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How are Wattleridge Aboriginal rangers using fire?

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The Wattleridge Aboriginal rangers in northern New South Wales are using cultural burning to look after their country while regaining lost cultural knowledge.

For thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have successfully used fire to control their country. So, a project reintroducing fire as an environmental management tool has been eagerly adopted by some Aboriginal rangers looking to regain lost cultural knowledge.

In the Wattleridge Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), 30km north of Armidale in northern New South Wales, a group of Aboriginal rangers are part of the Firesticks project, which is re-establishing the use of cultural burning to control weeds and feral animals. Banbai woman Tanya Elone is the manager of the Wattleridge rangers and says that they have been eager to get involved with Firesticks.

"Using fire as a land management tool has been part of our culture for thousands of years," Tanya said.

"Sadly, however there are no elders left to teach us about fire so we are relearning this knowledge."

The Wattleridge IPA, which employs fifteen local Aboriginal people as rangers, became involved with Firesticks in 2009. They have been working with two PhD students, looking at the effects of using fire on the area.

The rangers monitor animals, setting up traps to see what native and feral animals are around before and after the fire, and determining what benefits the controlled burnings are bringing to the local environment.

It hasn't all been plain sailing though.

"In 2010 we did a 'wrong way' burn, where the fire was too intense," Tanya said.

"As a result, after the fire there were a lot of weeds growing in the area, as well as bracken fern. Bracken fern is a native plant but is not supposed to grow in open paddocks.

"We should have done what's called a 'slow burn'. However, even the 'wrong way' burn had its unintended benefits, as the native black grevillea plant came back twice as strong after the fire."

In 2012 there was another controlled fire in the Kukra region (meaning "echidna" in the Banbai language). This time it was what is known as a 'right way burn', and the benefits have been clear to see.

"Native animals local to the area are echidnas and brush tailed rock wallabies, and we've seen a lot more of these around following the right way burn," Tanya said.

"We use fire as a management tool, preventing wildfires. We're next to a national park so it's important to do it right."

Find out more
The New South Wales Nature Conservation Council's Firesticks Project receives funding under the Biodiversity Fund to work with Aboriginal communities on the NSW north coast and tablelands using fire to maintain ecosystem health and improve habitat condition and connectivity. As well as protecting land and sea country, Indigenous Protected Areas provide employment, education and training opportunities for Indigenous people in remote areas.
Read the original article at www.indigenous.gov.au/news-and-media/stories/using-fire-keep-country-pristine-and-culture-strong

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Using Fire to Keep Country Pristine and Culture Strong - Cool Australia

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The Wattleridge Aboriginal rangers in northern New South Wales are using cultural burning to look after their country while regaining lost cultural knowledge. For thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have successfully used fire to control their country.

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What are the benefits of cool burns?

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How do Aboriginal people use fire
to care for country?

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Yes it provides warmth and can control the mosquitoes

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Aboriginal people used fire as a tool

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Is Aboriginal fire management  part of the solution to destructive bushfires?

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As destructive bushfires become more common there is increasing political discussion how we manage them sustainably. Inevitably these debates raise questions of the past ecological effects of Aboriginal fire usage.

There are two well-known narratives about Aboriginal fire use.

One, popularised by Tim Flannery, stresses the ecologically disruptive impact of Aboriginal fire use. This storyline argues that the megafauna extinctions that immediately followed human colonisation in the ice age resulted in a ramping up of fire activity. This then led to the spread of flammable vegetation which now fuels bushfires.

Another, promoted by Bill Gammage, suggests that the biodiverse landscapes that were colonised by the British were the direct product of skilful and sustained fire usage.

Such broad-brush accounts give the impression that the specific details of Aboriginal fire usage are well-known and can be generalised across the entire continent. Sadly this is not the case.

So rapid was the socio-ecological disruption of southern Australia that researchers have had to rely on historical sources, such as colonial texts and images, and tree rings, pollen and charcoal in lake sediments, to piece together how Aboriginal people burned the land.

Such records are open to interpretation and there remains vigorous debate about the degree to which Aboriginal people shaped landscapes.

Piecing together the past

There are only a handful of detailed observational studies of the ecology of Aboriginal fire usage, and all from northern Australia, so there is dispute whether their findings can be extrapolated in the south. These studies demonstrate skilful use of fire that created fine-grained burn patterns, designed to promote food resources.

