Experts say fires like those that continue to ravage Tasmanian forests, and look set to burn for days or weeks to come, could be the ‘new normal’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A national inquiry into the fires devastating world heritage forests in Tasmania is urgently needed, say conservationists and academics. The call comes as experts say fires like those could be the new normal.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has called for the public inquiry as dozens of fires continue to ravage the world heritage forests and look set to burn for days or weeks to come.

“We need to ask whether or not Parks and Wildlife have adequate resources to implement a policy of actively fighting … remote area fires, especially in sensitive alpine areas,” said Jess Abrahams, an ACF campaigner.

World heritage forests burn as global tragedy unfolds in Tasmania Read more

He said fire services did an exceptional job but an inquiry was needed to look into the policies that should exist around fighting fires in remote areas and the resources that would be needed to implement them.

David Bowman from the University of Tasmania agreed an inquiry was required.

“It’s critical,” he told Guardian Australia. He said it was important that it not seek to lay blame on anyone because the current situation was “unprecedented” and could not have been predicted.

When asked whether there would be an inquiry the Tasmanian premier, Will Hodgman, told reporters yesterday there would be “an assessment” with peer reviews done by experts from interstate.

Tasmania bushfires leave world heritage area devastated – in pictures Read more

Dozens of fires were still burning inside the world heritage forests in Tasmania, according to the Tasmanian Fire Service.

Bowman said they could continue to burn for 10 or 20 more days and were likely to be made worse by dry and warm conditions that are forecast as a high-pressure system moves through Tasmania.

Bowman said without investing in research, it was impossible to know what might have been done to avoid the devastation occurring now.

“These fires are really interesting,” he said. “They’re basically unfought and free-flowing over a landscape. Trying to reconstruct them would ... reveal clues about what sort of management would work.”

Bowman said an inquiry should examine whether controlled burning, fire breaks or roading might help. “And getting the expert firefighters to reflect on whether they could do more if they had a bigger budget.”

But right now there was almost nothing that firefighters could do, Bowman said. Many of the fires were burning in peat, which happens underground, making backburning impossible.

“You’d have to bulldoze strips in the soil but it’s a world heritage area,” Bowman said. “If there was something simple that could be done, it would be done.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation said the inquiry should look not just into fire-fighting strategies, but also into the role of climate change in the fires, which experts say was likely to be a cause.

These fires were started by an unusual number of lightning strikes, something that could increase as a result of climate change.

And the dry conditions that led to the fires were also expected to be made more likely as a result of climate change, said Michael Grose from the CSIRO, who conducted a major study into the future climate of Tasmania. “Hotter temperatures, reduced rainfall in key seasons [and] worse fire weather, are all consistent with what is projected with climate change, particularly under a high-emission scenario,” he told Guardian Australia.

“I’m almost certain this is the new normal,” Bowman said.