FAQs
- bushfire risk to life, property, cultural and environment assets and values
- fire regimes required to maintain and enhance biodiversity
- management strategies that address highest risks to ensure effort and resources are directed to where bushfires are most likely to cause significant harm
- information gathered through monitoring and evaluation.
What is a fire management plan?
NPWS develops fire management plans to guide strategic activities across the South Australian public lands it manages (parks, reserves and some Crown Land).
They set strategic priorities about where, how, and why we need to undertake risk reduction activities to reduce the risk of bushfire impact and manage the environment. They are informed by the latest technology, evidence and science available alongside expert knowledge.
Fire management planning considers:
Learn more about fire management planning.
How is bushfire risk assessed?
Risk is assessed based on how bushfires might impact what we value: life, property, cultural heritage, and the environment. This is informed through collaboration with key stakeholders, partners and experts to identify assets and values, supported by analysis of fire history, vegetation, threatened species, heritage sites and built infrastructure.
Risk assessments are undertaken in line with national and state guidelines and draw on the best available global, national and local science. They integrate datasets, models and expert knowledge to support decision-making, prioritise areas of highest risk, and identify appropriate fire regimes to maintain and enhance biodiversity.
What is a fire management strategy?
Once we determine the objectives of an area (reduce bushfire risk to life, property or the environment), and identify the fire regimes required to maintain and enhance biodiversity, a strategy will be allocated.
Fire management strategies include fire management zones, fire access tracks, fuel breaks, water infrastructure, partnering with First Nations to manage fire, engagement, and administration.
These strategies are delivered by activities such as prescribed burning, mechanical fuel modification and park closures on heightened fire danger days.
They are designed to reduce bushfire risk, support firefighting efforts, or protect what we value.
All fire management activities are conducted in accordance with the principles and regulations of the Fire and Emergency Services Act 2005, the Native Vegetation Act 1991, and DEW’s Ecological Fire Management Guidelines.
Learn more about fire management strategies.
How is the biodiversity of an area considered?
The ecological process of fire is critical to helping many native plants and animal habitats to regenerate.
Key objectives of this plan are to identify where ecological burns are required to restore and maintain ecosystems for threatened plants and animals, and to reduce the impact of bushfires on environmental assets.
Murray Mallee parks and reserves support the largest remaining corridors of mallee vegetation which stretch across South Australia and Victoria.
These areas provide critical habitat for threatened species, such as mallee and woodland birds, which rely on large or connected habitats to survive and move across the landscape. Large, intense, or too-frequent bushfires pose a major threat to this critical habitat.
Mallee vegetation has developed ways to survive fires and some even grow better after a fire. For example, mallee eucalypts resprout from lignotubers after fire and spinifex (Triodia species) senesce (deteriorate with age) if unburnt for too long.
Spinifex also needs fire to regenerate from seed. Before colonisation, regular fires helped spinifex habitat recover and kept it dense enough for small birds like the striated grasswren (Amytornis striatus) to have habitat they can hide and live in.
Fire is also a valuable tool to manage native vegetation like the common reed (Phragmites australis), which can choke sections along the Murray River and noxious weeds such as noogoora burr (Xanthium strumarium), which out-competes native plants, preventing natural regeneration.
Overall, biodiversity is considered through detailed environmental assessments, undertaken by qualified ecologists that identify plants and animals present in an area, evaluate their fire tolerance and habitat requirements and determine how fire can best support ecosystem health.
This ensures that prescribed burns are planned and timed to maintain or restore native vegetation and degraded habitat, protect threatened species, reduce threats from large or frequent bushfires, and prevent invasive plants from out-competing native biodiversity.
Find out more on the use of fire to help conserve and manage native ecosystems.
