Kimberley fire project heats up

Initial results from a major fire research project have shed new light on how threatened mammal species in the north Kimberley respond to fire.

The joint project between the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), through the State Government’s Saving our Species biodiversity conservation initiative, and CSIRO will help provide a better understanding of fire regimes and management procedures in the region.

]DEC Kimberley fire ecologist Dr Ian Radford said findings from the first year of the project indicate the need to ensure an increased time between fires to maximise the benefit to threatened mammal species.

“We know that too frequent, intense and large scale fires are driving small and medium sized mammals into decline in northern Australia,” Dr Radford said.

“However, to date there has been very little guidance about what type of fire regime we should be aiming for to maximise conservation values.

“Initial findings suggest we should be aiming for at least two, possibly three or more years from the last fire on any one area. This will maximise the chance for breeding to occur.

“We should also be undertaking prescribed burns during times when fires will be of lower intensity to increase their ‘patchiness’ – in other words, creating a mosaic effect of unburnt and burnt patches of land.

“These need to be implemented in both the wet (January to March) and early dry season (April to June).

“This will increase the ability of the animals to recolonise from fire refuges provided by the unburnt patches.” First-year results also suggest that after a fire it is an area’s habitat structure, rather than food shortages, that has the most affect on mammals.

“What this study has done for the first time is systematically sample habitat attributes such as vegetation, habitat structure and soil, at the same time as using mammal trapping techniques, to identify environmental factors influenced by fire that are most closely related to mammal numbers,” Dr Radford said.

“Features that relate most directly to mammal abundance are the amount of grass and its height, shrub cover and density.”

Dr Radford said the project also involved constructing a detailed fire history for the Mitchell River region using Landsat remote sensing images from 1989 to now.

This will allow DEC, CSIRO and other organisations to detail fire history and changes in fire regimes during this period, including the fire regimes since the establishment of the Mitchell River National Park in 2000.

“The project is developing novel GIS and remote sensing methods to give a detailed fire his

tory for the region and for specific sites,” Dr Radford said.

“Results from the project will be applicable not only to the whole of the Kimberley, but to the Northern Territory, northern tropical Queensland and potentially even parts of the Pilbara.”

The fire research project was identified by the two-year, $15 million Saving our Species initiative because of its potential to achieve long-term biodiversity conservation results from a short-term, strategic focus.

It is one of more than 70 projects state-wide being supported by the initiative.

Northern Brown Bandicoot

Prescribed Burning