Australia Bushfires

Haven't seen this discussed in the forum. I get tired of the push to use these fires as an illustration of "climate change" caused by humans. I was a forestry major at Texas A&M for a couple of years before deciding that as much as I love the outdoors, jobs were fleeting as logging became more restrictive. I had a class that worked with the US Forest Svc. to do a controlled burn near The Woodlands, TX.

Like other organisms, trees don't live in a healthy state forever. We don't allow the forests to burn and there's more forested land in the US now than when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. I think it's a mistake not allowing the forests to burn naturally, or as the native Americans would start fires to manage the land when nature didn't accommodate. Forests should be a patchwork of different ages/stages of growth, which protect the whole and create diversity in the ecosystem. Us modern folk have taken a stance that fires are bad, and that smoke and evil CO2 are poison, which leads to the flora becoming old and unhealthy, and ultimately leads to huge firestorms.

I ran across this article and it struck a chord with me. I think we could also learn to better manage our natural resources from the example.

Australia fires: Indigenous people have a solution for the country's bushfires. And it's been around for tens and thousands of years

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The fires in Australia have been burning for months, consuming nearly 18 million acres of land, causing thousands to evacuate and killing potentially millions of animals.

They're showing minimal signs of slowing down. The Australian state of New South Wales, where both Sydney and Canberra are located, declared a state of emergency this week, as worsening weather conditions could lead to even greater fire danger.

But a 50,000-year-old solution could exist: Aboriginal burning practices.

Here's how it works.

Aboriginal people had a deep knowledge of the land, said historian Bill Gammage, an emeritus professor at Australian National University who studies Australian and Aboriginal history. They can feel the grass and know if it would burn well; they knew what types of fires to burn for what types of land, how long to burn, and how frequently.

"Skills like that, they have but we don't know," Gammage said.

Aboriginal techniques are based in part on fire prevention: ridding the land of fuel, like debris, scrub, undergrowth and certain grasses. The fuel alights easily, which allows for more intense flames that are harder to fight.
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The Aboriginal people would set small-scale fires that weren't too intense and clear the land of the extra debris. The smaller intensity fires would lessen the impact on the insects and animals occupying the land, too, as well as protect the trees and the canopy.

And though current fire fighters on the ground still use some fuel control and hazard reduction techniques, Gammage said it's not enough.

"Some of it is being done, but not skillfully enough," he said. "We don't really take into account plants and animals that might be endangered by fire. And secondly, we don't really know what's the best time of year, how much burn, how to break up a fire front."

It's not like they know nothing, Gammage said, especially the firefighters on the ground. But he said it's not enough to make Australia safe.

Why Aboriginal techniques are so difficult to implement

Setting smaller, low-intensity fires to prevent larger bushfires may sound like common sense. In practice, though, it's really hard.

It comes down to knowledge, Gammage said. When do you a start a fire? What time of the year? What time of day? How long you want it to burn? What plants are there? What's the weather like ? is there a drought like now?

"You have to have a lot of local skill," Gammage said.

He cited an example. In Australia, fires that are too hot actually allows the flammable undergrowth to germinate more. When early Europeans tried to copy Aboriginal techniques by lighting fires, they made the fires too hot, and got even more of the flammable scrub. So, they tried again. And again.

"Even though people can see the Aboriginese doing the fire control, and could see the benefits, they couldn't copy it," he said.

Now, the juxtaposition is clear.

"Where the Aboriginal people are in charge, they're not having big fires," Gammage said. "In the south, where white people are in charge, we are having the problems."

As climate change worsens, so will the fires

The bushfires in Australia are never going to go away but will get worse. That's according to Justin Leonard, a researcher dedicated to understanding bushfires and land management. Bushfires are ignited both naturally and by humans, but Leonard called them "inevitable."

Climate change only worsens the conditions for fires, he said. Droughts and hotter weather only make for more intense fires and longer fire seasons ? changes that are already being observed, he said.

