After wet weather in May the Rural Fire Service issued a media statement saying that “thousands of hectares of hazard reduction burns scheduled for autumn have been postponed“.
“…it is now unlikely that proposed hazard reduction burn targets for this financial year will be met”.
– RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers, media release 14 May 2024
The statement says that government agencies including the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Forestry Corporation, with other landholders, had made “significant progress towards targets” before wet weather impacted programs.
Minister for Emergency Services Jihad Dib said “hazard reduction burning plays a vital role in mitigating bush fire intensity and safeguarding lives and properties“.
IBG Comment
- As the next fire season approaches, its helpful to consider the role of planned burning in mitigating wildfires. The goal of planned burning is not to produce areas that will not burn, but areas that will burn at a lower intensity which can assist control by firefighters.
- Planned burns are always difficult to achieve due to the many challenges, which include weather, logistics and resourcing. Weather windows to burn with the desired intensity (prescription) are narrow and diminishing due to climate change. Burns near property can be intricate, tricky and need a lot of resources and precise planning. Some resources such as volunteer firefighters are less available during weekdays.
- NSW currently operates planned burning according to targets, not readily available to the public, that are based on area treated. IBG is concerned that such targets are a poor way of measuring success in planned burning programs because the focus on the strategic value of burns may be diminished.
- Planned burning does not eliminate the threat of fires. Successive RFS Commissioners have emphasised that it helps, but is not a panacea. Planned burning to strategically reduce fuels in the bush is just one important tool in a comprehensive bushfire mitigation program together with a range of other activities. “Hazard reduction” means modification of fuels by prescribed burning, or other means such as slashing and clearing (AFAC).
- The effectiveness of planned burns in protecting life and property depends upon location, vegetation type, the intensity of the burn, time and weather since the burn was done and the prevailing conditions when a wildfire meets the previously burnt area. Statistically, only a proportion of burns will ever be useful because of the low likelihood of any particular burn being met by a wildfire within the burn’s useful life.
- In the fires of 2019-2020, the usefulness of previous burns (including wildfires) varied a lot. In some cases they stopped or slowed the advancing fire, while in others they made little difference. Generally, burns that had been done within three years of the wildfire were most useful, while past burns were less effective in moderating fire behaviour in elevated bushfire weather. In other cases, previously burned areas were not used as effectively as they might have been to assist control strategies.
- Some specific examples of how past burns worked in the 2019-2020 fires are included in the IBG fire studies. A more general study was undertaken for Natural Hazards Research Australia into how planned fires in the previous five years affected the Black Summer wildfires. It found that “the proportion of high severity fire was lower in areas that had previous prescribed burns (especially if conducted in the last one or two years)“.
- This conclusion recognises that planned burns are not placed only to protect adjacent property. They are also used to create strategic advantages at the broader landscape level, especially by the large bushland managers being Forestry Corporation and National Parks and Wildlife Service.
- IBG asserts that along with planned burning, more emphasis and effort is needed on asset protection zones, community education/resilience, community protection plans and individual property management.
Independent Bushfire Group 