Regeneration Burns
Wildfire is an essential part of the process of regeneration in Tasmania's native forests.
A hot fire is how a eucalypt forest renews itself, new seedlings emerging from seed that germinates in the sterile ashbed after the fire.
In his book, The Private Life of Plants: A Natural History of Plant Behaviour (1995), Sir David Attenborough explains why Eucalyptus regnans (the Tasmanian swamp gum, Victorian mountain ash) cannot survive without fire.
"The threat to the survival of the spectacular forests of noble mountain ash is not, in fact, fire. It is the absence of fire," he says.
"If the great trees die from old age before flames have cleared the ground for their seedlings, then they will leave no successors.
"Paradoxically, such a forest will not survive unless much of it is first destroyed."
As part of its normal management operations, the forest industry has to conduct burns to reduce potential bushfire fuel and to promote plant regeneration.
Managing the ecology of eucalypt forests involves use of fire at a range of frequencies, usually in the spring and autumn.
There are only a limited number of days suited for safe and effective regeneration burning.
At the same time, there are some critical dates for events on the tourism industry's calendar when smoke can create concern.
Sometimes these events form the primary reason for people visiting the island.
Often the events are located close to a state or private forest.
Therefore under an agree protocol, by 1 February each year the Tourism Council advises the forestry industry of the critical dates on its calendar and the industry schedules regeneration burns, aimed at minimising burning on those days and in those places.
As well, Forestry Tasmania and the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania work together to improve smoke management, including the prediction of smoke plume activity through an alliance with the Bureau of Meteorology.
The overall objective is to reduce burns likely to affect tourism activities and major population centres downwind.
For a guide to best fire management practice for land managers in Tasmania contact the State Fire Management Council of Tasmania.
This website has links to Tasmanian Fire Service, Parks & Wildlife, Forestry Tasmania, Australasian Fire Authorities Council and Bushfire CRC.