Under worsening conditions, fires are harder to put out: They grow too big to get to safely, and even aerial suppression isn't necessarily possible because of the wind.
So, what does that mean for indigenous fire techniques?

They'll still help, Leonard said. Areas that have undergone preventative burning lead to less intense fires. But the problem is, under the worst of conditions, the fire will still be able to burn straight through the land, despite any preventative measures.

Which means that towns are still in danger.

"We need to solve that inevitability by effective township design," Leonard said.

In other words, indigenous burning techniques aren't enough on their own. Communities will need to properly manicure adjacent forests, landscape their own private property, and have effective house design and maintenance, Leonard said.

Aboriginal techniques require more money. The cost might be worth it

The most common way fires are handled now is with medium-intensity fires, Leonard said. It's similar to these smaller, more frequent fires, except it burns a little hotter, covers more land and is just a little more intense.

Basically, it's more bang for your buck. And that's what this comes down to.

You have to "use limited budget on what will be the most prolific way" to prevent fires, Leonard said.

It takes a lot of labor to ignite small frequent fires everywhere ? even just using these tactics near towns can be labor intensive, Leonard said.

Gammage noted that cost is a common concern when it comes to transitioning completely to Aboriginal fire practices. But he said he's not impressed by that argument.

"It's costing much more (to fight these fires)," he said. "Fires that destroy 2.5 million acres, which is what's happening now, it's shameful. It's a disgrace that anyone could let such terrible fires run amok."

What Australians should really learn from the Aboriginal people is custodianship over the land, Leonard said. The way Aboriginal people deeply know and care for the land is something Australians should ponder and embrace.

Gammage pointed to an incident on Tuesday, when a local fire brigade managed to steer a bushfire around their community, despite being told their town was "undefendable," according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The brigade, using their knowledge of the land, stayed behind while others evacuated. And rather than burn right through their town, the brigade was able to save houses and prevent deaths.

It just shows the importance of knowing local fire conditions, Gammage said. Knowing the land -- just as the Aboriginal people do.

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That is exactly how fires in the North are handled. They start by themselves from lightning, and they burn themselves out without interference from people. That method is not some secret. I'm under the impression that the South is different and is a different situation, especially since the North is also burning right now, but no one cares because it does so every year.

The amount of ancient knowledge that's been lost to modern techniques and modern ways of doing things is evident in many areas. I didn't know this about the Aborigines but it doesn't surprise me.

Related to the fire story, the loss of animal life to the fires really breaks my heart. It's just horrible.

Australia doesn't allow the export of it's animals, so there are no stable populations else where in the world, apparently. This is what they're talking about when they say that some of these species are functionally extinct. You'd think there would be some in zoos, but I don't know.

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Originally Posted by Irving

Australia doesn't allow the export of it's animals, so there are no stable populations else where in the world, apparently. This is what they're talking about when they say that some of these species are functionally extinct. You'd think there would be some in zoos, but I don't know.

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I think the San Diego zoo has some, but not having some in a wildlife reserve might make it really difficult to keep any from extinction.

Sad situation.

It makes sense that the people in an area would have learned over time how to be the stewards of nature around them for their mutual benefit. I have to wonder if many of our indigenous people have passed along their tribal knowledge in respect to managing the lands that were their homes? Many of them were removed from their native lands and moved to reservations far away from the areas they knew.

Good article, thank you.

Here is another article on how to manage these fires "]

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Originally Posted by The Spectator

Fight fire with fire: controlled burning could have protected Australia

A kind of ecological fundamentalism has taken the place of common sense

Tim Blair
https://3h7pwd17k2h42n17eg2j7vdq-wpe...1187516526.jpg
Sydney
By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To clear land for his farmhouse in north-eastern Victoria ? and for his milking sheds, pig pens, chicken sheds, blacksmith shop and other outbuildings ? he cleared hundreds of trees. And he cleared thousands more for his wheat fields, cattle paddocks and shearing sheds.

Old man Hobbs would probably be found guilty of cultural appropriation, too, because he adopted the Aboriginal method of land-clearing. He burned all of those trees. He also established fire-delaying dirt paths through surrounding bushland.

