The book is A Future in Flames, the story of bushfires in Australia, but the story of bushfires

everywhere, if you consider the threat to arable land, to people, to wildlife, to ecosystems,

and yet not a threat, because it, as we've've established it is part of a continent a part of

nature we come now to the question of what burns in my conversation with you about the

koala I learned that eucalyptus is a torch when it's hit by fire because of the eucalyptus oil and burns very quickly

and then blows through there's another tree that also you write about the mountain ash and that

tree the ash forests of australia both the eucalyptus and the Mount Nash regenerate very quickly is

that correct Danielle yeah so Mount Nash is a eucalypt as well it's it's actually

the largest of all the eucalypts and the largest hardwood in the in the world

it's as tall if if not possibly taller in the past than the redwoods

California and the eucalypts are what we call a fire adapted group of plants so they're

drought adapted and those drought adaptations have happened to have made them resilient in the

generally in the face of fire.

So they regenerate after fire.

There's a lot of deaths, but there's also majority usually survive fires.

Mountain Ash has an interesting history because it actually does die after fire,

but it releases a huge load of sea into the forest and it needs a lot

of sun to regenerate so in the aftermath of a fierce fire a very very fierce fire and

mountain ash fires are notoriously fierce they only happen every two or three hundred years naturally

and the forest burn really fiercely and then the cleared areas are

just re-pe, you know, reseed with all these mountain ash. So mountain ash all grow at the

same rate and all together. So there's the same stand forests which makes them really spectacular.

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