Bold Park Fire Research Site Tour

Biodiversity conservation in Perth’s urban bushlands is very challenging, with land managers aiming to balance the role of fire as a natural disturbance that can stimulate new growth, with the risks of bushfire to both people and fire-sensitive plants. Balancing these responses is complicated by interacting threats from weeds, fragmentation, pests, diseases, feral animals, and general human disturbance to the bushland.

For the past 11 years, the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority (BGPA) and Kings Park Science have been running long-term experiments in Kings Park and Bold Park bushlands to better understand the interactions between fire and weeds and how native plant communities and bushfire fuels respond. A key part of this research is investigating if species and fuel responses change under different fire intervals and what conditions and management actions may lead to ecological restoration or degradation.

BGPA are planning to conduct a 3-ha research burn in Bold Park in spring 2025 to impose a ‘short’ fire interval on a site previously burnt in 2016 as part of this research project. Following our recent Bold Ideas talk on the subject, we'll be taking a short tour of the research site to learn about the research project, and see the results-to-date for ourselves.

Dr Russell Miller is a Research Scientist with DBCA’s Kings Park Science focusing on urban bushland ecology, particularly the interacting effects of fire regimes, weeds, and other disturbances on native plant communities. Russell’s Honours and PhD research investigated the fire ecology of Banksia woodlands on the Swan Coastal Plain, including how key species representing dominant plant functional types responded to the long absence of fire, and varying fire seasonality and fire intervals.

The tour starts at 10am from the carpark on Wollaston Road. Wear closed shoes and dress for the forecast rainy weather.