Strategic planned burns undertaken by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) in Boodjamulla National Park (Aboriginal Land) successfully prevented the spread of a major multi-state bushfire.
Recent fire scar mapping and analysis has shown that the mosaic burn pattern created by QPWS over the past five years significantly helped reduce impacts from a serious bushfire after it crossed the border from the Northern Territory on 18 September 2023.
The fire had burned more than 1.6 million hectares before reaching Boodjamulla National Park (Aboriginal Land), where it met the strategically managed spinifex fuels and burn scars.
With no more continuous fuel to consume, the fire broke into smaller fragmented fronts and eventually went out of its own accord – impacting only about 3,800 hectares within the park.
These fire scars are the result of 12 years of intensive and strategic annual landscape mosaic burning by QPWS and the Waanyi Traditional Owners.
This change in management in 2012 followed devastating bushfires that ravaged the park historically every five years or so.
Each year, rangers conduct early season landscape-scale aerial burns within the national park, strategically burning to create a pattern of burnt and unburnt areas and a diverse range of spinifex ages. This reduces the scale of any bushfires while promoting and maintaining ecological resilience and diversity.
Thanks to this carefully applied approach, rangers have again assisted in preventing another ecologically destructive bushfire from impacting the national park and its numerous unique cultural and natural values – such as the Riversleigh World Heritage site and habitat for the endangered Carpentarian grasswren.
QPWS Ranger Lea Ezzy said floods and fire – Boodjamulla has seen it all in recent years and still remains an outstanding park with globally-recognised environmental, cultural and scientific value.
“We are still working to recover the park from the severe floods that impacted Lawn Hill Gorge in March 2023, and have thankfully been successful in preventing further damage more recently from the fires,” Ranger Ezzy said.
“Thanks to our enhanced and strategic fire management approach, only a tiny portion of the park was burned.
“Our mitigation work also protected those around us by stopping the fire from entering neighbouring properties, showing just how important our year-round planned burn operations really are.”
QPWS is now preparing planned burn operations in the North West region for next year, and will continue repairing the damage from the March flood, with the hope of re-opening more of Boodjamulla towards the end of 2024.
Visitors are reminded to always check Park Alerts before heading to a national park.
