So what we’re doing, we’re just sort of letting all the animals know that
there’s fire on country. Just gives them a chance to get out of the way.
You want a fire really just at walking pace. You know, you don’t want a big roaring fire.
We clean around, so we can protect particular trees like this.
This is an animal’s home. You definitely don’t want fire in here.
After this burn here, hopefully we’ll get the native grasses back, and native shrubs that are meant
to be in this particular area, come back as well.
It’s mainly bracken understorey, there’s some Geebungs, some smaller shrubs, but there should be a nice diversity of things.
Whereas it’s mainly bracken.
It likes a hot fire and this has been managed by hot fire.
You look at it now and it’s so sick, it’s not healthy.
And we need to get in and keep going with what we’re doing, to try and reduce that risk of wildfire and get back to healthy country.
We all need the bush, we all need the earth, and that’s what we all are, we’re all linked.
It could take two or three reset burns, to get it back to a state where we can actually put the right fire in, ‘cause it’s so built up with stuff.
The reset burn’s always going to be hotter before the cool burns that we usually do.
This is actually the first time I’m experiencing it, to be honest.
We’ve just got to make sure we have a good eye on it and watch it properly.
For me, being a young fella, learning about this is essential for me, and my culture.
We don’t want to scorch the canopy, that’s like lore of fire.
These are the old parent trees of this country, blackbutt, and bloodwood.
We’ll get some nice plants coming back through here. Good medicine plants and bush foods.
There’s good sandy soil. There’s not much moisture in the soil, ‘cause it’s just been so dry.
But because with this soil, we’ve got a little thatch layer, there’s a little bit of moisture in that.
It won’t get too hot.
We’re just letting it do its own rate of spread.
There’s a lot of fuel load in here, heaps, it hasn’t been burnt for a long time,
so we’ve just got to be patient with it. Yeah, it’s going well.
This bit of land here was burnt yesterday, you can still feel the moisture
under the top layer of burnt fuel, and it acts a native fertiliser.
Over time, that’ll all build up, and become real spongy ground, and healthier soil.
There’s some digs right here,
shows that a little potoroo or bandicoot’s come and had a bit of a dig here, looking for a feed after the fire.
You can see how the seed pods here have cracked open,
you see the black marks where the flames have come over them and warmed them up.
There’s no scorching of the canopies either.
This here burn is a completely different burn to what we do.
This is a Hazard Reduction burn.
It was obviously burnt way too hot, the canopies have been scorched and left a lot of dead leaves on the ground here.
You know, you’re trying to get rid of the fuel,
but you’re still ending up putting fuel back on the ground after a HR burn.
The ground was actually burnt too hot as well.
It’s all been scorched right down to the dirt.
Animals won’t have any food in this area because of how hot it was burnt.
It’s just having respect for all life in the bush.
The old fellas have practised this for thousands of years, and just to be a part of it is a privilege.
It’s connection to Mother Earth, and the healing process, it’s sort of healing me as well.
If you really want to go into it, it’s sort of reaching out to the ancestors,
they’re looking down on us and seeing what we’re doing.
It’s just fantastic to get in and put fire on country.