For instance, a prime motive for burning savannas is attracting kangaroos to nutrient-rich grass that sprouts after the fire. In the desert, Aboriginal patch burning increases the habitat for sand goannas.

In sum, there is mounting evidence that sustained Aboriginal fire use shaped many Australian landscapes by sharpening vegetation boundaries, maintaining open vegetation, and creating habitat for game species.

Such skilled burning reduced the extent and intensity of fires, allowing fire-sensitive plant communities - such as those in the Tasmanian wilderness - to persist in flammable landscapes.

Aboriginal burn-offs

The disruption of Aboriginal fire management has, for example, resulted in loss of the native cypress pine ( Callitris intratropica) from savanna landscapes across northern Australia.

Restoring Aboriginal fire management to sustain wildlife and plants is sometimes a goal in conservation reserves. But this is challenging, because beyond some broad generalisations, the specific details of how Aboriginal people burned particular vegetation types are typically unknown.

Additionally, in many cases land clearing and introduction of non-native plants and animals have profoundly changed ecosystems, so it is not practical, or even desirable, to return to pre-settlement fire management.

Planned burning, to reduce fuel loads and decrease the severity and spread of wild fires, is a well-accepted fire management practice. A key justification for planned burning programs is that it emulates the burning practices undertaken by Aboriginal people.

However, there are key differences. Aboriginal people burn country by travelling on foot, meaning that they had much greater situational awareness of likely fire behaviour and impacts. Also, given they were present in the landscape 24/7, they could choose the timing and carefully influence the likely spread and ecological effects of fire.

By contrast, most planned burning programs have much less flexibility. They are typically constrained to the working week, specific seasons and weather conditions, and often rely on starting fires from the air to get sufficient landscape coverage in remote areas.

This style of fire management is a poor facsimile of Aboriginal fire. Fire agencies can only drop incendiaries under specific weather conditions in the middle of the day, when flying is safe. This results in bigger fires and consequently much coarser burn mosaics than was achieved by Aboriginal people burning their estates on foot.

In principle, well-trained field crews traversing the landscape can carefully use fire to create very localised fuel reduction, using specific weather windows (such as foggy conditions) and times of day (such as the evening) to maximise the likelihood that that fires remain under control and do not damage fire-sensitive habitats.

Rekindling an ancient craft

There is an opportunity to involve Aboriginal communities in fire management across Australia. This could sustain and rekindle an ancient tradition that was disrupted by European settlement.

Returning to, and managing, country has been shown to have measurable health benefits, an important consideration given the unacceptably poor state of Aboriginal health.

Climate change is compounding the bushfire problem. Even if we wanted to, returning to Aboriginal fire management in a rapidly warming world is no longer an option.

But adapting the principles of Aboriginal patch burning is an important potential strategy to improve fire management and biodiversity outcomes across Australia, be it restoring mosaics of small habitats in rural landscapes, or managing remote areas like the Western Tasmanian Wilderness, and large areas of outback Australia.

Well- trained people walking across country and burning it is a crucial approach in stemming destructive bushfires. There needs to be more investment this ancient and effective pyrotechnology.

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Aboriginal fire management - part of the solution to destructive bushfires

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As destructive bushfires become more common there is increasing political discussion how we manage them sustainably. Inevitably these debates raise questions of the past ecological effects of Aboriginal fire usage. There are two well-known narratives about Aboriginal fire use. One, popularised by Tim Flannery, stresses the ecologically disruptive impact of Aboriginal fire use.

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Fire was used to ....

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Traditional burning. Photo © Parks and Wildlife

Before Aboriginal people populated the Australian continent some 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, the major cause of fires would have been lightning. Aboriginal people learnt to harness the naturally recurring fire caused by lightning and other sources to their advantage, which resulted in skilful burning of landscapes for many different purposes.
Fire was used to:

make access easier through thick and prickly vegetation

maintain a pattern of vegetation to encourage new growth and attract game for hunting

encourage the development of useful food plants, for cooking, warmth, signalling and spiritual reasons.

