DARWIN, Australia — When the dry season spreads over the tropical savannas of Australia’s Northern Territory, rangers start watching for the so-called firehawks: flocks of black kites, whistling kites and brown falcons that hunt near bushfires, snapping up small animals flushed out by the smoke and sparks.

If a fire begins to flicker out, locals claim, some of the birds will keep it going by carrying burning sticks to new locations.

“We get a lot of humbug” from the birds, said Robert Redford, a ranger who is an Aboriginal Australian. “We make firebreaks, and sometimes that bird makes another fire and he makes a lot of trouble.”

“He do a lot of damage for us sometimes, and rangers have a hard time firefighting with all that.”

The idea that birds intentionally manipulate fire has long been greeted with skepticism in scientific circles. But a recent paper published in Journal of Ethnobiology gathers reports that all three species do spread wildfires for hunting purposes.