Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Following our visits to the DSE burn site in the Tarilta Gorge [see our post] we have written to DSE management in Bendigo seeking a response to the following questions:

1. Last year in our submission on fire zones we drew attention to the steep slopes in this area, and the need to be extra careful in any burning operation. Given that heavy rain was predicted in the week after the proposed burn, why was there evidently no effort to protect the steeper slopes? [Sludge in the creek is up to a metre deep in parts. In walking along the creek bed you can go up to your waist at one point in soil and ash]

2. We’re still at a loss as to DSE’s inability to protect large trees from these burns. Red box on the slopes and even larger trees on the valley floor have been destroyed. We’d like to know what kind of supervision takes place in this area.

3. The Ecological Management Zone’s purpose is ‘promoting biodiversity and ecological renewal. Planned burning will be used to manage native species and ecological communities which require fire to regenerate.’ Can you tell us which species you had in mind in this operation? Is there baseline data to enable an assessment of the success of the operation?

4. We were under the impression that in this zone the intention is to do a mosaic burn covering about one third of the area. It seems to us that much more was actually burnt. Can you tell us what your estimate is of the burn coverage?

We’ll post the reply as soon as it’s available.

FOBIF was represented at a meeting in Bendigo on March 7 with DSE land and fire community engagement officer Simone Blair. The meeting was organised by the Bendigo and District Environment council.

The meeting was an opportunity for community groups to table their difficulties in communicating with DSE on matters specifically to do with fire management. FOBIF believes that these difficulties arise mainly because DSE is obliged to implement a very blunt range of policies, the main one being that of burning off five per cent of public land, regardless of local conditions. Nevertheless, we believe that even under these constraints, DSE could do better: and we are of the view that some of their efforts smack of carelessness or neglect—the burning of Tarilta Gorge being one [see below].

BDEC members present were insistent that DSE should try more actively to counter unreasonable fear of the bush, and that the dangers of grass fire should be made clearer to the public. The belief persists that the Bracewell Street Black Saturday fire was a bushfire, when it burned mainly through waste grassland. They also underlined the importance of fire protection works on private land.

There will be a follow up meeting in April.

Forty-five walkers set out from the SEC Dam Track in Green Gully on 21 March for the first FOBIF walk of the year.  It was not the normal scenic bushwalk as the route was mainly through areas of the Muckleford Forest which had been burnt in the fuel reduction burns in the Spring of 2011.

Frances Cincotta from Newstead Natives Nursery and Chris Johnston, author of the Muckleford Forest blog led the group.

Frances and Chris explaining the areas affected by different burn zones. Photo by Noel Young

The areas burnt in spring were mainly in Zone 2 and 3 – Zone 2 is Strategic Wildfire Management Zone and Zone 3 is Ecological Management Zone.  One of the aims of the walk was to see if we could identify the differences in the % of landscape burnt based on the zoning. Zone 2 can be up to 80% burnt, and Zone 3 is 30-50% burnt. (Zone 4 Prescribed Burning Exclusion). The group walked along Demo Track, a renowned wildflower area, so people could see the stark difference between the burnt and unburnt sides of the track.

Left and right sides of Demo Track at same point (unburnt and burnt). Photos by Noel Young

Apart from Gold Dust Wattle, Dianella and epicormic growth on eucalypts there was little evidence of regrowth and the number of trees, including at least one Native Cherry Exocarpos cupressiformis, that had been destroyed was disturbing. This post is based partly on a Muckleford Forest blog article. Click here to see more.

It’s sometimes hard to know what to call DSE burning operations: control burns? Fuel reduction? Ecological burns? Too often none of the above apply: there’s little control, apart from keeping the burn inside the control lines [and as we know, that isn’t always achieved]; the fuel is only temporarily reduced, as the severity of the burns sometimes provokes massive regrowth of flammable scrub; and the ecological function of the operations is mysterious, to put it mildly.

DSE burn CAS 0051, Limestone Track [better known to us as Tarilta creek valley], is described on the DSE website as aiming to ‘create a mosaic burn coverage appropriate to meet requirements of localised EVC’s [ecological vegetation classes] and to reduce the spread of fire.’ It’s in Zone 3 [Ecological Management Zone–EMZ]. FOBIF was given to understand at a DSE briefing in September last year that in such a zone the managers will aim at about one third coverage of the area with fire.

Tarilta Creek, March 19, 2012: silt and ash washed off the steep burned hillsides is in places over a metre deep.