This was once standard practice throughout rural Australia, where the pre-settlement indigenous population had long conducted controlled burns of overgrown flora ? known as ?fuel? in current fire-management talk. They knew an absence of controlled burns would invite uncontrolled burns ? such as the gigantic wildfires that have ravaged much of this drought-hit nation since September.

As those fires roared through Australia?s eastern coast, killing residents and volunteer firefighters and destroying hundreds of houses, a not-unrelated court report appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. It told the story of 71-year-old John David Chia, who in 2014 paid contractors to cut down and remove 74 trees on and around his property.

The judge in this case noted that Chia?s primary motivation for the tree removal was ?his concern about the risk of fire at his property?, but found also the Sydney pensioner?s actions had caused ?substantial harm? to the environment. Chia ended up copping a $40,000 ($27,000 US) fine ? more than $500 ($340 US) for each tree.

Similar legal rulings have become frequent in Australia, as a kind of ecological religious fundamentalism has taken the place of common sense. In 2004, Liam Sheahan was charged $100,000 ($68,000 US) in fines and legal expenses after clearing land around his hilltop property in Reedy Creek, Victoria. Five years later, that property was the only structure left standing in the area following the state?s deadly Black Saturday fires.

In 2001, electricity transmitter TransGrid sensibly bulldozed a 65-yard clearing beneath high-voltage power lines in the Snowy Mountains. The company took the view that high voltages and close-proximity combustible material is not the best combination, but duly lost $500,000 ($343,000 US) in fines and settlements paid to the New South Wales state government, which described the actions as ?environmental vandalism?. Two years later, the journalist Miranda Devine reported that the TransGrid clearing became sanctuary for kangaroos, wallabies and three TransGrid staffers who were desperately attempting to create a wider firebreak against that year?s bushfires.

?We?ve been burning less than 1 percent of our bushfire-prone land for the past 20 years,? Brian Williams, captain of Kurrajong Heights fire brigade, told radio station 2GB recently during a brief break in his ninth week of battling a monster blaze north of Sydney. ?That means every year the fuel load continues to build.?

Even minor attempts to reduce that fuel load are punished. Let?s suppose, for example, you have a wood fireplace at your rural house. Doing the right thing by the law and the environment, you do not cut down any trees to use as firewood. Instead, you simply collect dead branches and fallen trees lying around in the bushland dirt. This also reduces the amount of fuel available for potential bushfires, so you?re on the side of the angels.

But wait! Heed the warning from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Central West area manager Fiona Buchanan, in April last year: ?We are getting the message out there that removing firewood, including deadwood and fallen trees, is not permitted in national parks. We want people to know the rules around firewood collection?it?s important people are aware that on-the-spot fines apply but also very large fines can be handed out by the courts.?

She wasn?t bluffing. A man had earlier been fined $30,000 ($20,000 US) for illegally collecting firewood in the Murrumbidgee Valley National Park. Why? Because, as Buchanan explained: ?Many ground-dwelling animals and threatened species use tree hollows for nesting, so when fallen trees and deadwood is taken illegally, it destroys their habitat. This fallen timber is part of these animals? natural ecosystem.?

Those natural ecosystems are now, across thousands of hectares of national parks in New South Wales, nothing but cinders and ash. Enjoy your protected habitat, little ground-dwellers.

Those woodland creatures would have been better off under the stewardship of my grandfather, whose Aboriginal-style controlled burns were not limited to his own property and its immediate surroundings. Every year he would burn the long grass growing alongside local roads to make those roads more effective as firebreaks.

He never sought permission from the local fire brigade captain to light these fires, because my grandfather happened to be the local fire brigade captain. His decisions were law, and his law was driven by an obsession to protect his family, farm animals and property from the ever-present risk of fire.

