Top row is Gary McLarty my Field Team partner and then some photos from the field. Second row left is the Planning Team which I sat on and more specifically with the fancy officious title of Situations Officer. Now; the trees in the back are not in their Fall colors, they are burnt eucalyptus trees, which ordinarily remain green all year unless a fire scorches their leaves.
In my last blog I covered a bit of the February 7, 2009 Victoria Bush Fires, the largest natural disaster ever to hit Australia but I think it might be of interest to stay on that topic in this blog as well as I have become involved with the gigantic agricultural recovery program that commenced after the fires and in some cases while the fires were still burning.
I work ordinarily for the State Department of Primary Industries (DPI), Farm Services Section and the Landscape Protection Portfolio on weed and animal pest related programs. Consistently across the DPI state department, however, rests the responsibility for the Bush Fire Recovery Program to quickly assess the agricultural losses from fires and prepare assistance programs. The main scenarios are stock losses, stock gathering and confinement, veterinary assistance, fencing, crop losses, feed shortages, dwelling and farm building losses. This often is done in conjunction with the state department of Human Services and the local municipalities. Following this are the more long term rehabilitation issues such as soils erosion, revegetation, weeds and pest animals issues.
I work ordinarily for the State Department of Primary Industries (DPI), Farm Services Section and the Landscape Protection Portfolio on weed and animal pest related programs. Consistently across the DPI state department, however, rests the responsibility for the Bush Fire Recovery Program to quickly assess the agricultural losses from fires and prepare assistance programs. The main scenarios are stock losses, stock gathering and confinement, veterinary assistance, fencing, crop losses, feed shortages, dwelling and farm building losses. This often is done in conjunction with the state department of Human Services and the local municipalities. Following this are the more long term rehabilitation issues such as soils erosion, revegetation, weeds and pest animals issues.
Bush Fires are a part of life in Australia and preparedness is well integrated into rural communities and state departments. The state department of Sustainability and the Environment is responsible for fire awareness, education and calculating the daily Fire Danger Index based on current temperature, humidity, drought factor, days since last rain coupled with weather forecast. The final calculation often triggers Total Fire Ban days during the summer (Dec-Mar), which was done ahead of the Feb. 7 fires, to warn people to prepare to activate their Fire Plan. The plan could as simple as evacuating when threatened by an approaching fire. It remains a choice to evacuate, but it is stated that the fire area may be cordoned off by police for safety reasons so access back in after evacuation may be restricted. The plan could also be more detailed and involve the setting up of fire fighting equipment on the property. Most fires start by embers that blow ahead of the fire front as the typical bush fires involves the very hot, strong and dry winds from central Australia and at times exacerbated by a sudden wind change late afternoon shifting winds from north to south west. On a Total Fire Ban day open fires, the use of welders, cutting torches, mowers etc. are also banned.
The local Country Fire Authority, which in the rural areas are totally voluntary, assist DSE with the actual fire fighting and goes into Stand By on Total Fire Ban days to, at moments notice, mobilize some amazing manpower and equipment. The actual management of the fire fighting and also the subsequent recovery aspect is done using a similar concept to what I have been exposed to in Clearwater County following floods and fires called the Incident Management System (ICS).
I am writing this from the Benalla Incident Management Team Complex, which under the ICS concept has a designated Incident Controller (the top gun!) and below this matrix the Planning sector looking after mapping, situations reports, information and resources; Operations look after the phone team, field teams, data entering; and Logistics look after accommodation, meals and safety.
Being part of such structure has been extremely enlightening and provided some valuable experiences. The Bush Fire Recovery IMT here at Benalla deals with the recovery aspect of the largest fire, the Murrindindi Kilmore fire that eventually succumbed to the efforts of firefighters and mother nature after consuming more than 500,000 acres. The team is comprised of 23 staff, but two weeks ago when the fire was still burning I assisted in the actual fire IMT and in contrast we had close to 800 people deployed. I have mainly been helping with the collecting of data for the printing of the daily Situation Report, which forms part of the daily Incident Action Plan but also, saw some field action yesterday conducting some farm visits collecting loss data.
