The Parks and Wildlife Service has been developing contingency plans for the protection of high conservation natural values from fire damage in reserves.
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PWS state fire manager Paul Black said there were a number of plans in place.
“The most likely one to succeed at this stage, given the weather conditions at the moment, is down in the Lake Judd area to prevent fire spreading from the Anne Gorge fire to Lake Judd where we’ve got a number of high conservation value species there,” Mr Black said.
On Wednesday the service was planning an operation of putting retardant lines and sprinkler lines in the Mount Anne area to protect natural values and had an aircraft surveying the area to assess the viability of line placements.
“We have a strategic planning team to assess the risk to visitors and natural values in our reserves with the intention of developing contingency plans for those visitors and natural values if they come under threat.”
Mr Black said the fire affected area is quite important from a conservation point of view.
“The Mount Anne area is a bit of a biodiversity hotspot,” Mr Black said.
“Some of the key ones people would be interested in are the Pandani Shelf to the east of Mount Anne itself.
“There are quite large tracks of King Billy forest in that area, some of the tallest King Billy forest left in the state.
“To date they are not currently not under threat.”
University of Tasmania geography professor Jamie Kirkpatrick said the area holds significant species from the Cretaceous period that are fire-sensitive.
“They are part of the outstanding universal significance of the world heritage area,” Professor Kirkpatrick said.
Mr Kirkpatrick said the inquiry into the 2016 fires in the world heritage area recommended that the force of remote area fire fighters be expanded to prevent future losses, however this recommendation has not yet been addressed.
The Nature Photographers Tasmania and Tasmanian National Parks Association have asked the firefighting effort to seek further resources to prioritise the protection of critical wilderness in western Tasmania.
“The wildfire at Mount Anne imminently and directly threatens ancient and irreplaceable Gondwanic plant communities,” the NPT and TNPA said in a statement.
“These communities have not changed appreciably since the end of the Pleistocene Era over 10,000 years ago, and individual trees are well over a thousand years old.
“The loss of this crucial area would be a catastrophe.
“Once burnt such ancient Gondwanan vegetation is gone forever.”