The EMZ’s ‘primary objective’ is ‘promoting biodiversity and ecological renewal. Planned burning will be used to manage native species and ecological communities which require fire to regenerate. This also assists with fire protection outcomes by reducing overall fuel in the landscape.’ [DSE Fact sheet]

Tarilta was burned by DSE on the weekend of March 10th, and a very large plume of smoke suggests that it flared up again on Tuesday 13^th. Heavy rain was forecast that week, and duly arrived on Wednesday 14^th.

FOBIF representatives have visited the 556 hectare site [between Mount Franklin and Guildford] twice since the burn. We were concerned about this one in advance, and sceptical of its usefulness as a safety exercise, especially given the research released in January on the relative pointlessness of large burning operations remote from settlement [see our Post].

We had expressed our concerns to DSE in our response to their zoning proposals last year, as follows:

‘We noted Kevin Tolhurst’s comments on ABC local radio on August 25 to the effect that these burn plans might work ecologically if they are ‘low intensity’. This comment provides context for our second main concern, namely, CAS0051, Limestone tk, in the Tarilta creek area. This is a very interesting area, and our experience with last year’s Wewak track burn makes us very apprehensive about both the fuel load and ecological outcomes. The rampant destruction of mature trees and resultant explosive regeneration, together with much bare earth, is a great cause for worry when considering the Tarilta creek, a much steeper and therefore erosion prone topography. We believe that detailed planning of this burn, and tight supervision, will be necessary to avoid last year’s problems [or worse, given the steeper slopes]’.

Steep tributary gully burned out by DSE. Heavy rain was forecast before the burn, but no erosion control measures seem to have been taken.

Our conclusions after two visits [and we intend to go down there regularly to see what kind of ecological change happens] are:

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Radio National’s Background Briefing program ‘Fighting Fire with Fire’ [broadcast on February 19 and available for podcast here] was a very fair effort to canvass all points of view on fuel management issues. The fact that it seems to have been treated with respect by people with markedly different views is an indicator of the efforts made by the programmers to give all relevant people a say.

Dense head high regrowth less than two years after a severe 'reduction burn', Castlemaine Diggings NHP, January 2012. Management burns are complex exercises: FOBIF believes DSE is often underequipped for the task, especially since there is little evidence that monitoring is being used to improve practice.

The following comment on fuel reduction burns, by Victoria’s Deputy Premier Peter Ryan, is worth quoting:

‘In the public eye there’s a notion of a match being dropped and everybody walks away. It could not be further from the fact. These are very very carefully planned and carefully conducted and they are modified to accord with whatever might be the topography, what is the biodiversity, do we need a cool burn which can be just lit and allowed to creep through, do we need something stronger? You have to adjust all these things…all these things are taken into account by the experts we have engaged to undertake this task.’

On potential damage to the environment by the present system of burning, he added:

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In December we criticised DSE’s management of the Quartz Hill management burn [see ‘The uses of fire‘] on the grounds that the exercise failed to do anything about the prolific weeds in the area. FOBIF has now written to local Parks Victoria rangers urging that fuel reduction exercises in our region concentrate on areas close to settlement, and that they be integrated with a weed eradication strategy.

In our opinion such programs are not only ecologically sounder than broad area burning of remoter forests but also have better safety outcomes: and this view seems to have been confirmed by documentation widely aired in January [see our posts here and here].

In particular, however, we believe that a detailed plan needs to be devised and carefully implemented for the management of the section of Kalimna Park west of the tourist road and running up to housing on the town edge.

African boneseed collected by Friends of Kalimna Park: FOBIF believes that fuel reduction programs should be concentrated close to settlement, and be combined with weed clearance.

A section of this area has been marked for burning by DSE for weed clearance, but we believe that a much more comprehensive approach needs to be devised for the whole of this important area. It is heavily infested with flammable [gorse, pines] or potentially flammable weeds, but sections of it are botanically very rich: it can’t be simply ‘swept clean’ in a simple operation, but needs detailed understanding and a careful implementation strategy involving a range of fuel reduction techniques.

Obviously such an approach would be more labour intensive than, for example, the proposed burning of Tarilta Gorge. In our opinion, however, it would be far more useful from the point of view of public safety.

Moreover, an effort by Parks Victoria to come to grips with the detailed management of Kalimna and other areas close to townships offers opportunities to engage Park neighbours and Friends groups in actively attacking the problem of weeds as well as getting a better understanding of fire safety issues.

Parks Victoria has been developing a weeds strategy for this region for some time. We’ve made enquiries as to what stage this is up to, and whether it considers the fire dimensions of environmental weeds. Watch this space