Fire can destroy peatlands. But in Australia, it can also help protect them

Peatlands—ancient wetlands where plant matter accumulates over millennia—lock up roughly one-third of the planet's soil carbon. When they burn, it can be catastrophic: smoldering underground for months, massive carbon emissions, and ecosystem collapse. But per The Conversation (Australia), Australia's particular peatlands tell a different story. Some Australian peatlands have evolved to thrive after burning. Under the right conditions, authorities use controlled ecological burns to restore these ecosystems, clearing dense vegetation and germinating fire-adapted plant seeds. At the Fleurieu Peninsula swamps in South Australia, for example, threatened species like the southern emu-wren are now flourishing after managed burns. First Nations communities practiced similar burning for centuries before European settlement. The catch? These burns must consume vegetation without reaching the peat layer below. If flames penetrate the peat itself, it becomes an environmental catastrophe—exactly what happened in southwest Western Australia in twenty twenty-four, when an underground peat fire burned for six months despite record rainfall. As climate change brings hotter temperatures and drier conditions, the risk of destructive peat fires is rising, making this balance ever harder to strike.

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