Can ‘right-way’ Indigenous burning save Australia’s neglected heart?

The risk of fire in Australia’s outback is now uppermost in the minds of top fire scientists, with up to 80% of the Northern Territory (NT) predicted to burn before March next year.

But what can be done? And why are fire specialists looking south to the Centre’s desert rangelands, rather than our monsoonal north where vegetation is more abundant?

Rangelands cover more than 80% of Australia, extending across low rainfall and variable climates, including arid, semi-arid, and, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, seasonally high rainfall areas.

For 3 years, successive La Niñas have caused plant growth to boom in Australia’s deserts, increasing the fire risk. Also, some parts of the NT are more fire ready than others, says Charles Darwin University researcher Dr Rohan Fisher, whose work supports fire management in Northern Australia, using information technology.

With Co-chairperson of the Indigenous Desert Alliance Boyd Elston, Fisher recently published details of how Indigenous “right-way fires” (or cool burns) might well be helping alleviate fire pressures in the Centre of Australia. 

“If you look to the Top End,” says Fisher, “the most fire prone part of Australia is the tropical savanna, [but is also] where most preparatory work has been done.  Across … Indigenous-managed landscapes we have spent four or five months putting in early dry season burning so they will be in fairly good shape.”  

But Indigenous groups are also working with scientists in the Centre, to head off a potentially deadly summer fire season there.

For 3 years, successive La Niñas have caused plant growth to boom in Australia’s deserts, increasing the fire risk.

“La Niña isn’t really a factor when you go further north,” says Fisher, “because we always get the monsoon after the dry season.  

“On top of that, we’ve got … probably the world’s best bush fire management practice at the moment.” 

However, in the south the three wet years have spiked fuel loads which are already causing fires.

A recent and unseasonal fire burned large swathes of Tjoritja West MacDonnell National Park, blanketing Alice Springs in smoke.

“The risk for wildfires is quite high,” says Fisher, “and there is less overall preparatory work done across the rangelands and the desert country.” 

Fires in remote locales often go unremarked, he says, with the lack of fire preparation perhaps understandable considering the sheer scale of the problem and remoteness of the fires.

“You’re looking across massive desert rangelands … and just the logistics, the scale of getting good fire back onto that country, since [Aboriginal] people moved off country 150 years ago, is a massive undertaking. Something that should be done and taken seriously, but requires investment, getting people back onto country to make it healthy again.”

Fisher reports dozens of Indigenous groups are burning across 12 Indigenous Protected Areas of the Centre, where fire is part of management.

The risk for wildfires is quite high … and there is less overall preparatory work done across the rangelands and the desert country.

Dr Rohan Fisher

Already 23,000 square kilometres have been burned in the Great Sandy, Tanami, Gibson and Great Victoria Deserts.

Indigenous rangers use helicopters and incendiaries to start fires from the air, coupled with ground level burning using drip torches around sensitive areas.

Such ground-level fires can protect cultural sites and threatened species like bilby, night parrot and the great desert skink.

During 2023, rangers were in the air for 448 hours to drop 299,059 incendiaries across 58,457 kilometres, according to a recent report by Fisher and Elston.

“We’re keen to highlight the scale of burning … then you’ve all this other country, pastoral leases, parks … and this is where buffel grass comes in.” 

Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris)—considered a valuable feed by some pastoralists—has significantly heightened the fire risk in Central Australia, while in South Australia the species is declared a noxious weed.

“Buffel is an issue [for] property and infrastructure damage,” says Fisher. 

“A serious concern is the way it’s moved into the West MacDonnell Ranges moving up the Larapinta Trail into the desert mountains; desert ranges are some of the real biodiversity hotspots in this country.”

In September a global scientific evaluation of the threat of alien invasive species listed buffel grass as a widespread threat in Australia. 

Such ground-level fires can protect cultural sites and threatened species like bilby, night parrot and the great desert skink.

On a map of the threats across the globe presented in the report, Australia is fully shaded for buffel grass, noting it: “restricts access to culturally important sites, making it difficult to transmit traditional knowledge.”

Wildfires blamed largely on buffel grass destroyed more than 100,000 hectares of heritage-nominated Tjoritja West MacDonnell National Park in March, closed the world-renowned Larapinta Trail wilderness walk, and, in a separate ignition, reportedly destroyed one home and threatened others near Alice Springs.

“Buffel really is becoming an issue … where you have a pasture grass introduced that’s turned into a weed that has now turned into an emergency response issue. 

“You’d hope that NT government would take note and think more seriously about how they manage buffel going forwards.”

Following the March fires the NT government formed a working group to consider declaring buffel grass a weed in the Territory.

The group is made up of members with expertise or experience relevant to the management of buffel grass, specifically land managers and scientists.