State wide the impact are truly unprecedented and validates the declaration of this being the worst natural disaster to hit Australia. Over 1.1 million acres burnt; 210 lives lost (likely to climb slightly upon further forensic work); 1445 homes lost; 4,714 farms impacted (3461 assessed at this time); 2832 sheep lost, 1392 salvaged and 810 missing; and 1486 cattle lost, 1709 salvaged and 6,079 missing.
The local Country Fire Authority, which in the rural areas are totally voluntary, assist DSE with the actual fire fighting and goes into Stand By on Total Fire Ban days to, at moments notice, mobilize some amazing manpower and equipment. The actual management of the fire fighting and also the subsequent recovery aspect is done using a similar concept to what I have been exposed to in Clearwater County following floods and fires called the Incident Management System (ICS).
I am writing this from the Benalla Incident Management Team Complex, which under the ICS concept has a designated Incident Controller (the top gun!) and below this matrix the Planning sector looking after mapping, situations reports, information and resources; Operations look after the phone team, field teams, data entering; and Logistics look after accommodation, meals and safety.
Being part of such structure has been extremely enlightening and provided some valuable experiences. The Bush Fire Recovery IMT here at Benalla deals with the recovery aspect of the largest fire, the Murrindindi Kilmore fire that eventually succumbed to the efforts of firefighters and mother nature after consuming more than 500,000 acres. The team is comprised of 23 staff, but two weeks ago when the fire was still burning I assisted in the actual fire IMT and in contrast we had close to 800 people deployed. I have mainly been helping with the collecting of data for the printing of the daily Situation Report, which forms part of the daily Incident Action Plan but also, saw some field action yesterday conducting some farm visits collecting loss data.
State wide the impact are truly unprecedented and validates the declaration of this being the worst natural disaster to hit Australia. Over 1.1 million acres burnt; 210 lives lost (likely to climb slightly upon further forensic work); 1445 homes lost; 4,714 farms impacted (3461 assessed at this time); 2832 sheep lost, 1392 salvaged and 810 missing; and 1486 cattle lost, 1709 salvaged and 6,079 missing.
This is the State map showing where the fires were.
The landscape around where the bulk of the fires were is truly spectacular with massive eucalyptus
treees that are named Mountain Ash (don't be confused, nothing to do with our North 
American Mountain Ash). The tree below, in the Yarra Ranges, was felled as part of the fire effort after the Black Saturday fires. Hollow trees like this close to the control line become chimneys. On fire inside, sparks funnel out the top of the tree and can fall across the other side of the fireline - re-igniting the fire. Still, a great shame to see it come down, it would have been very old.
treees that are named Mountain Ash (don't be confused, nothing to do with our North 
American Mountain Ash). The tree below, in the Yarra Ranges, was felled as part of the fire effort after the Black Saturday fires. Hollow trees like this close to the control line become chimneys. On fire inside, sparks funnel out the top of the tree and can fall across the other side of the fireline - re-igniting the fire. Still, a great shame to see it come down, it would have been very old.The black spur area of Victoria was burnt during the fires. This is a picture of what the forrest looks like.
A few facts
Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants although no living specimens can make that claim. Tallest of the eucalypts, growing to 70-120 m (230-400 feet) with the tallest reported tree 152m.
It occurs in cool, deep soiled, mostly mountainous areas to 1000 m altitude with high rainfall of over 1200 mm per year. They grow very quickly, at more than a metre a year, and can reach 65 metres in 50 years, with an average life-span of 400 years.
Unusually for a eucalypt, it tends not to recover by re-shooting after fire, and regenerates only from seed. The seeds are released from their woody capsules (gumnuts) by heat and for successful germination the seedlings require a high level of light, much more than reaches the forest floor when there is a mature tree canopy. Severe fires can kill all the trees in a forest, prompting a massive release of seed to take advantage of the nutrients in the ash bed. Seedling densities of up to 2.5 million per hectare have been recorded after a major fire. Competition and natural thinning eventually reduces the mature tree density to about 30 to 40 individuals per hectare. Because it takes roughly 20 years for seedlings to reach sexual maturity, repeated fires in the same area can cause local extinctions. If, however, no fires regenerate an area, the trees die off after about 400 years and are replaced by other species.
