Australia Weather News

More than 4,770 dry lightning strikes have occurred near or over Tasmania with 1,227 recorded as striking ground since Monday afternoon, sparking multiple fires, some within remote national parks and wilderness areas.

The dry lightning strikes occurred alongside "hot and windy weather" yesterday, according to the Tasmanian Fire Service (TFS).

Fifteen fires remain active across remote areas at Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Mount Donaldson at Corinna, Mt Meredith near Savage River and at Zeehan.

The largest fire, 25 kilometres south-west of Waratah, has burnt through 900 hectares of bushland.

Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) deputy chief officer Matthew Lowe said the Waratah fire was predominantly burning through dry, forested buttongrass areas and was "moving through quite quickly".

He said dry lightning had ignited the north-west coast fires, which the TFS was mostly managing with water-bombing aircraft as on-the-ground firefighters had not been deployed due to the fire's size. 

"We're purely holding [the fires] small with aircraft until we can put specialist remote area firefighters in.

"Some of the high risk fires that we're prioritising will be able to be held. Some of the bigger fires that we have not even put any resources on we're just monitoring, there's potential for them to grow."

Mr Lowe said while the fires were widespread, some were merging.

"We do have the occurrence now where some of the fires are morphing into one fire, and that will continue as they continue to grow," he said.

Water-bombing aircraft active

Since Tuesday morning, 11 water-bombing aircraft have been flying over priority fires near Corinna, Zeehan and Cradle Mountain, with ground crews battling those fires accessible by road.

Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) north-west regional manager Nic Deka said "some good work" had occurred in the World Heritage Area at Cradle Mountain, north-west of Lake St Clair on Tuesday and he believed the fire could be contained "fairly quickly".

He said three water-bombing aircraft had been actively working to extinguish the blaze, with the area's soils making conditions challenging for firefighting.

"There is a lot of fuel, and it is hard work. For the most part, we're dealing with areas that have got organic soils," Mr Deka said.

"That means that the fire is going to penetrate into the ground, and it takes time to do the groundwork to ensure that we get the proper containment around those fires.

"That is the nature of the country, particularly through the Central Highlands and the west coast."

He said the conditions had eased as the southerly change came through.

On Wednesday, a specialist aircraft deployed by the TFS is scheduled to perform a line scan, subject to weather, to identify any remote-area fires.

"We're still gathering intelligence. So come [Wednesday] once the line scans can be done, we'll have a lot better picture on what's occurring across the state," Mr Lowe said.

What is dry lightning?

Dry lightning is a dry thunderstorm with a cloud base that sits higher in the atmosphere. The storm produces thunder, lightning and rainfall but the rain evaporates as it falls towards the earth so is unable to suppress any potential sparks or ignition, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Alex Melitsis, a BOM forecaster, said on Monday lightening from a very high-based cloud developed across the west and south of the state.

"The [clouds] were moving quite quickly, so there wasn't much rainfall in them, and they were very high up in the atmosphere so lightning reached the ground, but unfortunately with not much rain."

Concerns for beekeepers

The burning bushfires could potentially be threatening the production of honey at the height of the short leatherwood and manuka honey harvest season.

An estimated 10,000 hives are on site in Tasmania's west and north-west rainforests.

The prized leatherwood honey from the area's rare, flowering leatherwood tree accounts for about 70 to 80 per cent of the state's honey industry and is not produced elsewhere in the world.

Tasmanian Beekeeping Vice President Mick Palmer said many beekeepers would be nervously watching their hives near Tullah, in the state's west.

"You could potentially be wiping out a whole business," Mr Palmer said. 

"[Leatherwood] is the backbone of our industry … you can't replace a hive easily within one season, and you've also got that registered side of leatherwood, so they may lose the resource too.

"It's a very, very valuable honey, so a loss in production could be quite a hit."

He said any damage to the leatherwood trees would have a generational impact, as the trees take about 150 years to become productive.

Dry lightning blamed for past fires

In December 2018 to March 2019, about 3 per cent of the state was burnt in three main bushfires started by dry lightning strikes at Gell River on December 27, and at the Great Pine Tier in the Central Plateau and Riveaux Road in the Huon Valley on January 15.

The fires burned through 210,000 hectares and put communities south of Huonville and in the Central Highlands at risk for weeks.

More than 95,000 hectares in Tasmania's World Wilderness Heritage Area were affected.

According to a review by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council, the 2018 summer bushfires were the second-largest bushfire event in Tasmania's history only behind the catastrophic events of 1967.

For the latest road closures, visit the Tasmania Police community alerts website.

To keep up-to-date on the fires, visit TasAlerts.