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Reply to: Logging elevated the probability of high-severity fire in the 2019–20 Australian forest fires

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 536–539 (2022)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 14 April 2022

replying to D. B. Lindenmayer et al. Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01716-z (2022)

The 2019–20 Australian bushfires are of enormous global significance, illuminating how climate change and landscape fire interact1,2,3,4. There is now broad scientific consensus that these fires were the direct result of anomalous climatic conditions, including intense drought and hot dry conditions with recurrent episodes of dangerous fire weather all driven by anthropogenic climate change1,4. Neither published empirical research nor state and federal government inquiries made a link between the 2019–20 fires and forestry practices5. For instance, a broadscale analysis of fire-severity mapping of forests across land tenures in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia burned in 2019–20 (~4.1 Mha) found no clear differences in the proportion of high or extreme fire severities between native forests in National Parks (54.5% of the area burned) and those in public forests available for timber production and privately owned forests (43.2% of the area burned)6. Lindenmayer et al.7, nonetheless, argued that “logged areas were more severely impacted and caused the fires to be more difficult to control” and hence “to safeguard Australia from future catastrophic fires” native forest logging should be minimized.

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Fig. 1: Relative canopy damage probability for undisturbed and harvested forests under different fire weather conditions in eastern Australia.
Fig. 2: Relationship between forest management, fire runs and the development of PyroCb events and during the 2019–20 Australian bushfires.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. McRae, Australian Capital Territory Emergency Services Agency, for the provision of the fire run data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia

    David M. J. S. Bowman & Grant J. Williamson

  2. NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

    David M. J. S. Bowman, Grant J. Williamson & Ross A. Bradstock

  3. Science, Economics and Insights Division, Department of Planning and Environment, Alstonville, New South Wales, Australia

    Rebecca K. Gibson

  4. Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfire, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

    Ross A. Bradstock

  5. School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Rodney J. Keenan

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  1. David M. J. S. Bowman
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  4. Ross A. Bradstock
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  5. Rodney J. Keenan
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Contributions

D.M.J.S.B. conceptualized the analysis and led the writing. G.J.W. analysed the data, produced the visualization and contributed to the writing. R.K.G., R.A.B. and R.J.K. contributed to the writing and analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David M. J. S. Bowman.

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Competing interests

R.J.K. serves as a member of Vicforests Science Committee. The remaining authors have no competing interests.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Bowman, D.M.J.S., Williamson, G.J., Gibson, R.K. et al. Reply to: Logging elevated the probability of high-severity fire in the 2019–20 Australian forest fires. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 536–539 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01716-z

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