Status of bushfire preparation and preparedness for major bushfires across South East Australia during 2024/ 25. 

Opinion piece John O’Donnell 14 August 2024

It is the author’s belief that South East Australia continues to be not adequately prepared for upcoming bushfires and to be frank we as a society have learnt very little following 2019/20 and earlier bushfires, especially in regards to inadequate bushfire mitigation.  As a consequence, communities, firefighters and the ecosystems are highly exposed over the coming bushfire season.  Disaster insurance costs are going up every year and will continue to go up with current limited adopted fire mitigation approaches.

This article focusses on bushfire preparation and preparedness and not bushfire seasonal outlook, which will be coming out over the next couple of months.

Good bushfire preparation and preparedness is important in order to reduce risks to household risks, communities and firefighters, reduce fuel loads and strata, reduce areas of contiguous fuels, reduce bushfire risks, assist in controlling bushfires, reduce bushfire intensity and extent and reduce costs and impacts of bushfires, including rising insurance costs.

Intense 2019/ 20 bushfire impacts in Northern and Central NSW

The author considers that here are 15 main areas of concern in relation to sound bushfire preparation and preparedness for major bushfires across SE Australia, these concern areas are outlined below.

Number 1 concerns inadequate prescribed burning and grazing and consequent high fuel loads across forested landscapes across SE Australia, this will not protect SE Australia/ states.  A number of SE Australian states are under 1 % of forest areas prescribed burnt per year. Refer to state prescribed burning and wildfire data in the link below:

Review of prescribed burning and wildfire burning across Australia: John O’Donnell

There is inadequate resilient landscape and maintenance burning across landscapes in SE Australia, eucalypt decline in our forests is rapidly increasing, increasing bushfire risk greatly with dense forest understories (combined with dense regrowth resulting from intense bushfires).    There are often large contiguous areas of heavy fuel loads as well as dead trees and dense understories resulting from intense bushfires, set up for the next round of bushfires.

Number 2 relates to the fact that SE Australia is not adequately considering nor effectively using adaptive management across forested landscapes, including low intensity burning and forest thinning to maintain forest health and reduce bushfire risks. There are limited attempts to set up fire resilient landscapes.  The author considers that US approaches for resilient fire landscapes in many areas are way ahead of Australia.

Number 3 pertains to an inadequate fire mitigation funding balance, noting that there is further disaster funding detail in 2020 Menzies Research Centre Strengthening Resilience: Managing natural disasters after the 2019-20 bushfire season https://www.preventionweb.net/media/82890/download:  Despite this relentless commitment to inquiries, in 2014, a report released by the Productivity Commission into Natural Disaster Funding Arrangements found that government natural disaster funding arrangements had been inefficient, inequitable and unsustainable….The Productivity Commission lamented that the funding mix was disproportionately recovery-based and did not promote mitigation. It observed that the political incentives for mitigation were weak, ‘since mitigation provides public benefits that accrue over a long-time horizon,’ and that over time this would create entitlement dependency and undermines individual responsibility for natural disaster risk management.’ At that time, it said, mitigation funding amounted to only three per cent of what is spent on post-disaster recovery and recommended that the Australian Government should gradually increase the amount of annual mitigation funding it provides to state and territory governments to $200 million.  Extra funding has since been provided, but it is uncertain what changes have occurred in relation to fire mitigation funding.

Number 4 relates to the focus on bushfire suppression and big plane fleets at the expense of sound fire mitigation across forested landscapes.  There are large economic costs of this approach, this issue has been well identified by the Productivity Commission a number of times and not adequately addressed by government.

Number 5 relates to inadequate understanding and addressing of all the contributory factors and lessons in relation to the 2019/ 20 bushfires and other major bushfires., especially in regards to miniscule areas of low intensity burning.  I believe that we as a society haven’t learnt the lessons of 2019/ 20 and earlier bushfires such as in 2003 and 2009.

Number 6 concerns inadequate fire fighter safety and access, with many forests dangerous for fire fighters, with poor access, inadequate track width and turning bays, accesses not maintained, adjacent high fuel loads to accesses, ridges not prescribed burnt nor access tracks, breaks not burnt/ treated nor adequate water supplies available. 

Number 7 relates to the loss of skilled firefighters and occasionally reduced use of effective suppression techniques, including quick attack and backburning at the right time. In addition, skilled firefighters are often not listened to in regards to bushfire mitigation, preparation and preparedness.

Number 8 pertains to bushfire risk management plans that are often generic, cover very large areas, don’t adequately consider high intensity bushfires and bushfire travel paths, don’t adequately address firebrands and embers. usually are not focussed on individual towns/ cities and often with low community participation.  In addition, bad fire days/ worst possible fire days are often not addressed in risk planning, noting because threat involves the intensity of the bushfire, fire protection planning should be based on the bushfire threat that involves under the “worst possible” or “worst recorded” fire weather conditions. While the risk may be low, the threat can be very high in Australian towns and cities, depending on the amount of fuel both within the township, the individual home gardens and surrounding areas.

Number 9 concerns in town design and landscaping failings. One concern relates to very close housing in large numbers of dense subdivisions, many with timber fencing, mulch landscaping and flammable tree and shrub species and no adjacent fuel treatment. Another concern relates to bushfire non-safe landscaping around and within towns, including around houses in many cases.

