Charcoal particles from recent bushfires in NSW were transported 50 kilometres, which has significance for fire history reconstruction.
When ANSTO environmental scientist Dr Craig Woodward noticed large pieces of charcoal on his balcony in the Sutherland Shire at the height of summer bushfires, it piqued his curiosity.
“It is well known among environmental scientists that the presence of large particles of charcoal which we usually find in wetland sediment samples means a local fire, that is, a fire less than 100 metres away,” said Woodward.
In a fast track report for the journal Holocene, Woodward and co-author Dr Heather Haines of the University of New South Wales documented the long-distance transport of this macroscopic charcoal from the large intense fires west of Sydney and its implications for the reconstruction of fire history.
The charcoal particles, which were classified between 2 and 5 centimetres in size after sieving, were being transported approximately 50 kilometres from the fire front to the Sutherland Shire.
Woodward and Haines also found macroscopic charcoal particles on the cliffs above Cronulla beach, where large amounts of charcoal were washing ashore.
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