Fire in the Marshes

Fire is an element that’s shaped the Australian landscape for thousands of years – a tool of management used by nature and humans. Phragmites reedbeds of the Macquarie Marshes become tinder during dry periods, and long, hot summers also marked by dry storms - thunder panning and lightning arcing across the skies. It only takes one strike for a fire to take hold, smoldering until the flames gain energy. On a Saturday afternoon in late October 2019, a fire raged across the Northern Nature Reserve of the Marshes, burning 3,000 hectares before being brought under control the following morning. If there’s follow-up rain or sub-surface moisture, the reeds will come back. Some of the old River Red Gums flanking the reed beds weren’t so lucky – it’d been one drought too many for them. Duration 06’10”

Soundscape created and edited by Kim V. Goldsmith