New research published in the leading international journal Nature Communications has added to the growing evidence that native forest logging in Australia is exacerbating wildfire risks.

The work, led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, examined the flammability of logged and regenerated native forests and plantations globally (Bousfield et al. 2025). While in most countries, tree plantations were more flammable than logged and regenerated native forests, Australia strongly bucks that trend. In fact, in Australia, logged and regenerated native forests are four times more likely to burn than plantations.

These findings support earlier research that logged and regenerated forests consistently burn at higher severity than intact native forests in multiple parts of eastern Australia – including central Victoria (Taylor et al. 2014; Lindenmayer et al. 2022a) and across the vast footprint of the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires from north-eastern Victoria to northern New South Wales (Lindenmayer et al. 2022c). Similar findings for logging-induced increased forest flammability are now being reported by other researchers working independently of our laboratory including those in Tasmania (Furlaud et al. 2021) and New South Wales (Wilson et al. 2022).

In short, multiple lines of evidence are converging: native forest logging increases flammability in multiple Australian landscapes. Critically, these elevated fire risks persist for between 40 years (Taylor et al. 2014) and up to 70 years after logging and regeneration (Wilson et al. 2022). This means that every native forest logged in my lifetime is more fire-prone today than if it had been left intact.

These findings have serious implications – not only for public safety but also for Australia’s future timber supply.

First, native forest logging can no longer be considered sustainable when it substantially elevates fire risk. The danger to nearby communities will only increase as climate change drives more extreme fire weather (Canadell et al. 2021).

Second, native forest wood supply is increasingly unreliable due to rising fire frequency. In many parts of Australia’s wood production estate, forests are burning — and then reburning — too often for forests to regrow to a stage where they can provide sawlogs (Lindenmayer et al. 2023). It takes roughly 80 years to grow a crop of sawlogs from a native forest, yet current fire frequency means there is an 80% chance those forests will burn before reaching sawlog producing age (Cary et al. 2021).

Fortunately, plantations already provide 90% of all sawn timber in Australia. Sawn timber makes high-value products like roof trusses, floorboards and furniture. In contrast, 90% of logged native forests produces woodchips, paper pulp, and packaging – low value products. Moreover, we know from wood yield information that a plantation can yield nine crops of timber in the same time (80 years) it takes to produce just one crop of sawlogs from native forests. The economic and ecological case is clear: Australia’s future timber supply must come from plantations.

Third, we now face the long-term legacy of more than 70 years of logging: an extensive estate of highly flammable forests. To mitigate these risks, we must embrace new technologies that detect ignitions early and suppress fires fast. At The Australian National University, we are trialling new drone and detection systems to do just that – supporting firefighters and helping protect people and property (Lindenmayer et al. 2022b). Drones have been deployed to lethal effect in many theatres of war. We must now use these kinds of technologies to save lives and safeguard communities by detecting ignitions earlier and suppressing fires before they grow into large, hard-to-control conflagrations.

In summary, escalating wildfire risk means that Australia must exit native forest logging and transition fully to a plantation-based timber industry. This is not just a matter of environmental stewardship – it is a national safety and resource security imperative.

References

Bousfield, C., O. Morton, D. B. Lindenmayer, A. Pellegrini, and D. Edwards. 2025. Global risk of wildfire across timber production systems. Nature Communications 16:4204.

Canadell, J. G., C. P. Meyer, G. D. Cook, A. Dowdy, P. R. Briggs, J. Knauer, A. Pepler, and V. Haverd. 2021. Multi-decadal increase of forest burned area in Australia is linked to climate change. Nature Communications 12:6921.

Cary, G., W. Blanchard, C. N. Foster, and D. B. Lindenmayer. 2021. Effects of altered fire regimes on critical timber production and conservation rotations. International Journal of Wildland Fire 30:322-328.

Furlaud, J. M., L. D. Prior , G. J. Williamson , and D. M. J. S. Bowman. 2021. Fire risk and severity decline with stand development in Tasmanian giant Eucalyptus forest. Forest Ecology and Management 502:119724.

Lindenmayer, D., E. Bowd, C. Taylor, and P. Zylstra. 2022a. Chapter 19. Interacting and compounding impacts: fire and forestry in the 2019-2020 wildfires. Pages 255-268 in L. Rumpff and J. Woinarski, editors. Megafires. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Australia.

Lindenmayer, D., P. Zylstra, and M. Yebra. 2022b. Adaptive wildfire mitigation approaches. Science 377:1163-1164.

Lindenmayer, D. B., C. Taylor, W. Blanchard, P. Zylstra, and M. J. Evans. 2023. What environmental and climatic factors influence multi-decadal fire frequency? Ecosphere 14.

Lindenmayer, D. B., P. Zylstra, R. Kooyman, C. Taylor, M. Ward, and J. E. M. Watson. 2022c. Logging elevated the probability of high-severity fire in the 2019–20 Australian forest fires. Nature Ecology & Evolution 6:533-535.

Taylor, C., M. A. McCarthy, and D. B. Lindenmayer. 2014. Non-linear effects of stand age on fire severity. Conservation Letters 7:355-370.

Wilson, N., R. Bradstock, and M. Bedward. 2022. Disturbance causes variation in sub-canopy fire weather conditions. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 323:109077.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.