Mt. Difficult Fire - Grampians National Park 1999
Mt Difficult fire - photographs
Summary of major bushfires in Victoria
How did the fire start?
| A lightning strike in a remote part of the Grampians National Park caused the fire that was first detected at 8:20 pm on Tuesday the 5th of January 1999. It was one of four lightning caused fires detected in the Horsham Fire District that day. Such fires are not unusual in the Australian environment. In fact during an average year approximately one third of Victoria’s bushfires, or around 160 fires, caused by lightning will burn approximately 49,500 hectares. Lightning is the greatest single cause of forest fires throughout Australia. Where did the fire burn? Tuesday 5th On the evening of Tuesday January 5, the fire which at that stage was small in size, was located on the Mount Difficult escarpment. Crew in an aircraft from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (now DSE) located the fire about five kilometres west of Dadswell’s Bridge and one kilometre north of Troupers Creek camping ground in the Northern Grampians. |  |  |
Due to the timing of the discovery and the failing light, it was not possible to carry out aerial attack with firebomber aircraft or to transport firefighting crews by helicopter into the remote area that night. Firefighters did attempt to walk to the fire. However, due to safety reasons, the crew members were forced to return to Roses Gap at around 3am on Wednesday morning.
Wednesday 6th
At first light on Wednesday January 6, aerial firebombing of the fire began, as did the deployment of firefighters by helicopter.
Fire bombing and the construction of hand trails continued during the day, in what is very mountainous and rocky terrain. A bulldozer also started moving towards the fire from a road some distance away.
Late on Wednesday, very strong winds from the south-east developed and the fire then spread very rapidly. It spread into the tops of trees, burning fiercely. Later that evening the fire left the park boundary and started to burn private property to the north-west. Firefighting strategies now concentrated on asset protection, with back burning and bulldozer lines planned for the south west and north west sectors. That night the crew of an NRE ‘linescan’ aircraft that was using infra-red technology to map the fire reported that the convection column above the fire was varying between 10 000 and 15 000 feet.
Thursday 7th
By Thursday January 7, two days after the fire had begun, smoke from the fire was reported as having reached Adelaide. The fire had crossed the park boundary into private property in the north and west of the park and control lines in the private property were holding. In the park the fire was still moving in a north-westerly direction. The wind was coming from the south east, with some light rain falling on the southern end of the fire. The rain was having little effect. By this stage the fire was 5 km x 9 km in size and continued to be fought in difficult terrain. Hand trails and bulldozer lines were in place along the eastern flank of the park and along Roses Gap Road. Work was also being carried out on the western side of the park, where two kilometres of hand trails had been established. There was some concern that a wind change to the north could effect these lines.
The overcast conditions and light rain early on Thursday hampered firefighting, as aircraft were unable to be activated until weather conditions improved. Natural Resources and Environment, Parks Victoria and CFA firefighters undertook direct attack on the fire wherever possible. The priority continued to be to control the fire and make sure there were no smouldering embers near its edges before the onset of predicted hot, dry conditions.
Friday 8th
By Friday January 8 the control line around the fires 40km perimeter was close to being secure. Only 3 km of fireline remained to be constructed in the difficult terrain around Mt Staplyton in the north east and a small section in the south western corner near Smiths Road. Resources on line at this stage included 250 firefighters (from Natural Resources and Environment, Parks Victoria and CFA), 10 bulldozers and eight aircraft. Later on that afternoon back burning was undertaken to burn out areas of about 600 hectares between the fire’s edge and the control lines.
Tuesday 9th
By the time the fire was contained on January 9, it had burnt approximately 5,500 hectares of the Grampians National Park and approximately 1,500 hectares of private property. Backburning had been successful and blacking out along the fire’s edge continued.
Who was involved in fighting the fire?
At the height of the fire on January 7, the rapid movement and the deployment into a remote, difficult and challenging situation, of over 500 NRE, Parks Victoria and CFA personal had been carried out. These firefighters were ferried from centres as widespread as Portland, Broadford, Mansfield, Alexandra, Bairnsdale, Traralgon, Erica and Nowa Nowa. Eight aircraft, including the Erikson S64F Aircrane, 40 tankers and 10 bulldozers were also deployed.
A specialist fire behaviour and weather team was also on site to assess the moisture content of ground fuel levels and to provide up to the minute advice on local weather conditions.
Feeding all the firefighters
A base camp was established at the small settlement of Laharum, where over 500 firefighters were fed and rested. The challenge of providing meals resulted in more than 400 steaks, 50 kilograms of potatoes, 30 dozen eggs, 30 kilograms of bacon, 700 filled rolls, 1,000 muesli bars, 18 kilograms of frozen vegetables and 2,000 litres of bottled water consumed daily.
