On December 19 and 20 fire swept through the Gurdies Nature Conservation Reserve, threatening residential and farming properties in the Gurdies and further afield.
Around 192 hectares was burnt including 125 hectares of the reserve and 50 hectares of
the council’s native vegetation reserve. Firefighters managed to save all dwellings,
although sheds and fences were lost.
Around 192 hectares was burnt including 125 hectares of the reserve and 50 hectares of
the council’s native vegetation reserve. Firefighters managed to save all dwellings,
although sheds and fences were lost.
Mike Clarke in the Gurdies Nature Conservation Reserve, April 2025. “Managing fire for people and wildlife is not rocket science, it’s much more complex than that.” By Professor Mike Clark
MOST Victorians recognise that we live in a highly flammable landscape and that was really brought out as the Gurdies fire came close to houses adjacent to the reserve.
Fire has been a part of this landscape for millions of years and we know the general narrative that because of that it bounces back, in some cases pretty quickly. In the Gurdies reserve you can see the resprouting from epicormic buds beneath the bark, doing what comes naturally and there's signs of acacia seeds that have been triggered to germinate by the heat or smoke produced by the fire. Superficially you'd say “Oh well, everything's back to normal again."
MOST Victorians recognise that we live in a highly flammable landscape and that was really brought out as the Gurdies fire came close to houses adjacent to the reserve.
Fire has been a part of this landscape for millions of years and we know the general narrative that because of that it bounces back, in some cases pretty quickly. In the Gurdies reserve you can see the resprouting from epicormic buds beneath the bark, doing what comes naturally and there's signs of acacia seeds that have been triggered to germinate by the heat or smoke produced by the fire. Superficially you'd say “Oh well, everything's back to normal again."
Acacia seedling rises from the ashes in the council offset reserve, April 2025. Photo: Marg Lee
We have this strange relationship with fire in Australia where sometimes we view it through the lens of all fire is bad and must be stopped immediately to “Don't you worry about this, it's all fine. Fire is a natural part of the Australian landscape and she'll be right if you're just a bit patient.” We oscillate between worrying whether we're looking at an ecological disaster or a natural regeneration event.
If we're thinking about a fire like the Gurdies, it's important that we don't view a single fire in isolation but rather as part of what that landscape has experienced over time and space. There are five components of fire that we need to be mindful when we're trying to make an assessment of the impact of the latest fire.
If we're thinking about a fire like the Gurdies, it's important that we don't view a single fire in isolation but rather as part of what that landscape has experienced over time and space. There are five components of fire that we need to be mindful when we're trying to make an assessment of the impact of the latest fire.
- What's the gap between this fire and the previous fire in this landscape? That is, how often are fires happening in this landscape?
- What time of year did this fire occur? Was it in the height of summer, was it in the spring breeding season, flowering season, was it in autumn?
- How hot was the fire? How many layers of the vegetation were harmed during this fire? Did it just consume the ground layer or did it scorch the canopy or did it actually consume the canopy as well?
- How extensive was the fire? Was it all consuming or were there unburnt sections? As we can see in the Gurdies fire a good proportion of the reserve was unburnt.
- How uniform was the fire? Did it burn all layers all through the forest or were there unburnt patches? Were there some parts where the canopy was left green and intact? Were there unburnt refuges or islands within the fire?
Black rock skink, council offset reserve, The Gurdies, January 2025, a month after the bushfire. Photo: Catherine Watson Plants have all these attributes that enable them to regenerate on site. Animals don’t have the capacity to regenerate. If they get through the fire they're going to need to find food. After a fire, animals will be relying on things like hollows for breeding, and deep litter layers for food sources.
If they have the ability to fly or escape the fire, they are going to be waiting to immigrate from unburnt bits back into the landscape to recolonise. A southern brown bandicoot may be able to recolonise the burnt bit once it recovers, but there's a bigger question mark whether any dispersing southern brown bandicoot is going to make it to that reserve without a connecting corridor. So this may become an exclusion zone for bandicoots, because they don't have this dispersal capacity, or the habitat or corridors along which to safely disperse.
If they have the ability to fly or escape the fire, they are going to be waiting to immigrate from unburnt bits back into the landscape to recolonise. A southern brown bandicoot may be able to recolonise the burnt bit once it recovers, but there's a bigger question mark whether any dispersing southern brown bandicoot is going to make it to that reserve without a connecting corridor. So this may become an exclusion zone for bandicoots, because they don't have this dispersal capacity, or the habitat or corridors along which to safely disperse.
 Watch Professor Mike Clarke in conversation with former Bass Coast Mayor Michael Whelan on this VNPA webinar. | There are two broad rationales for adding or keeping fire out of landscape. One is to reduce the hazard, protecting the things that matter to us – human life and property, water, timber, homes, farms, schools, kindergartens. The other common reason we might set fire to a landscape is to foster the ecological health and resilience of that landscape. I've been involved in that down at Wilson's Prom for a number of years. Here we were burning grassland to try and control invasion by coast tea tree. |
If we're going to put fire into a landscape, we need to be really clear about what we’re trying to achieve and whether we’re achieving it. Are we making people safer? Are we actually protecting the assets? And if we're doing it for ecological reasons, is the ecosystem actually benefiting or being harmed from what we're doing?
These are not straightforward questions to answer. A lot of people have been starting to look at some of the places in which hazard reduction burning has been undertaken and beginning to try and unpick how long the hazard reduction is effective.
