Is Queensland's rainforest burning?

Binna Burra Lodge's Steve Noakes

The transcript of my story in The Weekend Australian, 28-29 September, 2019. Link to published version.

False alarm: the great rainforest fire that wasn't.

A frightening image. Pristine rainforest that has not burned for millions of years is ablaze as bushfires of unprecedented intensity roar through the hinterland of south-east Queensland. It's difficult to imagine a more graphic illustration of the consequences of climate change. That is what was widely portrayed during the region's fire emergency earlier this month. The only problem is, it didn't happen.

The destruction of ancient World Heritage-listed Gondwana subtropical and temperate rainforests by fire was reported unequivocally as fact. Guardian Australia proclaimed in a headline: “Like nothing we've seen: Queensland bushfires tear through rainforest.” The landscape of Lamington National Park surrounding the historic Binna Burra Lodge, which was destroyed in the fires, was “blackened remnants of what used to be lush rainforest”, reported the Australian Associated Press in a story carried by multiple news outlets.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is working on its sixth assessment report. Australian climate scientist Joëlle Gergis, a lead author of the report, declared: “What I find particularly disturbing is that World Heritage rainforest is burning. It has been hard to watch news coverage of these exceptionally rare rainforests burning…. the potential loss of these areas is something I never thought I would witness in my lifetime.”

Satellite imagery showing dry rainforest areas burning on the edge of Lamington National Park

Social media lit up with expressions of despair about the rainforest losses. Typical of the angst was a tweet on Twitter insisting that any journalist interviewing the Prime Minister who failed to question the climate implications of Queensland rainforests burning “isn't doing their f...ing job”.

But the Gondwana rainforests, those priceless relics of times long gone, did not burn. No news coverage showed rainforest burning. The 20,600ha Lamington National Park in Queensland and the adjoining 31,700ha Border Ranges National Park in NSW encompass the largest expanse of subtropical rainforest in the world. As on countless occasions over the centuries, fire raging in surrounding eucalypt woodland did not destroy the rainforest.

To be sure, bushfires of such intensity in the region are unusual, especially in early spring; 16 homes were lost in southern Queensland. Unlike south-east Australia with its hot and dry summers, the subtropics are usually afforded a degree of protection by high humidity, an absence of prolonged periods of scorching temperatures, and generous rainfall which - as in much of the country - has been in short supply lately.

Binna Burra Lodge is not encircled by rainforest, as was claimed repeatedly. The lodge is surrounded on three sides by eucalypt woodland; it came close to being lost when a control burn 20 years ago got away. On this occasion, explains Binna Burra chairman Steven Noakes: “The fire went tearing up a steep slope through eucalypt woodland and we're perched on a ridge at the top. With those winds there was nothing we could do.” A camping ground and tea-house that adjoin rainforest survived the inferno; flames did not extend beyond the lodge into rainforest.

A few kilometres across Lamington National Park from Binna Burra, O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat was evacuated during the fire emergency. Unlike Binna Burra, O'Reilly's is surrounded entirely by rainforest. O'Reilly's manager, Shane O'Reilly, says there was no need for evacuation; the nearest fires were 15km away: “The rainforest here doesn't burn. It was pretty much eucalypt country that burned... There's a lot of emotion surrounding this. A story is being propagated that it's more of an issue about rainforest than it is.” O'Reilly adds that an international scientific symposium at the lodge in 2011 heard the rainforest had not burned for at least three million years.

Patrick Norman, a Griffith University PhD student and former Lamington park ranger, has analysed satellite data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite over burnt forest. The images indicate about 400ha of rainforest burned, but this was primarily dry rainforest at lower altitudes known as vine scrub. Burned areas also included wet scleropyll, a forest type comprised of tall eucalypts with some rainforest plants.

Says Norman: “Drawing a line between rainforest and wet sclerophyll is a tricky task. By and large, the rainforest that burned was on the drier end of the spectrum. I am quite confident no warm or cool temperate rainforest was burned.” The affected dry rainforest mostly burned lightly, with the ground layer impacted. Norman cautions that if the forests burn again in the foreseeable future there could be more serious impacts.

Burnt dry rainforest, Lamington National Park- Pic Patrick Norman

Kaye Healing, the Queensland Rural Fire Service acting South-East regional manager, played a central role in fighting the fires, which continue to smoulder. Healing says while fires “burn crazily” through eucalypt woodland, they tend to “walk through” vine scrub and wet sclerophyll forest. Says Healing: “When it gets to true rainforest, the fire self-extinguishes. You've got a closed canopy in true rainforest and it holds moisture. The rainforest is not on fire. The fire is in dry eucalypt forest and woodland.”

Healing says similar conditions were experienced before, for instance in the early-1990s: “I'm not going to get into a climate change conversation but climate varies between floods and drought in this country and historical records show that.”

Claims about Australian rainforest burning for the first time also circulated late last year when 121,000ha of land around Eungella National Park near Mackay were scorched. At the time, the ABC published a photograph of a fire-stricken area; the caption said it had been a “rich green subtropical rainforest”. Although it was pointed out that the area had in fact been grassland and shrubs, the captioned photograph remains on ABC websites. 

The wrongly captioned photograph at Eungella

The ABC reported that Eungella rainforests were reduced to cinders and would take hundreds of years to recover. Rural Fire Service manager for the Mackay region, Andrew Houley, a former forester, says rainforest that burned around Eungella was largely regrowth on cleared land. Recent images show tree ferns and some other rainforest plants regrowing. 

However, the heat was so intense that about 10-15m of the edge of pristine rainforest in places was destroyed before the fires stopped. Houley adds: “Headlines say the fires are once in a lifetime but these weather patterns affect us every 25 years or so.”

Tree ferns regenerating at Eungella - Pic Rosanne Houley

A crisis facing rainforest is underway not in Australia but in south-east Asia, the Amazon Basin and central Africa. Huge tracts of forest are being intensively logged or bulldozed for livestock or crops. Extensively damaged rainforest remnants and felled trees are then burned. In some countries, such as Indonesia, sound environmental laws are in place but are largely unenforced or ignored. In others, like Brazil, governments are unapologetically pursuing polices to develop rainforest. Australia is fortunate that its World Heritage rainforests are standing tall. 

Rainforest under attack in Africa's Congo Basin