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For thousands of years Aboriginals have been using fire to hunt animals, maintain ecosystems and manage the land. In a practice called Cool Burning, often referred to as Cultural Burning, small blazes are set alight to clear the underbrush. This process generates patchy habitats preferred by small animals and prevents lightning and wildfires from consuming the land.

Unfortunately, with centuries of Euro-Australian suppression of Aboriginal people, the practice of Cool Burning has diminished. Early settlers viewed fire as a threat and were unable to perceive of Cool Burning as a landscape-management practice. This has since exacerbated ecosystem degradation and put much of our land at risk of wildfires. The life severe consequences of this shift in land management became apparent during our recent bushfire season, which consumed more than 18.626 million hectares of land and killed 1.25 billion wild animals. There has since been a surge of interest from farmers, landowners and communities wanting to learn about these traditional burning practices and how they could be implemented nationwide.

The Symbolic Meaning of Fire

For most non-Indigenous, urban and even agricultural people, fire is perceived as a destructive force and considered anti-civilisation. However, fire holds great spiritual meaning in Aboriginal culture, with many stories, memories and dance being passed down around the fire. Fire also connects Indigenous people to the land, with children as young as four learning about the healing powers of fire for the land and it’s symbolic significance in Aboriginal culture.

What are Cool Burns?

The central idea of Cool Burns is fire management using a ‘cool’ fire. Night times and early mornings are ideal for these fires as nightly dew helps cool down the fire and the winds are often gentle. The practice involves lighting low fires in small areas on foot, with matches or, traditionally, with fire sticks. These fires are closely monitored, ensuring that only the underbrush is burnt. Cool Burns not only clear areas of land, they also ensure that seeds and nutrients in the soil are not baked and destroyed. In fact, these fires assist in changing vegetation structures by reducing the density of risk factor plants such as Bracken Fern or Casuarina which lead to extreme fuel loads.