Jurassic-era trees have grown in Tasmania for millions of years. Now they face their biggest threat: fire
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pencil pines grow for more than a thousand years each, and only in Tasmania. As lightning fires become more common, humans must mobilise to protect them – or lose these ancients forever

Andrew Darby
------------

Sat 8 Mar 2025 14.00 EST Last modified on Thu 13 Mar 2025 02.17 EDT



Steve Leonard finds it hard when he goes bushwalking in Tasmania’s high country these days. “I look at a stand of pencil pine and I wonder: ‘how long will you be there?’”

The ecologist is just back from a rapid survey of the cost to ancient trees of the latest lightning-strike fires across the island’s drying landscapes. Among the losses he found near the overland track, an alpine walking trail through central Tasmania, were groves of pencil pine.

“Once more, the fire of the day and night was extinguished. The trees were saved.” A relatively young pencil pine, only about 40 years old, was also found in good shape in the northern Lake St Clair.

But this is just a hopeful sign. The 2025 fires have left a patchwork of burnt ground across 98,500 hectares of wild country.

Richard Dakin, the deputy incident controller with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, says the fire which took out the pencil pine near the overland track was nearly held back by Fire Bosses – fire fighting float planes –skimming water out of nearby Lake St Clair. Lakes and coastal bays are on the side of the ancients.

But Tasmania is an island in the southern ocean. Strong winds and cloud are usual, and the skimmers could not hold the fire’s perimeter.

Instead, the fire headed north toward more rich flora, including a very old King Billy pine forest and – in the distance – Cradle Mountain itself. “We had to throw everything at it,” Dakin says.

NSW fire service large air tankers dropped a 2.5km fire-retardant line; water bombers campaigned from the lakes; and remote firefighters worked at arduous, grimy “old-school” firefighting, flailing and digging at the perimeter. “The combination of the three led to success,” Dakin says.

Their campaign rolls on, the full losses of the ancients yet to be tallied. But already we know for certain that after millions of years on Earth, and living only in Tasmania, these trees will need our help if they are to have a place in a heated future.

*   
```