Priority Place Fire Project for Threatened Species Benefits in the MacDonnell Ranges, Northern Territory

The Australian Government funded MacDonnell Ranges Priority Place project aims to improve the condition of the MacDonnell Ranges for the benefit of threatened species through four sub-projects: feral herbivore removal, integrated feral cat management, strategic fire management, and targeted buffel grass management. The Strategic fire management sub-project includes broad-scale aerial burning to protect key threatened species locations and fine-scale on-ground burning to improve habitat condition for the Central Rock-rat. The project has six components: 1) mapping of fire history and analysis of fire behaviour in and around key threatened species locations, 2) fire planning workshops with Traditional Owners and rangers, 3) procurement of key fire equipment and training rangers in fire management, 4) identification of strategic fire breaks and areas for fine-scale burning, 5) implementation of aerial and ground-based burns with key stakeholders, including Traditional Owners, 6) management burn mapping and reporting.
Strategic fire management outcomes: The desktop component of this sub-project will deliver a range of fire metrics (e.g. fire frequency, wildfire frequency, fuel age, fire patchiness assessment, fire size distribution analysis) for use in fire planning for conservation across the region. Landscape-scale burning will be applied to provide wildfire protection for threatened species hotspots (see Targeted buffel grass management below). Fine-scale burning will be applied to Central Rock-rat habitat and other threatened species habitat where increasing vegetation heterogeneity will improve habitat condition.
The fire component requires expertise in fire mapping and Traditional Owner and land manager fire workshopping at various stages of the two year project.