Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

The aftermath of the Wireless Hill fire

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went to Wireless Hill to check out the damage from a bushfire lit some 24 hours earlier by a firebug.

The damage to the northern slope was substantial. All that remains are the larger plants, the blackboy/balga grass trees, banksia trees, and a few casuarina and eucalypts. They will mostly recover during the coming winter.

However, the undergrowth has completely gone and whatever fauna dwelled there has been obliterated. There will be native seeds and rhizomes making new growth in the winter, but it will be several years before there is a full recovery. Even so, the flora count may be diminished.

We saw several tragic instances of dead bobtail lizards which had been stopped in their tracks by the fire. They were not visibly burnt, but the heat had been too great. It was very sad to see that these harmless creatures had been destroyed.

There was quite a bit of damage to the sandy slope by the four wheel drive vehicles of the firefighters. This damage will need to be repaired with a manual rakeover before the winter rains set in and make the damage permanent.

I've put a folder of photographs I took of the slope yesterday onto my Picasa site. There's also the folder with images of firefighting helicopters at work the previous day. As an aside, I've had emails from three pilots with the company saying how much they enjoyed seeing these images of their activities.

As for yesterday's fire aftermath photos, I've also chosen three for the Panoramio site.

The first is of the southern fireline - the demarcation line that separated unburnt bushland and scorched earth. It can be seen why the blaze two days ago was so ferocious. The undergrowth was thick and dry, and the flammability was enhanced substantially by the cursed South African veldt grass which has defied all attempts at eradication. It will probably reflourish on the burnt out areas.

The second image is a view of the burnt out area facing up the slope.
There are several of these type of images also on the Picasa site.

The third image for Panoramio is a view of Tompkins Park from the slope. The park is from where I took the helicopter and fire photos the previous day. Behind the park is Alfred Cove which is part of the Swan River. Beyond that is the suburb of Attadale where I spent my boyhood, only in those days it was entirely native bushland. Perhaps I should also mention that Tompkins Park was a wetland in those days, but the Melville Council converted it to a garbage dump. Beneath the green grass lies the festering evidence of a significant environmental tragedy.

A major part of the Wireless Hill bush parkland on the southern and eastern sides of the hill were undamaged by this week's fire, but firebugs have got at it in the past.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!