[plug] [OT] CALM burns

[Steve Grasso]

On Mon, 3 Feb 2003 20:39, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Monday 03 February 2003 05:08 pm, Steve Grasso wrote:
> > I don't see how this will help with fewer runaways, since there are
> > potentially more sources of ignition over a longer time period.
>
> Smaller area to cover, though, and not as much time to get a `run-up' or
> firestorm effect.

- More expensive to administer and deploy for a given total area 
- What was burnt last week, and the week before etc still needs patrolling - 
multiple smaller areas require more resources for maintenance
- Wildfire can and frequently does hop over smaller burnt areas, so in the 
early stages they would afford less protection than a single larger area 
(which would be a mosaic of burnt and unburnt bush anyway)
- Prescribed fire is lit when weather conditions, forest fuel loads and 
forest dryness indicate that fire intensity will be far far less than 
'firestorm'. Occasionally a burn will 'get away', usually as a result of 
unpredicted weather change or a 'hop over' into bush which has different fuel 
loadings or dryness.

'Hand burns' (ie. smaller areas) have always been a feature of the fuel 
reduction burning program and always will be, and well planned and executed 
aerial ignition over larger areas of forest creates a burnt and unburnt 
mosaic in a very cost-effective and safety-effective way. One size does not 
fit all, since fire diversity promotes biodiversity. Forest and the critters 
which live in them respond differently to low intensity vs. high intensity 
fires, frequent vs. infrequent burning, large vs. small areas burnt, so 
varying these parameters in any prescribed fire program is crucial to the 
long-term well-being of our forests. The program itself means that wildfires 
which start are more likely to be controllable.

Western Australia (and Australia) has literally led the world for decades in 
forest fire protection through fuel reduction burning. This has largely been 
due to the decades of research into forest fire behaviour, which has given 
planners tools with which to acurately predict forest fire behaviour over a 
range of forest types, forest fuel loadings, weather conditions and soil 
dryness (as a measure of forest fuel moisture content). Sometimes they get it 
wrong, but mostly they get it right, and lives and property are the safer for 
it, and the mix of burning regimes make for greater biodiversity.

Cheers,
Steve

>
> Cheers; Leon