ABOVE: Fire on K’gari-Fraser Island
QUEENSLAND FIRE AND EMERGENCY SERVICES
Wildfire has scorched around half of Fraser Island, a World Heritage site off the East coast of Australia, after starting from an illegal campfire. There are concerns that the sand island’s unique rainforest ecosystems could be threatened as weather worsens.
Also known as K’gari by the local Butchulla people, who hold native title over the island, Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island—76 miles long—but it is also home to rainforests and other ecosystems, including numerous freshwater dune lakes.
While some of the plant species need fire to regenerate, ecologist Gabriel Conroy of the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland says he is worried about the island’s fauna, from microbial communities all the way up to the island’s distinctive—and sometimes notorious—native dogs known as dingoes, which Conroy studies.
“They’re very adaptable feeders but you’re talking about fifty percent of ...
