15 August 2007

Kimberley fires

From ABC News

Authorities are monitoring a total of seven bushfires burning across national parks and reserves in the Kimberley in northern Western Australia.

The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) says the outbreaks are in inaccessible terrain and likely to burn for several weeks, until they reach low-fuel areas.

It is understood all of the fires have been deliberately lit.

Heavy smoke from one of the outbreaks, in the Yampi Field Training Area, led to the cancellation of tours to the popular Horizontal Waterfalls on the weekend.

Ed Hatherley from the DEC says the fires do not pose a threat to private property, but may damage the environment.

"What we're concerned about is the impact on the biodiversity of the region. The late, hot dry season fires are more extensive and they consume a lot more of the vegetative matter and habitat," he said.

This area has been quite active as of late and fires have been burning in the area for some time. Some of them have been quite large (see discussions here and image here).

Current (at time of this post!) NAFI hotspot image from the Kimberley shown below. At noted earlier many of these fires have been previously identified.



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