Andrew Sheath
Introduction. The purpose of much of the prescribed burning work we do in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia fuel reduction to mitigate the risk of bushfire. But we also do a lot of work, including burning, purely for the purpose of biodiversity conservation. Being so close to Adelaide all of our Parks are highly fragmented and have a strong history of disturbance such as mining and grazing.
Within our team we have a very strong focus on weed control and we do this routinely for all of our burns. There are two reasons we have such a focus on weed management and no longer just go in and burn and walk away. The first is to ensure that the vegetation condition does not deteriorate and the second is to ensure that fuels don’t increase due to woody weeds. In many cases this is leading to improvements in quality of the sites.
Methods. Our burns are done under a prescription which specifies certain weather parameters for which the burn can be carried out safely. Our sites are typically between 5 and 200 hectares, often adjacent to built assets (Fig 1). Mapping both before a burn and 4 years after a burn allows us to monitor progress. We map most of our burns on foot, assessing native vegetation condition, weeds present, their distribution and their cover throughout the proposed burn site. We undertake this with a view to gaining a clear picture of what we’ve got to deal with during the burn and post-burn. Our planning begins 6-18 months prior to a burn to give us plenty of time to carry out works that are often seasonally dependent.
Fig 1. Example of a typical Adelaide Hills conservation area on the urban fringe. Red areas show prescribed burns either completed or in the planning phase.
Examples and results to date. In most of our situations pre-burn control greatly increases the efficiency of any post-burn work and overall makes our work easier.
Example 1: Figures 2 and 3, shows a significant reduction in the distribution of Gorse (Ulex europaeus) at an otherwise relatively intact site after the burn, improving the condition of the bush in this area.
Fig 2. Gorse distribution and density pre-burn
Fig 3. Gorse distribution and density 3 years post burn after control work
Example 2: Figure 4 shows successful tree heath (Erica arborea) control in an otherwise intact woodland in the Adelaide hills. Six months prior to burning we cut and disturbed the stand of Tree Heath on this site to ensure all the biomass would burn; that we wouldn’t have the adults sitting up high above the flame dropping seed onto burnt ground (which often happens when burning under mild conditions); and, to promote juveniles which would then be burnt and killed during burn. The other benefits of this approach are that it also promotes native germination and makes follow up, post-burn easier.
Fig 4: Erica control site showing before being burnt or cut, after being cut and post burn.
Fig 5. Erica post control and pre-burn
Fig 6. Erica post-control and post-burn
Example 3: Figure 5 shows a perched swamp in the Adelaide Hills being thickly invaded by Wonnich (Callystachys lanceolata) from Western Australia. Because of location of the site we were unable to burn the swamp at sufficient intensity to consume the Wonnich. So in this situation we burnt the surrounding area in spring in mild conditions within prescription. We later went back in autumn after we had dropped all of the Wonnich on the ground and we burnt that swamp at a very high intensity and consumed all of the biomass. That promoted mass-germination of the weed. We’re then dealing with one age-class and we can go through and hand weed, spot spray, and re-burn areas to control the germination. Joe Quarmby, Threatened Flora Ecologist, was the mastermind behind this burn and continues to drive follow up control work at the site.
Fig 7. Swamp burnt in drier conditions during autumn (after surrounding area burnt in more mild conditions in an earlier season).
Fig. 8. Follow up control work in swamp.
Lessons learned. Burning can be a very useful tool for weed management and although no site is ever the same we have been able to use a variety of techniques for certain weeds which greatly increase our efficiency. The key point however is that weed control should be and is routine and needs to be thought about pre-burn.
Acknowledgements. Thanks is extended to Joe Quarmby, Threatened Flora Ecologist.
Contact: Andrew Sheath, Department of Environment Water and Natural Resources – South Australia. Tel: +61 0457 512 032, Email: Andrew.Sheath@sa.gov.au
[This project summary is a precis of a talk presented to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW’s 10th Biennial Bushfire Conference, ‘Fire and Restoration: Working with Fire for Healthy Lands’ 26-27 May 2015. For full paper see: http://www.nature.org.au/healthy-ecosystems/bushfire-program/conferences/%5D
EMR Project Summaries 