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Fire Season

Updated May 03, 2012 13:34:00

The dry season is upon us ... and Territory residents are being urged to prepare for a big fire season. The rapid spread of the invasive weed, gamba grass, is creating huge fuel loads in the Top End.

Source: 7.30 NT | Duration: 6min 13sec

Topics: bushfire, public-sector, states-and-territories, weeds, community-organisations, regional, activism-and-lobbying, programs-and-initiatives, volunteers, nt, alice-springs-0870


LOUISA REBGETZ, PRESENTER: The dry season is upon us and Territory residents are being urged to prepare for a big fire season. The rapid spread of the invasive weed, gamba grass, is creating huge fuel loads in the Top End. For those on the frontline, last year's devastating fires in central Australia are a vivid memory. There's concern if there's any repeat the impact could be fatal, due to a lack of resources to fight bushfires.

STEVE SUTTON, BUSHFIRES NT: The central Australian fire season last year was the worst fire season in 30 years and impacted the whole of the Territory - resources had to be pulled from all around the Territory.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Last year much of central Australia was burning. In just one month an area the size of Tasmania was flattened by fire. Hundreds of kilometres of pastoral and Aboriginal land was destroyed as the fires raged for two months.

STEVE SUTTON, BUSHFIRES NT: Over 41 percent of the Territory got burnt last year - those impacts will be felt for the next five to seven years.

PAUL BLORE, BUSHFIRES ADVISORY COUNCIL: The services and resources and that to back it weren't there, so obviously Alice Springs region or most of the Top End or the Territory got burnt out last year because of that.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Interstate fire crews were brought in to help fight the fires when it became clear the Northern Territory didn't have the resources. After the event the Minister announced a review into fire operations which is yet to be handed down.

KARL HAMPTON, ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: I know we need to look at how we can improve the services for and resources for volunteers as well as the Bushfire Council so you know that review will be out shortly, the report, and will certainly, I've certainly taken a very strong interest in that.

STEVE SUTTON, BUSHFIRES NT: We've had a lot of soul searching to try and figure out the best way to get a reasonable level of fire risk management in the rural areas of the Northern Territory. The bottom line is it wouldn't have mattered if we'd have had double our staff and double our volunteers - the scale of this fire season was so massive that we wouldn't have been able to deal with it with those extra resources in any event.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Last year the unprecedented rainfall across the Territory provided prime conditions for the raging fires. Although this wet hasn't been as eventful, experts say periodic rain followed by weeks of dry weather has created perfect grass growing conditions.

STEVE SUTTON, BUSHFIRES NT: We will see a big fire season in central Australia, not as big as last year, and we will see an above average fire season in the Top End, so all in all the Territory will face an above average year.

LOUISA REBGETZ: It's not just the weather that creates fuel for these raging fires that claim more and more of northern Australia's tropical savannas every year.

PROF. DAVID BOWMAN, PLANT BIOLOGIST: What we are now seeing is a lot of biological pollution, particularly in weed species which are very aggressive and of course the one which is in the front of everybody's mind now is the giant grass - gamba grass and I see that as almost like an oil-spill event, where it's this big nasty ecological damage which is occurring in our pristine savannah systems.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Gamba grass was introduced in the 1930s by the pastoral industry. The weed spread rapidly beyond properties. It's now moving into more and more of the Territory's pristine environments.

GERALDINE LEE, NT ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT: What we are starting to see now through various spread pathways is isolated infestations developing in high biodiversity areas such as Arnhem Land and out towards the Moil Daly mouth.

DR SAMANTHA SETTERFIELD, CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: There's quite significant invasion in the Litchfield National Park now so about 20 percent of that area has gamba grass invasion.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Researcher Samantha Setterfield has been studying the spread of gamba grass for years. Her latest research has found the density of the grass is also increasing, which has a big fire impact.

DR SAMANTHA SETTERFIELD, CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: We've estimated that there has been an increase from about six tonnes per hectare of native grass fuel-load to now about 10 tonnes per hectare and that's a really marked increase in fuel load.

LOUISA REBGETZ: The findings mean there'll be more fire ban days in the Territory this dry season which drives up costs.

DR SAMANTHA SETTERFIELD, CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: On a fire ban day there's a certain amount of resources made available to fight a wildfire. So the cost has gone from less than a thousand dollars to over 11,000 dollars per day for fire ban days, basically to be ready so if a fire occurs on that day they'll be able to manage it.

PAUL BLORE, BUSHFIRES ADVISORY COUNCIL: They need at least two million dollars, extra two millions to help us, you know get through, you know the tough times that we're having at the moment.

PROF. DAVID BOWMAN, PLANT BIOLOGIST: It's actually changing the fire regimes - turning the fire regimes into what were reasonably benign, in Australian standards, to actually becoming deadly fire-regimes so it's a real game-changer not only for the ecology for the savannas but also for living with the savannas.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Gamba grass has just been placed on a list of Weeds of National Significance.

DR SAMANTHA SETTERFIELD, CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: That means that a strategic plan is currently being written, and this pulls pots of money available that weren't previously available for control.

LOUISA REBGETZ: For now though, Territorians are warned to be diligent in what could be a busy and unpredictable fire season ahead.

STEVE SUTTON, BUSHFIRES NT: The grass fires in the Top End move at great speed so it is very easy for them to catch someone unawares and we've been very, very lucky for the last few years that we haven't killed anyone. I'm hoping our luck holds out, but sooner or later it won't so we implore members of the public to do what they can to make sure they don't have to try and dodge a wildfire.