Some were not as vigilant. My mother, now in her eighties, recalls an occasion when her father loaded the entire family into the car and drove for 40 minutes or so to a nearby small town. The children assumed this was their destination, but their father kept on driving. He didn?t speak much during that trip, until eventually he slowed as the vehicle approached a newly incinerated farm. Sheep and cattle lay burned and dead in the fields. The farmhouse was a charred ruin.

?This,? my grandfather said, ?is what happens if you don?t prepare for fire.?

He stayed there for a good long while, sufficient for the children to absorb his message. One of those children later took over as the local fire captain and continued his father?s careful preventive burning. Close to 100 years after he built it, my grandfather?s farmhouse is still standing.

Fire has never touched it.

This article was originally published in The Spectator?s UK magazine. Subscribe to the US edition here.

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The Australians do have some of those native species in natural preserves or sanctuaries but I think some of those preserves and sanctuaries are threatened by the current spate of fires. While the points about ancient land management practices are good ones -- and ones we've seen stated here in the US in past years -- realize as well that there are significant differences in the environments and climates between New South Wales and the Northern Territories.

I would liken the NT to be somewhat like the southern US with areas ranging from rainforest (ala FL or LA) to dry desert (ala NM or AZ) while NSW is much more like Colorado or California. The area I saw around Darwin has dense forests but is lush and moist, much more difficult for fires to rage to the extent we're seeing in California or they're seeing in NSW now. The areas around Canberra (in NSW) that I saw also have dense forests but they seemed to me to be drier, even when they're green. When the summer hits and they get parched, it's much more like things were in COS with the Black Forest fire or the Waldo Canyon fire.

Very imperfect analogies because Australia really is its own continent and there are vast differences between the different regions but it's not some homogeneous conglomerate.

So a bunch of people with zero knowledge of Australia or what they're dealing with aren't able to solve the problem from a far by reading an article or two? Weird. Heh.

Both articles were addressing that the locals with history in those areas probably know better how to address the issue.

California doesn't allow clearing around the power lines. When the situation gets dire, the only solution is for the electricity to get shut off. That still doesn't address that the fuel is still there waiting for lightning, an arsonist, or an idiot to create a bigger and hotter fire than a managed solution. It will burn, one way or another.

Australian Aborigines have an average IQ of 64. I doubt they were as advanced in land management as the above articles assert. More likely, just as in the US, frequent fires started by lightening were allowed to burn out - keeping the forests free from excessive amounts of fuel.

Then there's the fact that 2019 is the driest year on record for Australia.

Then factor in the number of arsonists, 24 arsonists charged since November, and 160 more charged for being stupid

Just as in California, the "environmentalists" are to blame for the severity of these fires.

Do the Aboriginies have three little bumps on their skulls too?

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Originally Posted by davsel

Australian Aborigines have an average IQ of 64. I doubt they were as advanced in land management as the above articles assert. More likely, just as in the US, frequent fires started by lightening were allowed to burn out - keeping the forests free from excessive amounts of fuel.

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I'll agree that enviroNazis and their Bambi-like policies bear a huge amount of the blame for the severity of these fires -- that's sort of the point of the articles cited by @Gman and @Jayhawk -- and that the arsonists and the dry conditions of 2019 play a huge role in these fires BUT ... that article you cited is one of the dumbest pieces of trash I've read since Michelle Obama's thesis (or what was claimed to be her thesis anyway). I obviously have only met an incredibly microscopic fraction of Australian aboriginals but for the mean or median IQ to be 64, it would mean there'd have to hundreds of thousands of aboriginals with sub-50 IQs to make up for the aboriginals I've met or seen who clearly had IQs near or exceeding 100.

The article you cited claims that lost knowledge about how to build long-distance sea-going canoes is evidence of this moronic-level of intelligence. So I guess loss of knowledge about how to forge genuine Damascus blades means the Arabs are morons too. The fact that Hawaiians hadn't built canoes capable of going to Tahiti for over 200 years meant they are morons too? How many "lost arts" have there been in Europe and the US?

