Backing Onto Bush fire awareness workshop – overview of a successful first!
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On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I was lucky enough to join the rest of Healthy Land & Water’s Queensland Fire & Biodiversity (QFBC) team in Chapel Hill in Brisbane for our very first Backing Onto Bush fire awareness workshop.
Kicking-off with some bushfire basics
We arrived at The Hut Environmental Centre, at the base of beautiful Mount Coot-Tha and met with 22 participants and 8 support crew (QFBC, Brisbane City Council, Queensland Fire Emergency Services (QFES) and Healthy Land & Water staff).
The event bought together a real range of attendees - from residents in the Brisbane area and surrounds to ecology students. Everyone I met came all with a keen interest in understanding how bushfire works, how it impacts fauna and flora (both in negative and positive ways) and why it is important to be prepared.
The in-classroom part of the day started with our QFBC’s Fire Ecologist Hannah Etchells asking the group what they wanted to learn from the session and creating a list on the whiteboard of items to cover to make sure that everyone got the best out of the workshop.
She gave a very interesting and detailed presentation about fire in the landscape, covering why it is important for the environment to have healthy fire, what does healthy fire look like and what does it do to the landscape.
At the end of her presentation, there were whole heap of nitty-gritty questions about the local area. We were lucky to have Sue Nolan on hand from Brisbane City Council who shared updates about what the Council is doing to look after the bush.
This brought us a great time to break for lunch, where we were able to catch up with others in the group while we were fueling up and getting sustenance ready for the second part of the afternoon - walk and talk out in the bush.
We popped on hats and sunscreen and headed outside.
Learning about fuels, landscape, fauna and more
Look up. First, we looked up – assessing the canopy above us and checking how healthy the canopy looked, if there were any dead branches or leaves, how much light got through and how might this impact what’s growing beneath.
Look around. Walking further we looked at the vegetation we were immersed in: what vegetation type are we in? How can we tell? Where does it change? Is it a straight line or does it kind of fade into the adjacent vegetation type?
Then we investigated for signs of bushfire in the past such as charcoal on tree bark, burned logs, etc. We answered the following questions: do we think this forest has experienced fire? How can we tell?
This investigative process takes a bit of time and detective work. Sometimes it might not be immediately obvious. Nevertheless, we found charcoal low on the trunks of trees and a burnt log! These subtle signs of past fire are an indication that this was a well-planned, well-executed, healthy fire that has had little to no negative impact on the environment and has helped remove fine fuels as well as trigger germination of some pyrophilic species, like native grasses.
In our detective work trying to find evidence of fire, we found a tree that was epicormically resprouting (this is the tree's response to high-intensity crown fires - many plants resprout from basal buds after disturbance, and this is common in shrublands subjected to high-intensity fires). Whilst this can be a fire response, we learnt that in the case of this tree, it is unlikely to be in the case, because there is only one individual tree impacted. We learnt to speculate on other causes – in this case possible drought and/or disease stress.
Look closely. Animals in the bush with our Fire Ecology Assistant Team Leader Dr Diana Partridge. We learnt how to detect and look for signs of koalas and goannas and how to tell the difference in scratch marks on trees. We also spotted lots of artificial hollows and heard about what species may use these, while learning about the impacts that logging and fire can and has had on habitat features and refuges on Mount Coot-tha.
Look Down. We found a good spot to learn about fuel and how to assist the bushfire risk based off how much fuel there is in the landscape. We learnt about the different layers of fuel and how a fire might move through this landscape, simply by observing the distribution and arrangement of surface, near surface, elevated and bark fuels. We compared a few patches of bush to understand how there can be variability even on a small scale in the same patch, and this could impact the patchiness of future fires.
In addition, we learnt about fuels distribution with a burning paper demo - fuels lying flat and tightly bundled don’t burn as quickly or easily as fuels stacked loosely with lots of air flow around them.
Look in. We came across a tree hollow and discussed the fire risk of a hollow and the danger of a chimney.
Back to the Hut for a wrap up
After the extremely informative and interesting bush walk and talk, we returned to the Hut for a Prepare Act Survive presentation from Queensland Fire Emergency Services (QFES).
The great workshop ended with a lucky door prize and summing up the key takeaways from the session. All and all, this first Backing Onto Bush left the attendees satisfied and impressed, feeling that they left with new knowledge and knew more to get better prepared.
The event is being delivered in partnership with Brisbane City Council and supported by the Queensland Fire & Biodiversity Consortium.
A little bit more about the Backing Onto Bush workshops
Backing Onto Bush workshops are a half-day session for peri-urban and rural residential landholders to learn about fire ecology and what keeps the bush healthy.
The session includes:
o An in-classroom general bushfire safety and preparedness discussion.
o An interactive bushwalk and talk.
Participants walk away from the workshop with the ability to:
- Observe the health of your local environment.
- Identify vegetation types and key habitat.
- Understand fuel loads.
- Recognise fire history.
- Monitor vegetation and wildlife.
- Follow regulations for your area.
Find out more about the array of QFBC services and the upcoming events.