The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 99.6 metres tall in Tasmania. Before the discovery of the Centurion, the tallest known specimen was Icarus Dream, which was rediscovered in Tasmania in January, 2005 and is 97 meters high. It was first measured by surveyors at 98.8 metres in 1962 but the documentation had been lost. 16 living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 90 metreshttp://en.wikipedia.
Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres, found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872. This record is often disputed as unreliable, despite first-hand documentary evidence of it being measured on the ground with surveyor's tape by a senior forestry official (see below). Widespread agreement exists, however, that an exceptionally tall individual was reliably measured at 112.8 metres in 1880 by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at Thorpdale, Victoria (the tree is known both as the Cornthwaite or Thorpdale Tree). When it was felled in 1881, Cornthwaite remeasured it on the ground by chain at 114.3 metres. The stump was commemorated with an insignificant plaque that exists today. That tree was about 1 metre shorter than the world's current tallest living tree, a Coast Redwood, 115.55 metres.
The tallest specimens encountered by early European settlers are now dead as a result of bushfires, logging and advanced age. Few living specimens exceed 90 metres; old records of logged trees make varied claims of extreme heights, but these are difficult to verify today.
Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants although no living specimens can make that claim. Tallest of the eucalypts, growing to 70-120 m (230-400 feet) with the tallest reported tree 152m.
It occurs in cool, deep soiled, mostly mountainous areas to 1000 m altitude with high rainfall of over 1200 mm per year. They grow very quickly, at more than a metre a year, and can reach 65 metres in 50 years, with an average life-span of 400 years.
Unusually for a eucalypt, it tends not to recover by re-shooting after fire, and regenerates only from seed. The seeds are released from their woody capsules (gumnuts) by heat and for successful germination the seedlings require a high level of light, much more than reaches the forest floor when there is a mature tree canopy. Severe fires can kill all the trees in a forest, prompting a massive release of seed to take advantage of the nutrients in the ash bed. Seedling densities of up to 2.5 million per hectare have been recorded after a major fire. Competition and natural thinning eventually reduces the mature tree density to about 30 to 40 individuals per hectare. Because it takes roughly 20 years for seedlings to reach sexual maturity, repeated fires in the same area can cause local extinctions. If, however, no fires regenerate an area, the trees die off after about 400 years and are replaced by other species.
The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 99.6 metres tall in Tasmania. Before the discovery of the Centurion, the tallest known specimen was Icarus Dream, which was rediscovered in Tasmania in January, 2005 and is 97 meters high. It was first measured by surveyors at 98.8 metres in 1962 but the documentation had been lost. 16 living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 90 metreshttp://en.wikipedia.
Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres, found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872. This record is often disputed as unreliable, despite first-hand documentary evidence of it being measured on the ground with surveyor's tape by a senior forestry official (see below). Widespread agreement exists, however, that an exceptionally tall individual was reliably measured at 112.8 metres in 1880 by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at Thorpdale, Victoria (the tree is known both as the Cornthwaite or Thorpdale Tree). When it was felled in 1881, Cornthwaite remeasured it on the ground by chain at 114.3 metres. The stump was commemorated with an insignificant plaque that exists today. That tree was about 1 metre shorter than the world's current tallest living tree, a Coast Redwood, 115.55 metres.
The tallest specimens encountered by early European settlers are now dead as a result of bushfires, logging and advanced age. Few living specimens exceed 90 metres; old records of logged trees make varied claims of extreme heights, but these are difficult to verify today.
Close to doing some grape picking in a week or so at Henty Estates and on my way back tomorrow I'll slip up past the mighty Murray River, which forms the boundary to New South Wales. So that's what the next blog will feature.
Cheers mates!
