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Australia's iconic eucalyptus was shipped across the globe. Now, this flammable tree has 'gone feral' (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Portugal, Greece, Spain, Chile, California and now Hawaii have all battled wildfires this year as high temperatures and strong winds have whipped small sparks into violent infernos. But fire needs fuel, and what these places also have in common is an invasive species — Australia's eucalyptus tree.

Exotic souvenir from the south In the early 1800s, the eucalyptus tree was an exotic specimen from the new southern land, and aristocrats, collectors and botanists alike were eager to plant them in gardens around London and Paris.

"All of these things combine to make eucalypt forests particularly flammable parts of the landscape in those environments they've been introduced to," Dr Curran said.

Environmental groups in Portugal have long campaigned against the use of eucalyptus trees in plantations, fearing poor management could increase the fire risk.

"For many Californians, eucalypts are a valued part of the natural landscape, while for others they are a nightmare that fuelled the disastrous 1991 Oakland Hills fire," a study into their impacts on the state read.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

They should just be grateful we sprayed them for dropbears before exporting the eucalyptus.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's interesting is that earlier in my posting session, there was an article about humidity levels changing fire behaviour.

It's nice to blame Eucalyptus but there are other issues afoot as well. Conservative media has a long history of blaming arsonists or the Greens for not backburning rather than the one thing mostly responsible.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Global warming is a hoax, the real threat is global eucalypting

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The great koala conspiracy!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Oh God, please don’t remind of the old Beetroot claiming that somehow the Greens, who have never held power outside of ACT, were responsible for this shit. What a disaster of a human being.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not only super flammable, but will also just fuckin drop a 200kg branch on your head without warning. For fun.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

HEADS UP DICKHEAD

branch plummets into car window

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Perhaps exporting koalas to anywhere with eucalypts could be a solution

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Might be the only way to save them considering the clearing of their native habitat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

when they become pests we at least have another data point to point to where Simpson's Did It rings true again

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The grandest of Aussie pranks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

All great practical jokes involve fire

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Portugal, Greece, Spain, Chile, California and now Hawaii have all battled wildfires this year as high temperatures and strong winds have whipped small sparks into violent infernos.

"This collector-scientist orchestrated and sustained the push, bolstering it with scientific authority: he canvassed colleagues and interested individuals, publishers, politicians, and the public in the benefits of this genus," Doughty wrote.

But Dr Curran is an ecologist — one who conducts experiments on a literal plant barbecue — and he knows the essential oils that give the eucalyptus tree its sharp, antiseptic-like fragrance are also "highly ignitable".

"The second point, and this is probably the more important one in terms of why eucalypts change fire regimes particularly in other parts of the world, is that they produce a lot of flammable material in the leaf litter layer … known as fine fuels."

The year of 2017 saw the worst wildfire ever recorded in Chile, with hundreds of fires converging to burn more than 5,000 square kilometres of land in what the country came to refer to as "tormenta de fuego" — firestorm.

In the United States, the Department of Forestry considers several species of eucalyptus to be naturalised in both California and Hawaii, meaning they can regenerate by themselves and have the ability to spread beyond the areas where they were intentionally planted.

The original article contains 2,052 words, the summary contains 217 words. Saved 89%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!