Early European explorers and settlers commented on the Aboriginal people's familiarity with fire, and the presence of fire in the landscape continually throughout the year. Most of the fires were relatively low intensity and did not burn large areas.

This constant use of fire by Aboriginal people as they went about their daily lives most likely resulted in a fine grained mosaic of different vegetation and fuel ages across the landscape. As a result, large intense bushfires were uncommon.

Fire is a significant part of Aboriginal culture and the knowledge of its use has been retained by many Aboriginal families as their culture and values are shared between generations. Karla Wongi - Fire Talk is an interesting article that provides additional information.

The plants and animals themselves provide clues to the ubiquitous presence of fire.

Fossil records and charcoal deposits indicate that fire has been present for at least 30 million years in the Australian landscape in response to periods of aridity.
Dating fire from balga stems

Western Australian grass tree or balga (Xanthorrhoea preissii) occurs across the south-west of WA in forests, heaths and woodlands. Balga grow up to five metres high and are long lived - 200 year old specimens are common. A one metre tall balga can be 50 to 100 years old.

As the needle-like leaves die, they are laid down as a highly flammable thatch around the stem. Under the charcoal on the stems, the old leaf remnants lie in repetitive coloured rings. Light and dark brown rings represent annual growth. Studies suggest that black rings represent green needles that have been killed by fire and can provide a record of fire occurrence dating back several centuries. Scientific opinions differ as to the accuracy of this technique for reconstructing fire history (refer to reading list below).

Fire histories inferred from balga stems are consistent with other sources of evidence suggesting that burning by Aboriginal people in the south-west of WA was quite frequent. Understorey plants in the northern jarrah forests reach flowering age three to four years after fire, and most native animals recover to pre-fire levels within three or four years of a low intensity fire.
Further reading:

Abbott I and Burrows (2003) Fire in Ecosystems of South West Western Australia: Impacts and Management. Backhuys Publishers, Leyden, The Netherlands.

Miller BP, Walshe T, Enright NJ and Lamont BB (2007) Error in the inference of fire history from grasstrees. Austral Ecology, 32: 908-916.

Ward DJ (2009) Bushfire history from grasstrees at Eneabba, Western Australia. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 92: 261-268

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Before Aboriginal people populated the Australian continent some 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, the major cause of fires would have been lightning. Aboriginal people learnt to harness the naturally recurring fire caused by lightning and other sources to their advantage, which resulted in skilful burning of landscapes for many different purposes.

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They do it in the right time of year

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Because fire is a tool they do cool burning with it Fire can also be a healing tool

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What role may traditional Indigenous methods of fire management have in preventing bushfires, and could they be applied across Australia?

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Can traditional Indigenous methods of fire management help prevent catastrophic bushfires?

That's an argument being raised again, as the bushfire season gets underway.

But there those cautioning that while traditional methods may be useful in some areas, they can't be applied across Australia.

Santilla Chingaipe has more.
(Click on audio tab to listen to this item)
Joe Morrison is the chief executive of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance.

Mr Morrison has told NITV, Indigenous people could play a role in reducing the risk of bushfires.

"We know there's a disconnect between people actively managing fire right around the country and the ability to then suppress it later on. If you're not actively managing it or reducing fuel load then and taking a responsible approach to managing country then you end up with these huge events that are regularly occurring in the south."

Mr Morrison says in the Northern Territory, controlled fires are used to harvest the land and to avoid major bushfires.

And he says these methods could be be used in other parts of the country.

"We've had a situation right around the country for around 100 years where people were moved out of the landscape and fire was seen as a bad thing and I think we just need to return to the days of actively managing fire and seeing fire as a good thing."

That's an argument also supported by Professor Rebecca Bird from Stanford University in the United States.

She's been involved in a research project on the effects of fire in the Western Desert of Central Australia.

"Often it's very difficult for people to accept, especially the role that fire plays in the environment. When we're out on the Canning Stock Route with Aboriginal people, you go and you visit a well and tourists have recorded in the little visitors' booklet that the wells, how upset they are that the country is burnt, how ugly fire is and how horrible it is that things have completely devastated and in that same entry, like six months later, you scroll down and look at the comments that other people are leaving and they're talking about how beautiful the country is. Look at all the wildflowers, look at how gorgeous everything is. Well it's only that beautiful because people have been out there burning and the fire has happened. It's just a way of looking at the landscape that sees fire as something that's cleansing and that a burned area is something that's good and clean will eventually produce all of this gorgeous stuff that it just takes a complete switch of your mindset."