Number 10 relates to variation in undertaking strict enforcement of bushfire legislation by local governments to optimise bushfire preparedness and fire mitigation on private land and ensuring legislation is in place to allow enforcement and community education is coupled with enforcement of sound bushfire laws to best ensure community protection.  In addition, community preparedness assessments annually pre bushfire seasons are not often completed.

Number 11 concerns the fact that many communities, infrastructure and properties continue to be at major risk from bushfires. There is inadequate prescribed burning, grazing, thinning around many communities, schools, infrastructure and other areas.  Many communities are not prepared for bushfires, not all members of the community have clear understandings and expectations over how to respond to a bushfire and evacuation routes are often limited/ unknown. The ongoing risks and potential impact of bushfires on communities, critical infrastructure and properties for SE Australia remains extremely high, likely less for SW Australia and much of northern Australia. 

Number 12 pertains to limited transparency in relation to bushfire committee reports being available for the community, including regional committees and coordinating committees.  Optimised accountability and transparency in bushfire management committees, fire policies, bushfire documentation and decisions and publication of meeting minutes/ documentation on the web is important.

Number 13 pertains to the fact that there has been inadequate mitigation performance auditing of state, regional and community bushfire planning, mitigation and suppression within some state jurisdictions, increasing bushfire risks.

Number 14 relates to inadequate and open assessment of bushfire and disaster performance assessment nationally, across states, regions and for each community.  Factors that need to be reviewed include regularity of prescribed burning both across landscapes and adjacent to communities, sensible fire return intervals for prescribed burning, extent of contiguous fuel loads, fuel strata issues and depths, firebrand risks, bushfire risk management planning, community safety focus, evacuation routes, capturing of bushfire lessons, fire policies, design and mitigation in towns and cities and  insurance costs.

Number 15 I believe relates to research directions not being adequately targeted at increased bushfire mitigation (including prescribed burning), sensible fire return intervals, forest bushfire resilience, eucalypt decline and increased bushfire risks, reducing high intensity bushfires, community safety and firefighter safety and research on individual large bushfires.  At times there is a focus on reducing prescribed burning to miniscule and inadequate rates and denigrating prescribed burning, without adequate consideration of whole of landscape, ecosystem, community, fire fighter safety and intense bushfire risks.

The author notes that not every one of the 15 concerns applies in each community, area, region or state but in many cases many such concerns apply.

Recent news in relation to town and city bushfire preparation and disasters

The ACT Legislative Assembly is undertaking an Inquiry into the ACT environment’s bushfire preparedness, a good initiative.  The inquiry is examining how the ACT can be better prepared for future fires, and also looking into the risks present on the territory’s western edge.  An article by Victor Petrovic Canberra community not adequately prepared for future bushfires, ACT government inquiry hears Tue 27 Feb 2024 at 5:50pm highlight some concern in relation to bushfire preparation in the ACT.

The ACT Multi Hazard Advisory Council is established by the Emergencies Act 2004 and has the function of advising the Minister for Fire and Emergency Services and Commissioner, ACT Emergency Services Agency on matters relating to natural disasters and All-Hazards across the emergency management spectrum.  There is good information on the web that is publicly available, this is positive and doesn’t occur openly in all SE states. One such report is the Government Response to ACT BFC 2019-20 Preparedness Report Recommendations.

Further useful information in relation to community bushfire preparation is provided for Mallacoota, Victoria, including recent discussions and links:

• Mallacoota unprepared – bushfire attack and aftermath article

https://www.redeagle.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Mallacoota-Unprepared.pdf

• Public meetings in relation to bushfires and fire management

Are Mallacoota and East Gippsland prepared for another major fire? The Howitt Society

• Are Mallacoota and East Gippsland in general prepared for another major fire?  https://thehowittsociety.com/media-releases/

Opportunities to improve community bushfire preparation, preparedness and protection

Useful information in relation to community bushfire preparation, preparedness and protection is available in the following location:

• Bushfire Front Community Bushfire Preparedness https://www.bushfirefront.org.au/resources/community-bushfire-preparedness/
• Recent collaborative training exercise between CFA and Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP) https://www.timberbiz.com.au/hvp-and-cfa-training-back-on-track/

The author has outlined opportunities to improve bushfire preparation across south east Australia, as highlighted below:

• https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Potential-opportunities-for-towncity-protection-across-Aust-final.pdf
• https://arr.news/2023/10/09/australias-preparation-for-major-bushfires-john-odonnell/
• https://arr.news/2024/06/07/town-and-city-bushfire-disaster-review-case-studies-and-lessons-across-australia-john-odonnell/
• https://arr.news/2023/08/04/the-2019-20-bushfires-contributory-factors-john-odonnell/

Conclusions

In relation to the status of bushfire preparation and preparedness for major bushfires across SE Australian during 2024/ 25, the author notes that considering all the above areas, that bushfire preparation and preparedness performance assessment remains inadequate.  This varies to a degree across Australian states and regions, noting bushfire preparation and preparedness is the responsibility of each state or territory. 

I will leave it to readers to assess bushfire preparation and preparedness performance assessment for your residence, community, schools, hospitals, firefighters, regions, states and nationally.