Yes, our Eucalypts have that very useful facility for producing adventitious
shoots from the trunk. If any green leaves remain alive at the top of the
tree, it won't do this, but if all leaves are killed, then the trunk
produces shoots - if the fire hasn't been hot enough to kill the trunk too.
But that was the case with some of the 1939 fires in Victoria - all trunks
were killed. I recall visiting Mountain Ash forest areas in 1949 when I was
a forestry student. From miles away driving towards them the mountains
looked snow-covered. When we got there, the white colour came from mile
after mile of masses of stark white dead trunks still standing from the '39
fires.
I fear the same will be the case with much of the area burnt now. In time
the forests will grow again, though all the present trees are dead. But the
human tragedy is well nigh incomprehensible. In '39, seventy-one people
died in the fires. This time the local population is much greater than it
was then, and the death-toll horrifically higher. The Australian population
is rallying around with donations to the fund for those who have lost
everything but survived themselves. But nothing can help the hundreds who
have died.
And when we get conditions like they have had, if a fire starts there's
really nothing that can be done about it. Eucalypts have a lot of oil in
their leaves. Get enough heat to evaporate this and you get an explosive
mixture than can ignite a whole valley at a time.
On that student exercise I mentioned, we were shown, in a little sawmilling
community, a fire shelter in the form of a tunnel 50 feet back into the
hillside. The people died inside it!
And at the same time we've had the northern part of Australia with something
like 60% of it flood affected, many coastal north Queensland towns very
seriously so.
What a continent!
Syd
(with the good fortune to be in Brisbane and remote from both.)
> From: "Greg Simmons" <>
> Reply-To:
> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:00:41 -0000
> To:
> Subject: [Nature Recordists] Re: Australian fires
>
> Criminal acts and human tragedy aside, I have often been amazed at how well
> the bushland
> here re-establishes itself after fires. Burnt out tree trunks start sprouting
> fresh new green
> leaves which contrast strongly against the blackend trunks, branches and
> earth. And
> somehow, amazingly, the wildlife often manages to return and 'rebuild'. Not
> always, though.
> Sometimes our recordings are all that will be left...
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