I've been to Australia exactly 3 times but all 3 times, what I saw was that the Australian aboriginals are very analogous American Indians. Both sets of people did in fact have deep knowledge of their environment, including land management practices (although they probably didn't have a formalized term for it like that). There is a big difference between cultural knowledge and formalized academic practices (and I tend to think the latter preserves as much bovine fecal matter as anything else). Australian petroglyphs aren't Newton's "Principia" but they also aren't "50 Shades of Gray" or Marx's "Communist Manifesto"; they're more like a long-term Farmer's Almanac. As much as I hate the SJW war on the West/Christianity/Democratic capitalism, there is a kernel of truth in the fact that the social travails of both the American Indians and Australian aboriginals (and for that matter native Hawaiians) have deep roots in colonial practices.

That article reads like crap made up specifically to make conservatives look stupid or racist by citing it.

I've known people with IQs at the genius level that had difficulty dressing themselves in the morning. IQs and common sense, or being able to observe and understand how the environment functions where you and your people have lived for millennia, are very different things.

https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=62907
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intell...s_and_Unknowns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainst...n_Intelligence

It is what it is.

I am well aware of the difference between IQ and actual practical intelligence or common sense. However, the article in question is based on a study that flies in the face of basic knowledge of statistics. Nice job with the Google-fu and Wiki-fu to try to cover a crappy citation.

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Originally Posted by Irving

So a bunch of people with zero knowledge of Australia or what they're dealing with aren't able to solve the problem from a far by reading an article or two? Weird. Heh.

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I was unaware that the purpose of this forum was to solve real world problems.

TIL.

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Originally Posted by Justin

I was unaware that the purpose of this forum was to solve real world problems.

TIL.

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But you were fully aware that when people spout complete nonsense as some simple overlooked fact, it's going to get called out.

It's about time to watch Quigley Down Under.....

Summer in Australia falls between the months of December and February...

-John

Australian bushfires reveal ancient aquatic system older than the pyramid

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Extensive water channels built by indigenous Australians thousands of years ago to trap and harvest eels for food have been revealed after wildfires burned away thick vegetation in the state of Victoria.

The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, consisting of channels, weirs and dams built from volcanic rocks, is one of the world's most extensive and oldest aquaculture systems, according to UNESCO. Constructed by the Gunditjmara people more than 6,600 years ago, it is older than Egypt's pyramids.

While the aquatic system was known to archaeologists -- it was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List last July -- additional sections were revealed by the fires that have ripped through the state in December.

Gunditjmara representative Denis Rose, project manager at non-profit group Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, told CNN that the system was significantly bigger than what was previously recorded.

"When we returned to the area, we found a channel hidden in the grass and other vegetation. It was about 25 meters (82 feet) in length, which was a fairly substantial size," Rose said.

He said other new structures resembling channels and ponds were now visible in the burnt landscape. "It was a surprise continually finding new ones that the fires revealed," he added.

According to the Aboriginal Corporation's website, the aquaculture system -- which is part of the Budj Bim National Park -- it was built by the indigenous population using the abundant volcanic rocks from a now-dormant volcano in the area.

UNESCO said Gunditjmara people used the system to redirect and modify waterways to maximize aquaculture yield.

"The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural traditions, knowledge, practices and ingenuity of the Gunditjmara," it said.

The fire near the national park was caused by a lightning strike in late December, which eventually spread to some 790 hectares (3 square miles) in size, said Mark Mellington, district manager for Forest Fire Management Victoria.

In order to protect the world heritage, firefighters worked with local groups to identify culturally important sites, and used "low impact techniques" to replace heavy machinery when putting out the fires, he said.

"These actions prevented the fire spreading beyond containment lines even on an extreme fire day and protected the cultural sites from damage," he added.

The Gunditjmara was one of several groups of indigenous people that used to reside in the southern parts of the present-day Victoria state before the European settlement, according to the Victorian government. Its population was believed to be in the thousands before the 1800s, but dwindled significantly after the Europeans arrived.

Rose said that he was relieved that the fires did not cause too much damage to the region compared to other parts of Australia, and hoped it would provide a good opportunity to further explore the ancient aquaculture system.