Professor Bird says in the Western Desert, Indigenous people have traditionally used fire as a hunting technique - burning patches of bush, to help them catch goannas as they escape the flames.

And she says her research has shown that paradoxically, this actually helps to maintain goanna and other species.

The professor says that's because patch burning doesn't leave large areas of unburnt bush that could all go up in smoke in one massive fire, destroying all the wildlife.

"People often have this perception that Aboriginal people are burning therefore they must be burning more than would naturally be the case. But in fact our research has shown that they actually burn less country than lighting does. If you leave country alone to be dominated by lightning fires, almost everything is burnt or everything is unburnt. It's either all burnt or very little is burnt. With people they are able to interfere in this and create greater patchiness which actually preserves a lot of the mature vegetation from being burnt and it's this mature vegetation that's really important for a lot of species and evidently it's very important for sand goannas. They seem to do better in the kind of environment where people are actively burning on the landscape as opposed to an environment where people are completely absent."

David Bowman is a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania.

Professor Bowman agrees Indigenous knowledge of fires can play a role in fire management.

But he says that doesn't mean traditional methods would solve the problem of bushfires.

"A lot of people have drawn a simplistic conclusion that all you've got to do is go back and basically get Aborigines and virtually grab them from northern Australia and get them to go and do fire management in southern Australia and hang on hang on, it's not that easy, because in southern Australia forests are much more flammable than the northern savannahs, they burn less frequently. When they do burn, then they can burn very intensively and even if you could reapply or rediscover Aboriginal fire management in southern Australia, there's an additional confounding factor, namely the fragmentation of the habitats."

Professor David Lindenmayer from the Australia National University, agrees.

"I think it sounds like a great idea in theory. But the reality is that these things are significantly more complex than that and there are a number of reasons for that and that is that almost every Indigenous group of people in the country, and there were well over 300, had different burning practices in different parts of the country at different times of the year. In fact there are even significant differences between the way Aboriginal men burnt the land relative to what Aboriginal women did when they burnt the land, because they were burning for different reasons to produce food or to stimulate populations of target animals that they wanted to hunt. And obviously now, 2013 is not what it was like 300 years ago, or 3,000 years ago or 30,000 years ago."

But Professor Lindenmayer says, Indigenous people can still play a role in managing modern bushfires.

"There's a huge amount to learn from the original inhabitants of this country who managed it in an ecologically sustainable way for 30, 40, 50, 60 thousand years, perhaps even longer. They have an enormous amount of knowledge about a huge range of things in very significant ways that we only have a limited understanding of and I think there is a lot to be learnt from people like that who have lived here for so long who have a lot of knowledge."

Professor David Bowman from the University of Tasmania says the challenge is to combine traditional methods with modern technology to find ways of preventing catastrophic bushfires.

"The thing that I think is most important is that it shows that human beings can co-exist with a highly flammable environment. Our challenge, with infrastructure and climate change, is to devise new ways which will be different but still inspired from the principle that human beings and flammable landscapes can exist harmoniously."

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What role for Indigenous methods of fire management?

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Can traditional Indigenous methods of fire management help prevent catastrophic bushfires? That's an argument being raised again, as the bushfire season gets underway. But there those cautioning that while traditional methods may be useful in some areas, they can't be applied across Australia. Santilla Chingaipe has more.

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What does fire mean to Aboriginal people?

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Meaning of fire

Fire is an important symbol in Aboriginal culture.

Traditionally it was used as a practical tool in hunting, cooking, warmth and managing the landscape. It also holds great spiritual meaning, with many stories, memories and dance being passed down around the fire.

But when out-of-control bush fires burn Aboriginal land, they are "also burning up our memories, our sacred places, all the things which make us who we are," says Yuin woman Lorena Allam, because "[we] lose forever what connects you to a place in the landscape".

Aboriginal fire management

Fire management is part of how Aboriginal people look after country. It is often called 'cultural burning'.

