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A tree thought to be Australia's biggest has been "cooked" in a supervised burn that went wrong in Tasmania's southern forests.
The towering Eucalyptus regnans was discovered in June last year in an old-growth-forest logging coupe by University of Tasmania senior research fellow Wally Herrmann.
It was reserved at the Wilderness Society's urging by the state timber agency, Forestry Tasmania.
But when the logging zone was burnt recently as part of a regeneration process, measures taken to protect the tree failed. Environmentalists fear it has been killed.
First named the "fat tree" because of its scale, and now known as El Grande, it is 79 metres high and 19 metres around. A Forestry Tasmania survey found the 350-year-old El Grande had a volume of 439 cubic metres, or 35 metres greater than the next largest on the island. Forestry Tasmania says that Australia's tallest tree is a 96-metre specimen in the Andromeda Reserve, about 30 kilometres south of El Grande.
Derwent district manager Steve Whiteley said the Forestry Tasmania-supervised burn "impacted" on the tree. He said that despite efforts to clear nearby debris, form fire breaks, and wet it down, the trunk had been charred and it was expected to lose its leaf cover.
He rejected claims the tree could die.
"I think that's an overstatement," he said. "It's certainly been charred, but we expect it to grow new shoots."
Mr Whiteley said that when the tree was recognised, harvesting in the area ceased.
Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown compared the fire to blasting at a Sydney demolition site and saying "woops, we got the Opera House as well".
- with AAP
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