- Title:
-
Quantifying Fuel Loads and Fire Hazard in a Wet Sclerophyll Community of South-eastern Queensland
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- BCRC
- Authors:
- Cuong Tran, Jan Gilroy, & Paul Williams
- Location:
- Australia, QLD, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Fuel is one of the most important factors effecting fire behaviour. Over the past decade or so it has become apparent that the composition and structure of fuels play a major role in the behaviour and advancement of a fire. Exotic species can alter the structure, composition and quantity of fuel loads in a vegetation community.This will subsequently affect the fire behaviour, including fire intensity and season of burning.
The issue of fuel load alteration by exotic species has not been adequately evaluated. Lantana camara invades most Regional Ecosystems within southeast Queensland, the degrees of invasion varying depending on the system involved. Of particular concern are rainforests and wet sclerophyll forests, where lantana can reach metres into the canopy creating a continous fuel layer. Lantana is often present in the ecotone between the fire-regime dependent (wet sclerophyll) and non fire regime dependent (rainforest) ecosystems.
The effect of lantana-enhanced fires may detrimentally affect non fire-regime communities. This study quantified the fuel load in a heavily infested wet sclerophyll forest, by collecting fuel from the ground level up to 2m in height with three replicate 0.25m2 columnar quadrats at each of the nine sites. Fuel loads of a lantana infested wet sclerophyll forest averaging 28.82 + 4.75 tonnes per hectare, which was significantly higher than undisturbed wet-sclerophyll forest and rainforest. As lantana can reach up to 5-10m in the canopy, it dramatically alters the arrangement of fuel, significantly increasing the fire hazard, potentially affecting natural fire regimes.
This alteration of the fuel load by an exotic species may increase fire frequency to one higher than is required for this type of vegetation, ultimately altering the vegetation community and fire regime in a given location. How to manage this risk remains a challenge for land managers. We discuss some strategies to manage these landscapes for risk reduction and the conservation of fire-regime and non fire-regime adapted communities.