Definition: Cultural burns

Traditional fire management applies cool and quick burns. These low-intensity fires are also known as cultural burning. They have several benefits:

Save flora and fauna. Animals, including beetles and ant colonies, have enough time to escape. Young trees can survive and the fire keeps grass seeds intact for regrowth. The heat, which is much cooler than a hazard reduction burn, doesn't ignite the oil in a tree's bark. It's a "tool for gardening the environment".

Self-extinguishing. The fire extinguishes straight after it burns the grass ("self-extinguishing fire").

Avoid chemical weed killers. Introduced species, for example grasses, are not fire-resistant and can be removed with fire instead of chemicals.

You can tell if a fire was a cool burn when the burnt grass still has its previous shape.

Cultural burning is tightly connected to caring for country. It is applied more frequently than hazard reduction burning and is very labour intensive.

Cultural burns are used for cultural purposes and not not simply for asset protection. They protect Aboriginal sites and clear access to country for cultural uses (e.g. hunting, access to fish traps, ceremony grounds). Aboriginal control of preparation and implementation is essential.

After World War II, missions towns and cattle stations lured Aboriginal people away from their homelands with promises of work and education. Fire management stopped with severe consequences for the land. Lightning strikes ignited large, hot fires late in the dry season, between August and December, when there was plenty of fuel.

The devastating 2015 Christmas bush fire at the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, triggered also by lightning, was only able to destroy a third of homes in Wye River and "entire streets" because "this country has not burnt, had a fire in it, in decades," as Craig Lapsley, Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner admitted.

This trend has not been reversed yet. "Since European settlement, fires in the north have increased in size and severity. This has threatened biodiversity as well as increased greenhouse gas emissions," says Dr Garry Cook from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

When Aboriginal people returned to country and properly managed it, the area that burned was cut in half. Fire is an inevitable force in the dry season and needs to be managed. Fire burning has created a variety of habitats including places that are very sensitive to fire like rainforest.

In 2019, Forest Fire Management Victoria and Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation (DDWCAC) jointly brought back cultural burning for the first time since invasion. It follows a lesson learnt from the March 2018 fires across the Bega Valley in New South Wales which stopped where the the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council had done cultural burns the year before.

But cultural land management cannot just be added to existing non-Aboriginal practices. Aboriginal people must be involved as they know when to burn, where to burn and how to execute a burn.

Cultural burning is a practice not limited to Australia. Other indigenous peoples applied the same technique, for example the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.

The Northern Territory started supporting cultural burns on public lands from the early 1980s, New South Wales not before 2017.

Video: Cultural burning

Learn about cultural burning from Aboriginal fire practitioners (11 mins).

When to burn

The timing of fire management is critical and needs to happen at the right time of the year. To Aboriginal experts, the country reveals when it is appropriate to use fire: indicators such as when trees flower and native grasses cure. "The knowledge is held within the landscape. Once we learn how to read that landscape and interpret that knowledge, that's when we can apply those fire practices," explains Aboriginal community member Noel Webster.

Ideal is the early dry season, from April to July, when vegetation that grew during the wet season begins to dry, fuel loads are low and wind patterns and drew support a burn. You don't want to burn when certain seeds or fruits are ripe for harvest.

The bushfire threat ends usually in November when monsoon rains arrive and the wet season returns.

If burning too early, big thick shrub develops after the fire which can become a big fuel load and is hard to manage.

If burning occurs too late, trees 'explode' during the fire and not much will be left after the fire goes through. Such fires emit higher levels of greenhouse gases than early season fires.

The right time depends on the ecosystem of the burn area because each system has its own identity and needs. An ecosystem is for example a forest of boxwood or tea trees, rainforest, or heath areas along rivers and springs.

Cool fires

A central idea in fire management is to have a cool fire. Night time or early mornings are ideal for cool fires as during the day plants sweat out flammable oils, and a nightly dew helps cool down the fire.

During a morning burn the wind is often gentle and supports Aboriginal people direct the burn. Without the help of the wind burning cannot happen at the right time. The sun, in contrast, encourages the fire to burn.

Cool fires don't bake the seeds and nutrients in the soil or destroy root systems. Flames are low so they cannot ignite the tree canopy and only char the bottom bark. They don't burn logs lying on the ground or habitat trees. Burning supports certain soils to improve and enables them to hold more moisture.

