Giant eucalypts like this swamp gum (Eucalyptus regnans) tower over an understory of rainforest plants, and are dependent on fire for their survival.
Flickr/freelancing god
Forest activist Miranda Gibson’s 15-month stay up a giant eucalypt has been interrupted by bushfire. Meanwhile Tasmania’s forestry peace deal, now being considered in the state’s upper house, has drawn…
An early season burn in Arnhem Land. Low intensity fires decrease greenhouse emissions and increase carbon stored in trees. Brett Murphy.
Fire and biodiversity have a complex relationship in northern Australia. Tim Flannery and others blame the current northern biodiversity crisis, at least in part, on changed fire regimes. Improving fire…
Victoria’s alpine forest is burning more often, changing the landscape and reducing its ability to store carbon.
AAP Image/Australian Workers Union
In the high country of Victoria, firefighters are presently battling a large bushfire that is moving through the forests south of Harrietville and past the second highest mountain in Victoria, Mt. Feathertop…
It will take social change to prevent people deliberately lighting bushfires.
AAP Image/NSW Rural Fire Service, Barry Ballard
At this time of year, each year – the bushfire season – the complex nature of human behaviour hits home. Bushfires are a terrible event. The environmental destruction, the loss of property and sometimes…
An early dry season fire in Kakadu National Park – are these fires burning up our mammals?
Clay Trauernicht
Conservationists should take heart that Australia is finally waking up to the biodiversity crisis in Australia’s north. It is an urgent problem: right now, a diverse assortment of our small mammals – bandicoots…
Researchers and firefighters have long speculated that fire tornadoes might exist. Now we know they do.
Dig/AAP
We’ve all seen footage of out-of-control bushfires sweeping the Australian landscape, burning out hectares of native forest in their wake. But you might not have heard of a fire tornado, let alone seen…
Could charcoal be our climate saviour?
Oli R/Flickr
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is co-ordinating a new venture to tackle short-lived global warming agents such as black carbon.
Should we be paying more attention to black carbon?
Yes…
Humanity’s control of fire has led to a vastly changed atmosphere.
Jason A Samfield
The evidence for a rapid shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere-ocean system over the last two centuries (see figure 1) requires a deep time perspective, beyond events of the day. Tracing the original…
If speaking up helps avoid devastating bushfires, scientists should take the risk.
AAP
Scientists are increasingly expected to engage with the media to communicate their findings. My research leads me to believe Hobart is at risk from a severe bushfire disaster – but what are my responsibilities…
We know Aboriginal fires affected Australian vegetation, but now we have evidence they altered the monsoon too.
ciamabue/Flickr
For thousands of years, Aboriginal Australians burned forests to promote grasslands for hunting and other purposes. Recent research suggests that these burning practices also affected the timing and intensity…
Indigenous Australians systematically burnt grasslands to reduce fuel and stop fires raging out of control.
Flickr/pietroizzo
Aboriginal people worked hard to make plants and animals abundant, convenient and predictable.
By distributing plants and associating them in mosaics, then using these to lure and locate animals, Aborigines…
When it comes to weather, scientists and the media have different understandings of risk.
Ameel Khan
The “reasonable person” would agree that disaster risk is best avoided. Under a changing climate, how exposed people are to risk and how socially and physically vulnerable they are affects how often disasters…
We all want to know how bad the next fire season will be, but working it out isn’t easy.
AFP/Torsten Blackwood
Bushfires are part of the Australian landscape and the psyche of its human inhabitants. This is particularly true as months of hot, dry weather approach.
Recent warnings have predicted a dire summer ahead…
Research done in South Africa can guide Australian conservation managers on where to focus effort.
Brian van Wilgen
It’s true: many species will go extinct due to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change.
We will have to make some hard decisions about where to invest conservation dollars for the best effect…
Fire has played a key role in human evolution, and will continue to do so.
john curley
We have been fascinated and repelled by fire for millennia. It’s the defining feature of humanity and it has powered all cultures.
But our relationship with this fundamental element, whether wild or contained…
Cosy, sure, unless your house is on fire.
sediger/Flickr
The issue of firewood management has recently attracted renewed attention in Victoria, where the State Government has changed the regulations on collecting firewood from State Forests. Firewood is cheap…
Bushfires are a greater risk in areas of human habitation than in alpine regions.
AAP
Last summer, the Victorian government allowed cattle to graze in the Alpine National Park. They claimed it was part of a scientific trial to assess grazing as a tool to reduce fire risk. Now it seems there…
Can prescribed burning stop carbon stores going up in smoke?
AAP
Bushfires are, together with cyclones and flooding, among the most important natural hazards affecting Australian communities. They also make a significant contribution to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions…
Publicly funded scientists have a responsibility to the public.
AAP
Australian science institutions and scientists must retain the confidence of the public and Australian governments. By blurring facts, disrespecting other institutions' research processes and turning their…
Cattle grazing in Alpine National Park is not supported by science.
foxypar4 on flickr
In January, 400 cattle were released into Victoria’s Alpine National Park as part of a research trial to investigate the influence of strategic grazing as a tool to reduce fuel loads and bush fire risk…