"Over the next few weeks, we are hoping to conduct a comprehensive cultural heritage survey to check areas that were not previously recorded," he said. "It's important because it provided a rich, sustainable life for the traditional people, and has continued to be an important part of our cultural life."

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Pretty impressive work from "low IQ" aboriginals of 6000 years ago who didn't/don't know how to manage their land and resources.

I'm not really surprised, as humans are gifted with innate curiosity and the ability to make discoveries based on trial & error. Sustenance and survival provide significant motivation. ;-)

Nor am I. I guess I should've made clear my sarcasm.

I don't in any way think those people are "low IQ". Maybe measured against western standards or metrics. But you don't survive and accomplish things like that and many other fascinating things, over 10,000 years or more, by not being genuinely in tune with your environment.

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Originally Posted by Bailey Guns

Pretty impressive work from "low IQ" aboriginals of 6000 years ago who didn't/don't know how to manage their land and resources.

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No worries. Im fluent in sarcasm. I knew your point.

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Originally Posted by Bailey Guns

Nor am I. I guess I should've made clear my sarcasm.

I don't in any way think those people are "low IQ". Maybe measured against western standards or metrics. But you don't survive and accomplish things like that and many other fascinating things, over 10,000 years or more, by not being genuinely in tune with your environment.

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I'm glad your clarified. I thought for sure you were sitting at your desk muttering, "freaking ditch diggers," to yourself. ;)

Yup, required the same intellect God gave beavers.

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Originally Posted by ChickNorris

No worries. Im fluent in sarcasm. I knew your point.

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^This

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Originally Posted by davsel

Yup, required the same intellect God gave beavers.

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Which is apparently higher than He gave a lot of contemporary people ... including some on this board.

Hey now, there's some say that beavers on average has higher IQ / is smartyer than the average man.

All I know's is they gotta take a long way to get to the point. So if there's a whole lot of unnecessary canals and then FINALLY you get to the pond, it must be beavers.

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Originally Posted by ChickNorris

No worries. Im fluent in sarcasm. I knew your point.

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Soooo... you're bi-lingual?

I can't speak for CN, but sarcasm is my native language. How can you tell if I'm being sarcastic? My lips are moving. ;-)

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Originally Posted by Duman

Soooo... you're bi-lingual?

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Curiosamente, hablo espanol bastante bien. Desfortunadamente, el sarcasmo no se traduce tan facilmente en los otros idiomas

So....tri-lingual? ;-)

C-130 went down fighting the fire. 3 Americans killed in the crash.
Three U.S. Firefighters Die in Water-Bomber Crash in Australia

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(Bloomberg) -- Three U.S. firefighters have died after their water-bombing plane crashed while battling a blaze near the Kosciuszko National Park, as Australia’s wildfire crisis flares again.

The trio were working for Coulson Aviation, which bills itself as the global leader in aerial firefighting, and was contracted by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service to help fight the blazes.

“A large air tanker crashed in the Snowy Monaro region,” New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. “Our thoughts and prayers and heartfelt condolences go to their families.”

Wreckage of the C-130 tanker was found near Cooma, a rural town about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the national capital Canberra, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, citing emergency services. A search started after the plane lost contact about 1:30 p.m. local time.

There’s no indication yet of what caused the accident, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said at the media conference. The plane exploded in a large fireball when it hit the ground, he said.

The fatalities take the death toll from the fires to at least 31.

The unprecedented wildfires have destroyed or damaged more than 3,000 houses, incinerated an area almost the size of England and killed an estimated 1 billion animals.

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I just heard about the C-130 crash from a couple distant cousins I just met who live in Australia. Immediately thought about @Hoser but the saddest thing coming out of these wildfires (to me) are the numbers of firefighter deaths. The effects on wildlife are tragic as they are caught up in something they couldn't foresee or control but the firefighters volunteered to go into these messes and presumably can attack them aforethought but are still caught up in situations going well outside the norm.

I heard yesterday that the bodies of the 3 killed in the crash were recovered.