BUSHFIRE SCIENCE INFORMATION REPORT 3: 
WHAT ARE THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN NATIVE FOREST LOGGING AND BUSHFIRES?

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Key Findings

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• Climate, including fire weather, is the primary driver of the incidence and severity of fire. 
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• Native forest logging increases the severity at which forests burn. This is likely because such operations increase the volume of coarse woody debris, and the density of elevated and vertically oriented live fuels. In addition, by opening up the forest canopy, logging operations probably alter microclimate conditions, causing drying of soils and fuel. 
  
  
• In Mountain Ash and Alpine Ash forests, high severity bushfires may be occurring at a frequency greater than the time it takes the canopy tree species to reproduce and this could cause demographic collapse, leading to a transition to a new ecosystem dominated by other species.