Rethinking Planned Burns presentation with Philip Zylstra – 20 August 2024

Posted on 6 August, 2024 by Anna

Our friends at Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests (FOBIF) are partnering with Kinglake Friends of the Forests, Friends of the Whipstick and the Whroo Goldfields Conservation Network to present an interesting evening with fire behaviour scientist Dr Philip Zylstra from Curtin University on Tuesday 20 August at 7.00pm in Castlemaine.

Please see more details below provided by FOBIF.

Rethinking Planned Burns’ by Dr Philip Zylstra

Dr Philip Zylstra is a fire behaviour scientist and Adjunct Associate Professor from Curtin University. In his former work as a remote area fire fighter, he realised that planned burns for fire mitigation were not only causing immediate environmental harm, but could increase fire risk to communities in subsequent years. As many others noted, the bush responded to these burns with a dense flush of understorey growth. As a result, Dr Zylstra undertook Australia’s first detailed and systematic attempt to link the mechanisms that drive fire behaviour in forest environments, developing the only peer-reviewed model to show how forest structure and composition drives fire behaviour in Australian forests.

Dr Philip Zylstra in the field. Photo provided by Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests.

Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) plan to burn 10,000 Ha of forest in the Murray -Goldfields districts in the next 2 years. This is despite acknowledgement by the Victorian state Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action (DEECA) that “Box-Ironbark forests are considered not prone to recurrent fires, making them possibly atypical of dry, sclerophyllous vegetation in Australia” as outlined in a governmental report published in 2007, to read full report – click here.

With climate change creating more extreme fires and a longer fire season, governments have ramped up “hazard-reduction” burning. New research however shows the practice can actually make forests more flammable. Over time, some forests tend to thin out and become less likely to burn – hazard reduction burning disrupts this process.

According to Dr Zylstra;

“The open understorey and historical rarity of bushfires in the Box-ironbark near Whroo are a reminder that some forests are natural advantages for controlling fire. Disturbances such as burning and logging can break down these valuable defences, causing regrowth that drives a pulse of elevated fire risk which can last for decades. The fires in the Pyrenees are a tragic example of this, as the average annual area of bushfires has nearly tripled since widespread logging began in that area. Certainly climate change is a major influence, but it doesn’t let us off the hook. The old modelling which drives the push to disturb forest does not account for the natural controls that undisturbed forests have placed on fire since the days of Gondwana.”

Join FOBIF and partners for this most interesting presentation.

When: Tuesday 20 August 2024 at 7pm

Where: Castlemaine Senior Citizens Centre, Mechanics Lane, Castlemaine

Cost: Free

All welcome!

A light supper will be provided.