Dambimangari Fire Project 2023-24

OUR RANGER TEAM

• 6 Full time
• 6 Casual
• Men/Woman
• Working both Land/Sea

On this map you can see

• Green lines is the flight path from IMO burning
• Black is early dry season fire
• Orange is late season fire

2023 Was a Hard year

• 79% of Yampi burnt in 2023. However, rate of late season fires still decreasing.
• 42.9% burnt in late season, and 31.1% of Yampi burnt in early season.
• Late rain grew the grass back on the firescars, and meant many scars were not able to stop fires in late season.

• 32.2% of Dambi burnt in 2023 and was not as heavily impacted as other areas in the Kimberley.
• 24.8% burnt in the early season and 7.5% burnt late. The amount of unburnt country remains high at 67.8%.
• Most of northern Dambi country had more consistent rain with storm weather, and fires/high humidity put many fires out.

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Fire Seasonality – more early, less late

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Fire frequency – Country burning less often

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Looking back - what’s changed in the long term

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Wildfire extent – not cooking as much Country

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Distance to old vegetation – shelter for culturally important animals

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Looking back - what’s changed in the long term

ISLANDS SAVED BECAUSE RANGERS DOING FIRES THE RIGHT WAY LOOKING AFTER COUNTRY

• Purple is lightning strike
• Green early season burn
• The work in the to early season burns the island was not completely lost to fire

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Augustus Island

2024 Planning With 3D map

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• Wind/Weather
• Fire Danger Scale
• Lightning Strikes
• Wind Direction
• Flight lines

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• We drafted the burn lines on QGIS together

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We looked at

Last year’s scars

Fuel age

Vegetation

Landscape - rivers, ranges, coastline

Timing

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We put the lines on , used the fire sim, fine tweaking

Here is a Example

• 38 fires across Dambi country (12 fires on Yampi, 26 fires on Dambi) in 2023.
• 5 fires responded to on Dambi country (4 fires responded to on Yampi, 2 fires responded to on Dambi) in 2023.
• 60 ranger days spent on fire work in 2023!
• 51 ranger days putting in early dry season ground burns and aerial incendiary lines on Dambi country with AWC. 33 person days ground burning, 18 person days doing aerial incendiary burning.
• 9 partner days undertaking reconnaissance and backburns during late dry season fire suppression activities.

2023 Fire season recap

Our 2024 Predictons In Dambi Country Fire Season

• LOW RAINFALL
• MORE WORK TO PUT IN FOR 2024 SEASON

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