Wildfires burn extensively in World Heritage Area and Tarkine region
Several wild fires were ignited by dry lightning on 4 February in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and Tarkine region and most remain out of effective control. One fire (described as the Canning Peak fire in the media) has burnt across the Pine Forest Moor section of the Overland Track which has been closed for at least the remainder of this month and infrastructure has been burnt. Two larger fires are burning around the Pieman River. The combined areas burnt are more than 90,000 hectares as reported today, but fire boundaries are still expanding. According to the ABC today, the fire’s perimeter is 1,200 km long and an approximately additional 20,000 hectares has burnt over the last 24 hours. The fires may not be fully controlled for months.
The current media focus is on potential threats to west coast towns and shack communities. But the biggest loss from the Overland Track fire to date is not the Tasmanian Walking Company’s 30 year-old hut or PWS’s extensive timber track surfacing, both of which can be replaced, but the pencil pine and other fire sensitive vegetation communities on and around Pine Forest Moor which will likely never recover. The Meredith Range fire may have burnt to the edge of the isolated Huon pine stand at Yellow Creek, the northernmost in existence, and may have destroyed ancient pines on the Harmon and/or Wilson Rivers. And it is unknown how much riverine rainforest may have been consumed along the Pieman River and its tributaries.
The TNPA commends the efforts and resources applied by the Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmanian Fire Service and others in fighting these blazes. We must all recognise that more fires like these are the future under our current climate change trajectory. In this context, the TNPA questions whether broadscale hazard reduction burning is really likely to do much to ameliorate the problem longer term, and at what cost both economically and to remnant natural values.
Photo: Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service
The Guardian newspaper online has a summary article here.