I went for a wander around the Gurdies and I was curious to see parts of the Gurdies that had been burnt previously in planned burns. On the side of the track that had been burnt there was very dense acacia growth, while on the opposite side of the track, where it had not been burnt, there was much less combustible vegetation. That raises questions for me: did the burn actually achieve what we hoped it would achieve? There’s no question that immediately after the fire the fuel loads will be reduced but unless we're monitoring these things we won't know how long those effects will last.
We also need to be aware of unintended ecological consequences. Our group has been studying cool burns in the box ironbark woodlands. This is a very cool burn just trickling along through the leaf layer.
These are not straightforward questions to answer. A lot of people have been starting to look at some of the places in which hazard reduction burning has been undertaken and beginning to try and unpick how long the hazard reduction is effective.
I went for a wander around the Gurdies and I was curious to see parts of the Gurdies that had been burnt previously in planned burns. On the side of the track that had been burnt there was very dense acacia growth, while on the opposite side of the track, where it had not been burnt, there was much less combustible vegetation. That raises questions for me: did the burn actually achieve what we hoped it would achieve? There’s no question that immediately after the fire the fuel loads will be reduced but unless we're monitoring these things we won't know how long those effects will last.
We also need to be aware of unintended ecological consequences. Our group has been studying cool burns in the box ironbark woodlands. This is a very cool burn just trickling along through the leaf layer.
One of our students has been looking at the yellow footed antechinus which goes in to den logs to hide during the day and to breed. She monitored the impact of cool burns on the den logs of these yellow footed antechinus and brushtail phascogales. Her study showed that a simple cool burn trickling through the understorey caused a loss of 50% of logs in the area and 75% of the large den logs.
So it's crucial when we set fire, or put out a fire, to be clear about what we hope to achieve. We need to monitor the consequences, not assume that it's always doing what we hope it's doing.
How can we help local ecosystems and wildlife recover from wildfires? The research shows feral cats and foxes are really good at sussing out burnt areas and moving into them. They will hammer the wildlife that survived the fire and now has nowhere to hide. The most immediate thing is to nail every feral predator you can. It’s not the most obvious thing to do but it's an opportunity to really go hard on ferals, including deer. That's at the top of my list.
There's a model being put forward of how we understand bushfire spread being likened to four switches. If they're all turned up we've got a really bad fire day. Climate change modellers have been thinking about the effect of climate change on these four switches. With reduced rainfall, we may have more vegetation in some places, less in others. What's certain is that much of it is going to be drier more often under most climate change scenarios. There's uncertainty about whether lightning strikes are going to go up or down but certainly as humans move more into the landscape there'll be more opportunities for ignitions. What's unambiguous is that the number of bad fire days with low humidity, high temperature, high wind strength, is expected to increase. That's what the future looks like for much of south-eastern Australia.
We need to be moving into the best fire management we can. I think it requires great place-based intimate knowledge to move us past desktop management of landscapes. “This is what the GIS layer says, it should be ready for another burn.” That’s where VNPA and the Save Western Port Woodlands group are in a strong position to be the eyes and ears in the parks. You know your patch really well. You have people who can say “Well, actually under climate change this hasn't recovered as fast as everyone assumed it would have. It's been a drought couple of years and burning it now could result in a local extinction.” We need to engage where we can with local fire planners and share that knowledge and we need to be planning for a fiery future.
That means conserving what's left, connecting patches with wildlife corridors, avoiding inappropriate location of housing developments and appreciating this is a shared responsibility. It's not one of those situations where “they ought to do something about it”. In this instance, they is us.
So it's crucial when we set fire, or put out a fire, to be clear about what we hope to achieve. We need to monitor the consequences, not assume that it's always doing what we hope it's doing.
How can we help local ecosystems and wildlife recover from wildfires? The research shows feral cats and foxes are really good at sussing out burnt areas and moving into them. They will hammer the wildlife that survived the fire and now has nowhere to hide. The most immediate thing is to nail every feral predator you can. It’s not the most obvious thing to do but it's an opportunity to really go hard on ferals, including deer. That's at the top of my list.
There's a model being put forward of how we understand bushfire spread being likened to four switches. If they're all turned up we've got a really bad fire day. Climate change modellers have been thinking about the effect of climate change on these four switches. With reduced rainfall, we may have more vegetation in some places, less in others. What's certain is that much of it is going to be drier more often under most climate change scenarios. There's uncertainty about whether lightning strikes are going to go up or down but certainly as humans move more into the landscape there'll be more opportunities for ignitions. What's unambiguous is that the number of bad fire days with low humidity, high temperature, high wind strength, is expected to increase. That's what the future looks like for much of south-eastern Australia.
We need to be moving into the best fire management we can. I think it requires great place-based intimate knowledge to move us past desktop management of landscapes. “This is what the GIS layer says, it should be ready for another burn.” That’s where VNPA and the Save Western Port Woodlands group are in a strong position to be the eyes and ears in the parks. You know your patch really well. You have people who can say “Well, actually under climate change this hasn't recovered as fast as everyone assumed it would have. It's been a drought couple of years and burning it now could result in a local extinction.” We need to engage where we can with local fire planners and share that knowledge and we need to be planning for a fiery future.
That means conserving what's left, connecting patches with wildlife corridors, avoiding inappropriate location of housing developments and appreciating this is a shared responsibility. It's not one of those situations where “they ought to do something about it”. In this instance, they is us.
Mike Clarke is an Emeritus Professor of Zoology at La Trobe University who has led research into the impact of fire on Victorian forests. He is a former board member of Parks Victoria. This is an edited version of his presentation to a recent Victorian National Parks Association webinar on the Gurdies fire. Watch the webinar at https://youtu.be/gyOpXuCKwj0?si=6aZDYvIyek646th2