason. It is made by steam pressurising wood chips followed by explosive decompression through a “Mason Gun”. The wood fibres are then passed through an endless wire mesh to be pressed and dried into thin rigid sheets. The large dimensioned panels use the wood’s natural lignin to bond everything together without artificial glues.

The Masonite Corporation (Australia) Ltd. opened a plant in 1938 at Raymond Terrace in NSW and used chips from local eucalypts.

Meanwhile in Victoria, an agreement was reached with Australian Paper Manufactures (APM) to build a major pulp and paper plant at Maryvale in the Latrobe Valley under a Legislated Supply Agreement. The first intake of pulpwood from State forests was in October 1937.

Anticipating an increase in post-war demand for woodchips for the manufacture of pulp and fibre board like Masonite, the Forests Commission began a major resource inventory across State forests in the early 1950s.

A Wood Supply Agreement with the Masonite Corporation soon followed in 1955 to harvest pulpwood (other than Ash species) from forests in the southern part of the Upper Goulburn River catchment to feed a Masonite and hardboard plant.

The company was using a new dry-forming process developed by the US Masonite Corporation to produce a hardboard which was smooth on both sides.

The company purchased the works area that had been used to build the Eildon dam to manufacture the wallboard, but it proved unsuccessful due to technical reasons.

The Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) took over the Australian operations of the Masonite Corporation in 1959 and closed the Eildon plant.

A new agreement was then reached between the Forests Commission and CSR to supply 70,000 tonnes of pulpwood from the Wombat State Forest for a new hardboard plant at Bacchus Marsh using the Asplund defibration process on eucalypt wood. Production began in 1961. The company also had a factory at Mitcham.

Wood was also supplied by students from the Forestry School at Creswick. Eight-foot billets were hand-cut and split with axes then stacked in the school’s demonstration forest. A cartage contractor then picked up the wood from the bush and delivered it to Bacchus Marsh.  After costs were paid, the surplus cash went into the school sports fund

Hardboard made from eucalypts proved to have excellent strength properties, superior to those of similar products based on softwoods, and for a time a significant part of the local production was exported.

However, in 1999, the Bacchus Marsh plant finally closed, and CSR moved its operations to Queensland.

Masonite has fallen from favour but is still commonly used as an affordable flooring underlay and furniture backing. But it best used indoors because, without treatment, it absorbs water which causes the boards to swell and blister.

https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/242.html