Firefighting strategies
The type of fire fighting commonly conducted in remote country such as the Grampians National Park is termed ‘dry firefighting’. Firefighters construct bare earth control lines using modified rakes, called rakehoes, ahead of the advancing fire. Bulldozers are also used to clear breaks ahead of the fire. These mineral earth breaks serve two purposes. Firstly they removed vegetation and fuel ahead of the fire, and therefore reduce the ability of the fire to spread. Secondly mineral earth tracks are established so that backburning operations can be conducted. This is where a fire is lit to burn from the track, back towards the main fire. By removing the fuel ahead of main fire front, there is little fuel for the fire to burn and hence its ability to spread is reduced and fire fighting operations become easier.
Bulldozers and tankers on the less steep land supported the firefighters that constructed the rake-hoe trails along the Mt. Difficult escarpment. This was done in an attempt to minimise the extent of damage to the park and to the adjoining freehold land.
Aircraft were used in a variety of roles in suppressing the fire. Fixed wing aircraft were used to directly bomb the fire with fire retardant or foam. This is done to slow the spread of the fire, and to help protect the firefighters. Helicopters were used to ferry firefighters into remote locations that were inaccessible by vehicle. They were also used to drop foam or water on the fire.
A Forward Looking InfraRed (FLIR) unit was used to plot and map the fire edge and fire spread. It was also used to look for "hot spots" and to direct fire bombing operations. FLIR can detect temperature differences on the ground as low as 0.2oC. It was used to provide information to ground crews about sensitive areas of the fire. The information is recorded on a video monitor in a helicopter, collated in the air and relayed to the ground crews who can locate and work on the remaining hot spots.
The Erikson S64F Air-crane, which is capable of carrying 9 000 litres of water or retardant mixture, and seven other aircraft working on the fire, worked as a fully integrated firefighting squadron to support the ground forces.
Was anyone threatened or property burnt?
The Grampians National Park fire burnt approximately 1,500 hectares of private property. Losses on private land included a significant section of a 300-hectare mature olive grove, part of a thryptamine flower farm and a pine shelter belt of 300 hectares. Three holiday shacks in the Laharum vicinity, five sheds, some small outbuildings and a small sawmill were also lost.
Holiday makers were advised to temporarily relocate from Roses Gap. Campers and hikers in the north and west of the Park were also removed from the area. Visitors were excluded from all areas of the park north of the Zumstein-Halls Gap Road. The Mount Zero camping sites in the Troupers picnic ground-Golten Gorge, Hollow Mountain, Mt Zero and Mt Staplyton were also closed for a short period of time.
Monitoring weather
The Bureau of Meteorology is responsible for providing warnings of dangerous weather to the Australian community, with the aim of minimising weather related injury and damage. The small areas and time scales in which severe storms often occur make them difficult to monitor and predict. The Bureau utilises satellite pictures, radar and ground based observations, together with computer models to predict weather outcomes.
The basic information used by the Bureau for weather forecasts is obtained from instrument readings at observing stations. As the observations arrive at regional locations, they are decoded and plotted onto a large chart in pictorial form.
Severe thunderstorms can occur throughout the year, but most occur between September and March when the supply of solar energy is greatest.
Every flash of lightning acts as a radio transmitter, sending out a noisy radio signal for about one-second. A system of sensors can pinpoint 90% of lightning strikes in south eastern Australia within a few seconds and tell researches at Ourimbah, New South Wales, where they hit. Six sensors detect the electrical field produced by lightning and emit signals to warn the Bureau, the aviation industry, electrical supply companies and fire authorities of approaching trouble. The system cannot however predict exactly where the next bolt will strike.
Grampians National Park
The Grampians National Park is managed by Parks Victoria and is one of the State’s most popular holiday destinations in Victoria, with over 800,000 visitors annually. Grampians National Park was made a National Park in 1984. The park is very popular for bushwalking, fishing, rock climbing, abseiling and camping. The park is approximately 167,000 hectares in size. The area burnt (5,500 hectares) represents 3% the total area of park.
The park contains over 800 indigenous plant species, or almost a third of Victoria’s plant species. Several of these species rely on fire for survival and propagation. Twenty of the species, including the Grampians Gum and the Grampians Parrot-pea, are found nowhere else in the world.
Plant communities range from fern gullies, to Stringybark forests and Red Gum woodlands in the Victoria Valley, to stunted heaths on the Major Mitchell Plateau. Fire plays a major role in the ecology of the Grampians' vegetation and fauna.
Over 40 species of mammal have been recorded in the park. These include kangaroos, possums, gliders, echidnas and koalas. The park also supports populations of endangered Red-Necked Wallabies, Grey Kangaroos, a colony of Brush-tailed Rock Wallabies, and a growing population of Swamp Wallabies. The park is particularly important for its abundance of bird species.
The low open shrubby woodlands in the park support many nectar-feeding birds and the tall open forests are important for hollow-dependent species such as the Powerful Owl. Large populations of emus are also found throughout the lowland areas.
Most of the species of plants and animals that live in the Grampians have evolved, over many thousands of years, to cope with stresses such as fire and drought. Park managers will closely monitor the burnt area over the next few years, as it slowly recovers.
More information on the Grampians National Park can be found on the Parks Victoria website.