Assessing changes in high-intensity fire events in south-eastern Australia using Fourier Transform Infra-red (FITR) spectroscopy

Background

As fire regimes continue to evolve in response to climate change, understanding how fire characteristics have responded to changes in the recent past is vital to inform predictions of future fire events.

Aims and methods

Using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, we assessed how fire intensity has changed in two fire-prone landscapes in south-eastern Australia: (1) the Blue Mountains; and (2) Namadgi National Park during the past 3000 years.

Key results

Higher aromatic/aliphatic ratios suggest increased high-intensity fire frequency in sediments at the surface of both cores. Increases in the frequency of extreme drought periods, coupled with the change in vegetation and anthropogenic ignitions following colonisation, could have increased the frequency of high-intensity fires in the past ~200 years.

Conclusions

FTIR spectroscopy can be used in sediment deposits to infer that the frequency of high-intensity fire events has increased in the past 200 years compared to the previous ~3000 years.

Implications

These results are important for understanding how past fire regimes have responded to climate, people and vegetation shifts in the past ~3000 years and can be used to inform models for future predictions and management strategies.