Learn how bushfire risk will be managed at Glenthorne National Park-Ityamaiitpinna Yarta

With the weath­er heat­ing up and Fire Dan­ger Sea­son now upon us, you may be won­der­ing how bush­fire risk will be man­aged at Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta in the future.

While it’s impor­tant for every­one to have a Bush­fire Sur­vival Plan, pre­pare their prop­er­ties well, and have a plan in place for total fire ban days, Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia (NPWS­SA) is respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing fire risk in nation­al parks across the state.

The NPWS­SA Fire Man­age­ment Team has iden­ti­fied inter­im fire man­age­ment zones for the nation­al park to ensure bush­fire risk is man­aged dur­ing the imple­men­ta­tion phase of the mas­ter plan.

This infor­ma­tion was recent­ly pre­sent­ed at a ses­sion for local res­i­dents run in con­junc­tion with Min­is­ter for Envi­ron­ment and Water David Speirs.

The com­mu­ni­ty infor­ma­tion ses­sion covered:

• an overview of the inter­im fire man­age­ment zones for Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta
• the role of pre­scribed burn­ing, slash­ing and oth­er fuel reduc­tion techniques
• how NPWS­SA works with the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Fire Ser­vice in fire­fight­ing efforts.

Fire man­age­ment zones are informed by a risk assess­ment con­duct­ed by the NPWS­SA Fire Man­age­ment Team and set in accor­dance with the South Aus­tralian Coun­try Fire Ser­vice zone stan­dards. They help define require­ments for fuel or con­ser­va­tion management.

Zones with fuel man­age­ment objec­tives have spe­cif­ic func­tions: to reduce bush­fire risk to life and prop­er­ty, to pro­vide a buffer from bush­fires, or to pro­vide strate­gic sup­pres­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties. At Glen­thorne, the pre­lim­i­nary zon­ing has been iden­ti­fied to pro­tect the safe­ty of the community.

A vari­ety of fire man­age­ment tools will be used to meet the fuel objec­tives of each zone. Pre­scribed burn­ing is just one tool – using the right kind of fire in the right place, at the right time and applied in the right way, to reduce fuel in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly-sen­si­tive way.

Oth­er tools used to lessen bush­fire fuel and con­se­quent­ly bush­fire risk are mod­i­fy­ing veg­e­ta­tion through lop­ping, chip­ping, crush­ing, pil­ing and slash­ing, and tar­get­ing prob­lem woody weeds which con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the over­all fuel hazard.

Down­load a copy of the presentation.

If you have any ques­tions about the inter­im plan, con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice South Australia’s Fire Man­age­ment Team.