The speed of the fire is slow enough to allow insects to escape. If you cannot see an army of insects crawling and flying away from the fire, it is moving too fast and is too hot. The humans who manage the fire can also walk with the fire and correct if necessary.

Cool fires help change the vegetation structure by reducing the density of plants like Bracken Fern or Casuarina which lead to extreme fuel loads. But hot fires, such as hazard reduction burns, encourage their regrowth.

Aboriginal people who execute cool fires usually stay with the fire to manage it.

Video: Burning to heal: Indigenous burning before and after the Tathra bushfire (11 min, ABC News)

Video: How to conduct a cool burn

John Daly, an Aboriginal ranger from Fish River, Northern Territory, explains a cool burn (5:20 min).

Where to burn

Like a non-Aboriginal person reads a book, Aboriginal people can read the land to determine which areas need fire management.

They prepare a burn by looking at the different ecosystems, patches, fuel loads, grasses, soil type, and the kinds of ashes a fire will leave behind. It is not "one big grass area to be burnt".

Trees tell Aboriginal people about the soil type and this tells them what type of fire is needed. Aboriginal people know which areas will burn and where the fire is going to stop. Some areas "want to be burnt" while others need to rest and regrow.

Cultural burns burn "for country" and not to satisfy a certain number of hectares for bureaucrats or statistics.

Burning usually occurs at the edge to the next ecosystem to not affect it as it might require a different approach of fire management at a different time. Many small mammals and birds need ground to stay unburnt for at least three years.

How to manage a burn

Aboriginal fire management techniques cannot be applied universally or done at scale as they intricately depend on the landscape. What works in savannah in northern Queensland might not work in subtropical rainforests in New South Wales or eucalyptus forests in Victoria.

And not all fire knowledge has been preserved - in areas close to Australian cities, where invasion often wiped out entire Aboriginal nations, fire knowledge has died with them.

Aboriginal people read the systems of fire-the grass, soil type, what animals live there and how they benefit from it. Burning styles differ depending on how "sick" the land is.

To start a fire, Aboriginal people traditionally used a tea tree bark torch. Contemporary fire management uses either a kerosene bark torch (the oil in the bark keeps torch alive) or a drip torch (hot fires).

The first fire burns a circle around Aboriginal people's living area so they are safe.

Early dry-season, cool fires trickle through the landscape and burn only some of the fuel, creating a network, or mosaic, of burnt firebreaks. These stop the late dry-season, hot fires.

The canopy is sacred

A cool fire preserves the canopy of trees. This is very important for several reasons:

Protection and provision. The canopy provides shade, fruit flowers and seeds. It allows animals to come back quickly.

Carbon reduction. Unlike a cool burn, a canopy fire releases too much carbon. Local land managers can then sell carbon credits for the emissions avoided.

Fire refugee. When there's a fire insects and other small animals crawl up the tree to safety.

Preserve tree cycle. With its canopy intact the tree does not miss its cyclic renewal.

Trigger for germination. The smoke from a cool burn goes through the canopy and triggers off a reaction for seeds up there to germinate.

No wonder that Aboriginal people consider the trees' canopy "sacred".

This is in stark contrast to how non-Aboriginal people understand fire. "Non-Indigenous mob, their fires are based on their money," complains David Claudie.

Non-Aboriginal people, like pastoralists or officers in land management departments and other government bodies, are trying to learn how to manage fire correctly on their own, but the knowledge is right there under their nose, with Aboriginal people. All they need to do is ask for help. Some do.

Fire cannot be managed from the air alone, you need to have people on the ground.

Comparison: Cool vs hot burn

Hazard-reduction burns are deliberate, authorised fires to reduce fuel loads and threats to people and property from wildfires. They are also known as fuel reduction burns, prescribed, planned or controlled burns. These burns can often be much hotter than cool burns, with devastating consequences to the burnt areas.

Backburns are different - they are lit during an emergency to create a burnt buffer to stop an active bushfire and do not consider environmental impact.

