AUSTRALIA - A History of Fire & How it can Help in Future

BY: DIGITAL MEDIA MARKETING | MB Enterprises

Australia is the smallest of the seven continents and the seventh largest countries on earth. The Capital city is Canberra and the biggest cities are Sydney and Melbourne that are the economic and cultural centers and one of the most developed cities in the world. The country is full of landscapes, forests, and deserts making Australia one of the most wanted tourism and cultural spots in the world. It has been called as the oldest continents, “The last of Lands” and “The Last Frontier.”

However, the country has faced immense challenges due to dangers and hazards caused by bush fire and wildfires in their forests. Australia comes 6th on the list of forest area covered with 16% of their land covered in forests. The country has a history of bush fires with many people dying annually, wildlife getting killed and many other hazards that have been a source of challenge for the Government of Australia.

According to the forest researchers of Australia, the bushfires have shaped our continent since many years and the threats are more immediate and impactful. It is known as the ‘Fire-continent’ of the Globe and that’s the most concerning things i.e. the future of fire as the continent steps into the hotter times. The intensity of heat in the forests in summer is so high that it causes fire, however, the answers can be local, ecological and historical.

The conditions in Australia and the landscape is the right one for fire. With time since the last century the flora and fauna has adapted. According to the botanists and regional researchers from Forests in Australia the continent has possessed the right conditions for fire. It is wet enough for things to grow and dry enough for them to burn. With time since ages, the animals have adapted and so did the plants, however, the threats have increased more or less. An Aussie environmentalist from a University believed that all this is embedded in the Australian biota, and in its genome.

The early Australians i.e. the indigenous Australians just celebrated their land, the fire, hunted, cooked and used it to good effect to manage the massive land. The originals from Australia, as they are known as ‘The Aborigines’ i.e. ‘The Native Australians’, made it more of a fire continent than it was before. They were the ones who knew the best use of the fire stick and consumption of what they called ‘The Magic of Fire’ in the medieval ages.

Their land management practices included “cultural burning” i.e. coming from the primitive times. ‘Cultural Burning’ helps in preventing the fire risks and protecting native habitats.

The next age settlers’ i.e. European settlers and newcomers saw the cultivated landscape, a land that has been nurtured irrespective of the hazards. Seemed like a piece of magic or a miracle especially to the colonists who thought that it had been prepared for them and their stocks. A landscape that was transformed through years of constant understandings of combatting instruments from the wildfire.

A set of carefully managed fire practices used by the old age Australians i.e. Indigenous Australians were altered in one of the most drastic ways.

The arrival of Europeans in around 1788 saw some great disasters as they removed the managers from the landscapes, letting the land go wild. European settlers saw a new era of wildfires, as well as more intense fires and more frequent fires.

Australian ecologists also believed that in some ecologies in Australia things have differed because of geographical reasons. An example includes the mountain ash forest of south east Australia.

The Indigenous Australians would have burnt around the edges of them and kept the pathways from those forests very open and clear for people’s convenience. They knew how to save lives, however, they didn’t preferred to live in the hearts of those forests and avoided them in summers for better reasons.

A hazard reduction burns is also known as fuel reduction burn. It is a fire that is deliberately started in order to reduce the severity of future wildfires and bushfires. It is one of the implications or remedies and is a modern phenomenon.

Burnings has been identified through extensive research as one of the many methods of hazard reduction. It is a method along with the mechanical removal of the fuel, and the method has turned out to be less risky rather more expensive in terms of cost effectiveness.

A hazard reduction burn is highly preventive as it reduces the intensity of the fire and allows the firefighters to control it. It also does less damages to the wildlife along with the associated regional assets.

According to research the fuel reduction becomes less effective and this takes place as the weather conditions get hotter, drier and windier.