After the Australian bushfires

Bushfires have roared through enormous parts of Australia tragically taking lives, destroying homes & property and burning millions of hectares of bushland.
I take a look at how the bush recovers after a major fire event and discuss what the future may hold for our bushland.
#australiaburning #australiafires #bushfiresaustralia #nativeplants #climatechange
Footnote -
Hi folks,
Just to let you know that owing to trolls, the self-righteous opinionated types & those out there with no personal filters I do screen all comments before they are posted against my videos.
I will generally even allow critical comments through provided they are not vulgar or offensive and, if they claim to be talking about 'facts', that they actually substantiate the facts they are putting forwards.
If they do not do so it really is just trolling isn't it?
Anyhews... a comment from a viewer, which did not make it through due to offensive language and rather sketchy claims, related to a point that a new generation of 'deniers' seem to be peddling - the '19-'20 bushfires in Australia were not as bad as has been reported and that previous fires, particularly those of 1974, were of greater size.
I'd like to just talk to these comments with some actual facts...
Namely, the size...
The fires of the '19-'20 'Black Summer' season have burnt an estimated 186,000sq kilometres of land.
The 1974 fires burnt an estimated 117,000sq kilometres of land.
If we want to talk size then the '19-'20 season burnt 59% more land. Period.
However... it is not just size that must be discussed.
Most of the '19-'20 fires occured in woodland and forest.
The 1974 fires were mainly grassland fires in farming, arid & semi-arid areas. Many of these fires were in areas so remote and uninhabited that they were only noticed months afterwards from satellite and aerial photographs.
The damage caused, the biomass lost and the ecosystems destroyed in woodland Vs grassland fires are dramatically different so even if the '74 fires had been larger in square kilometres the damage done is nowhere near comparable.
You need to compare apples to apples peeps.
The Black Summer season was the longest on record, it started earlier and burnt through land not normally considered fireprone, such as rainforests. It happened with a background of extraordinarily low available moisture, drought and record high temperatures coming with increasing average temperatures.
The '19-'20 season also took 33 lives, well over 2,500 homes and countless billions of animals.
In-short - I really don't understand the point of the 'deny all facts' mob. What is their point? What is driving their agenda? Who is driving their agenda?
There's a great saying 'Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts...' and that seems to be the problem - too many people now feel that their opinion or the opinions of others are actually facts and that real facts can be treated dismissively as if they were opinions.
Anyhews... rant over but this article from Psychology Today makes for interesting reading about the reality of 'deniers'. Short version is that there are basically three main types of deniers;
- Those propagating their opinions as 'motivated interference' because they have financial or political reasons for doing so.
- Those being manipulated by this first group (who are often also part of the third group).
- Those who are incapable of accepting the enormity of a fact and of reality so they retreat into an often complex world of denial which can involve all manner of complicated conspiracy theories etc.
You can read the article yourself here
www.psychologytoday.com/au/bl...
Thanks for reading & stay safe.

[@TheBarefootedGardener]

Hey Adam,
Adaptation is amazing. I’ve heard that dealing with forest debris during winter through controlled burns and composting will help? I saw a video from Geoff Lawton who had a few tips for fire suppression. How do those tropical bamboos hold up to fire? I’m glad you’re okay and all the other aussies I know are also okay. I’ll pray for everyone who didn’t fare so well.

[@AdamHWoodhams]

It really is very clever how these things have evolved.
Yes, it's a very complicated issue that unfortunately some people are attempting to simplify so that it suits their 'agenda' whatever that may happen to be.
Typically 'hazard reduction burns' have been conducted during winter in critical areas. Problem is our temperatures have been rising so steadily that the allowable or safe windows for burning have been getting smaller every year.
Then we have been suffering with pretty serious droughts so softer plants, grasses etc. have been killed, or at least have died back, and other plants, like gum trees, respond to drought by dropping 70% or more of their leaves and will start dropping branches too. This obviously increases the amount of available fuel.
So, you have hot conditions, increased fuel loads, super-dry fuel, an extremely dry environment... Basically the ideal conditions for catastrophic fires. Which is exactly what we got & is exactly the scenario experts have been warning about for a long time.
Hazard reduction burns can be very effective but when its to hot & dry they can go rogue. One recent major fire near the city of Sydney was in-fact started by a hazard reduction burn...
It's a really vexed issue to which there are no simple or easy answers. First step is to get our 'leaders' to admit that we do have a major problem.
Thanks, I might look that video up.
Bamboos tend to burn back very quickly & fiercely, largely due to the leaf-litter they can collect around their bases, but most often they'll reshoot from their rhizomes.
Yes, thanks. It's been pretty scary all-round. Just a heartbreaking loss of life, including your US air crew. Tragic & deeply mourned by grateful Aussies.
And so many people have lost absolutely everything. Just very hard to comprehend what that must be like. When you see someone being interviewed on the TV news & the clothes they are wearing are all they have left...
I just hope this whole horrible situation unites us all in concerted action rather than serving to further divide us.

[@DbateDe]

Hi Adam, I am an intern at a German TV production company (ECO Media TV) and I would be interested in using parts of this video in an online documentary about the Australian bushfires. Would you be OK with that? Best, Nicola

[@AdamHWoodhams]

Hi Nicola, thanks for your interest & yes, we'll chat off-channel.