Cool burn

Hot burn / hazard reduction burn

Burn schedule

determined by reading the land (e.g. tree species) and local knowledge from traditional custodians

determined by computer modelling

Ignition point

chosen specifically so animals can escape

chosen by topography, several points spread out (e.g. along lines or grids), often via helicopter drops (aerial ignition)

Flame height

knee-high

more than 1.5 metres (the upper limit recommended for fuel-reduction burning )

Extend of fire

controlled

controlled, but sometimes escapes control

Research shows that hazard reduction burning is not an effective method to prevent subsequent bush fires.

The "two toolbox" approach to fire management

Aboriginal Elder Terrah Guymala is a senior member of the Bordoh clan of the Warddeken people in remote west Arnhem Land and director of Warddeken Land Management.

He uses a "two toolbox" approach to manage fire: One virtual toolbox contains traditional knowledge and land management skills, the other Western knowledge like using helicopters and satellite imaging.

This combined knowledge lets the Warddecken people manage their country successfully.

Elsewhere the Commonwealth's Carbon Farming Initiative motivates Aboriginal people to restore traditional fire management practices on their homelands. They combine modern environmental and fire science with traditional "mosaic" burning practices.

Fighting carbon with fire in western Arnhem Land, NT

Watch a video by the United Nations University about how the "two toolbox" approach saves thousands of tonnes of carbon each year.

Fire, fauna and flora

The discussion around the sacred canopy of trees already indicated the intricate links between fire, animals and plants.

During a fire, bush turkeys hunt for bugs and insects at the fire line while hawks scour it for small animals.

Animals know how to protect themselves from fire: ants and snakes go deep down into their nests and burrows, kangaroos find safe spots on rocky outcrops.

Regular burning is also an effective weed control to introduced species like the African gamba grass which can increase fuel loads 10-fold.

After a fire, if it was cool, new grass is growing only weeks after a burn. It holds the soil together and provides a source of food for wombats, wallabies and native birds, and ample of hunting opportunities prior to invasion. Brolgas (Australian cranes) eat insects that have been burnt.

Wallaby, birds and other animals bathe in the cool ash to cleanse themselves, for example to get rid of lice. The black coals can also be used as medicine.

Do we burn too often, too much?

Fire management is not without its critics. It divides tourism operators, bushwalkers, environmentalists, ecologists and archaeologists.

Some believe that that too much land is burnt too often, and that fighting fire with fire worsens what it should protect: the loss of habitat, decline of species, erosion, flooding and the destruction of Aboriginal rock art. Bushwalking businesses are concerned to lead their customers "through ash" while environmentalists stress that "good" fire regimes should maximise the extent of unburnt areas.

Another point of conflict arises when landowners are paid to burn early in the season, called savanna carbon farming. The fire stimulates gras regrowth, so carbon dioxide emissions from the fire are not included in emission calculations because it is assumed that vegetation regrowth removes an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.

Farmers and landowners are reluctant to burn their land as kilometres of fences, often built using wooden posts, could catch fire. Their replacement can cost as much as a quarter million dollars.

While Aboriginal custodians managed for thousands of years to preserve Aboriginal rock art within areas which were regularly burnt, current fire practices ("hazard reduction burns") might no longer guarantee the same result. Archaeologists claim that aerial burning is responsible for fading and scorching art and destroying as much as 30% of it in the Kimberley.

Passing on fire management knowledge

Aboriginal people understand that fire is part of the healing process of the land. Children as young as four learn how to lose their fear and manage fire.

Going back to their homelands, Aboriginal people want to heal the land from colonisation. Proper fire management is an essential part of this healing process. But it goes both ways - Aboriginal people who go out on country also reconnect with culture.

Elders share knowledge with younger generations of Aboriginal men who receive training from the Royal Fire Service. Cultural burning also complements the fire service's hazard reduction burns in fire-prone areas.

As Aboriginal rangers increase their knowledge of how to manage fire, so rises their confidence and sense of identity. "Having the rangers here plays a big part in keeping identity alive and pride in what our people have," finds Aboriginal ranger Robin Dann.

Rangers burn vegetation to protect rainforest patches, rock art and traditional pathways. They track the progress of fires with online maps based on satellite images.

The remote Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust Country Fire Authority (about 350 kms east of Melbourne) employs Australia's first all-Aboriginal, all-female fire brigade.

Homework: Fire management means respecting country

"This is like a garden for us. We need to look after it," says Terrah Guymala, director of Warddeken Land Management.

