Fire Management

Fire Management is extremely important to Australia: both environmentally and culturally.

The potentially erratic rainfall, lightening storms, the types of soils, the animals, everything has lead to the vegetation types and adaptations across the continent. This has lead to vegetation that thrives by living and dying with fire. Thick bark, deep roots, serotinous seeding structures, and growth that leads to large litter layers at the end of the wet season- all are characteristics that encourage fire.

But what type of fire?

There are many types of fire and fire uses in land management but, generally, they fall into two categories healthy or out-of-control.

A healthy fire is lower on the heat index. It may blacken the upper most millimeters of soil but it won't damage the roots of plants or the valuable seed bank. It burns low to the ground and under certain conditions, such a change in soil or vegetation type, will put itself out. These fires also don't cover a large area all at once. Instead small patch fires are lit over a series of weeks creating a diverse amount of regrowth across the landscape. This patchwork pattern and doing regular burns prevents small fires from becoming massive bush fires.

An out-of-control bush or wildfire is much bigger then a healthy fire. The area that burns will almost always burn a larger area and the flame will always be taller and hotter. The heat can destroy the roots and seeds of plants making it extremely difficult for native plants to re-establish themselves. This type of fire also will destroy trees and shrubs that are important shelter for wildlife. These are the fires that make headlines, damage human development, and what has scared people away from fire management.

What does this have to do with Culture?

Every Indigenous group in Australia has their own relationship with fire. They each have their own unique stories, rules, practices, and associations with fire.  One rule that does seem to be universal however is: You only burn your county-never the country of someone else. And you only light fire when you have been given that knowledge by the proper people.
This is the transfer of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge based on Customary Law. Fire impacts Indigenous communities in many dimensions: politically, economically, socially, and of course ethically and spiritually.
  The political aspects are beyond the issues of sharing knowledge with land management agencies. Many see continued fire management as one of the essential practices to halt cultural and ecological declines on country.
 Economically impacts are vast on the subsistence economy which is relied on by many Indigenous Australians. Fire results in green grass that attracts animals and helps propagate plants that need fire to produce seeds. This increases the amount of resources on the land and their availability to the community.
Socially, fire used to be used to signal the presence of people on the land. It also showed that those people were looking after or caring for country. It is seen as a positive thing to see plumes of smoke to rise from the horizon and not a threat. 
Ethically and Spiritually: Fire myths and stories do more then teach. They are a tradition that ties people today with their ancestors and creation beings from what some call the "Dreamtime." Without practicing the use of fire in caring for country an essential element of these stories and connection is lost. 

Where is Fire Management Today?
The non-indigenous community perspective on fire is slowly changeing and governmental land agencies are beginning to work with Indigenous communities to learn how to use fire as a tool. As more and more Indigenous communities gain Native Title, Land Rights, or create new types of management agreements they are re-gaining access to their traditional homes and are able to put fire on the land.
This is still one of the most contentious land management issues in Australia but the out look for continued and expanding fire management (traditional or contemporary) is optomistic.

It is something the western United States could highly benefit and learn from.