Bushfires spark extensive search for answers
Box 1 | Fire in the tropical savannas region
The tropical savannas region of northern Australia roughly covers 25 per cent of the country, stretching from Kimberley in Western Australia, across the Top End and through to Rockhampton in Queensland.
Much of it is grassland, predominantly sorghum. Each year during the dry season from May to October, the grasses dry out and become fuel for extensive bushfires. These fires can burn for months across thousands of hectares, burning some 50 per cent of the savanna vegetation.
The fires might burn with less intensity than those in forested regions of southern Australia, but they show up clearly on satellite images and stretch across the top of the continent like a patchwork of blazing mosaics. By some accounts, it’s estimated that the gases produced by these fires contribute two per cent towards Australia’s greenhouse effect.
Fire management plays a big part in learning to live in this landscape, and has been part of local Aboriginal tradition for centuries. Several fire management projects are tapping into traditional Aboriginal practices to better manage the savanna regions.
At Boggy Plain in Kakadu National Park, researchers are working with a local indigenous family to use traditional fire management techniques to help conserve the Ramsar-listed wetland.
The wetland is burnt during November and December and again in April and May to control the rampant native grass (Hymenachne acutigluma). The grass has been spreading widely since the removal of the Asian water buffalos from the wetlands, which kept the grass in check in much the same way as the indigenous fire management did before European settlement.
Other groups also use fire as a management tool in the tropical savannas, such as pastoralists trying to improve pasture for the cattle industry, and conservation managers.
Developing effective and ecological fire management tools is complicated by factors such as the frequency of fires, the intensity of the burns, and in which part of the dry season a burn is carried out.
One Kakadu study found that some fauna were better off than others, with lizards coping better in early dry season fires than kangaroos and wallabies. Overall, early burning had the least impact and is favoured as a management tool in the savannas.
However, the fire management techniques mentioned are only applicable to the tropical savanna regions of Australia. The processes and principles involved in managing fires occurring in Tasmania, New South Wales and other regions of Australia vary greatly from those applied in the tropical savanna regions.
Boxes
Box 2. Fire in the Australian Alps
Box 3. Other burning issues
Related sites
Fire and life at the top (Ecos, Autumn 1997)
Cultural burning revives a Kakadu wetland (Ecos, Jun-Jul 2005)
Living with fires in the tropical savannas
(Tropical Savannas CRC, Australia)
Savanna prime notes information sheets
(Tropical Savannas CRC, Australia)
Fire management (NatureBase, Australia)
Fire management in NSW national parks: Frequently asked questions (NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Australia)
Bushfire management (Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania, Australia)
Fire as a management tool (Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria, Australia)
Posted January 2008.