Here's a challenge: On your way to school, study or work, notice how people have interacted with the land.

Where can you see respectful treatment of the land? Where are examples of ignorance, disrespect and abuse?

What would these people need to change to be more caring?

Use your mobile phone's camera to document examples. What can you do next?

Homework: The forward-thinking insurance company

As a result of devastating bush fires many Australians discovered that they could no longer afford insurance because companies would either reject them or charge astronomical contributions.

But imaginary insurance BurnWell has a different approach. It offers clients standard charges if they agree to hire Aboriginal companies to preventatively and regularly burn Country around their business.

Write a letter to a client who is asking to be insured and explain this approach.

Draft another letter to a client who rejects to cooperate with an Aboriginal business. What arguments could convince them?

Did fire influence Australian trees?

For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have used fire to hunt and to manage the landscape. Some scientists have argued that when people first arrived in Australia about 45,000 years ago they set a large number of these fires, which reshaped the country's ecosystems. This theory has become an accepted idea.

A study from the University of Tasmania examined this theory by analysing the genetic fingerprints of a particular fire-sensitive tree found across the continent.

It found that fluctuations in populations of these trees across the continent since the arrival of people were driven primarily by climate, not fire. Aboriginal use of fire seems not have caused a major restructuring of vegetation across the continent.

"The effect of Aboriginal landscape burning is a lot more subtle. It's still important, but it's subtle and it's region-specific," the researchers concluded.

NSW Rural Fire Service Crews use burning Banksia cones to start fires for back burning.

Teaching resources

Cool Australia

Educational website CoolAustralia.org has prepared lessons and supporting material like worksheets for primary and secondary students.

Lessons revolve around cool burning, fire management, benefits, climate change and the Fire Triangle model. A login is required to access the material.

Check out primary student and secondary student material.

Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation

The Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation is an Aboriginal-led network that aims to re-invigorate the use of cultural burning. It offers cultural learning pathways to fire and land management and is open for Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal people to look after country, share their experiences and collectively explore ways to achieve their goals.

Firesticks offers fire workshops and burning forums and demonstrations.

Koori Country Firesticks Aboriginal Corporation

The Koori Country Firesticks Aboriginal Corporation is a non-for-profit organisation that works to revive cultural burning as an alternative approach to hazard reduction burns. You can participate in workshops, demonstrations, camps or events.

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Cool burns: Key to Aboriginal fire management

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Fire is an important symbol in Aboriginal culture. Traditionally it was used as a practical tool in hunting, cooking, warmth and managing the landscape. It also holds great spiritual meaning, with many stories, memories and dance being passed down around the fire.

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How do indigenous people use fire to manage country?

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How are the people of Fish River Station using fire?

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Reducing destructive late season wildfires and reducing carbon emissions.

Fish River Station is a very special place. It's a vast 180,000-hectare property in the Northern Territory with exceptionally diverse habitats including savanna woodlands, rainforests and floodplains. Situated alongside the Daly River, it provides sanctuary for many unique animals including 21 threatened species such as the Northern Quoll, Gouldian Finch and Northern Masked Owl.

It's such a special place that when it went on the market in 2010, we wanted to ensure it would be managed for conservation forever so we worked with the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC), the Australian Government's National Reserve System Program and Pew Environment Group, to help ILC purchase it.

Since then, we have been working closely with the ILC to deliver some great conservation achievements like:

25 Indigenous rangers employed on the station conserving wildlife

Significant feral animal control

Establishing a new Ranger Station at the old Fish River homestead

Conducting comprehensive surveys to measure the Station's biodiversity

Reducing the occurrence of destructive late season bushfires from 36% of Fish River Station each year to less than5%

One of the biggest achievements has been establishing a ground-breaking carbon abatement fire program. Find out more about how we are doing this by fighting fire with fire.

We would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Land we help to conserve and pay respect to the Elders both past and present.

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Fish River Station | The Nature Conservancy

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Fish River Station is a very special place. It's a vast 180,000-hectare property in the Northern Territory with exceptionally diverse habitats including savanna woodlands, rainforests and floodplains. Situated alongside the Daly River, it provides sanctuary for many unique animals including 21 threatened species such as the Northern Quoll, Gouldian Finch and Northern Masked Owl.