Fuel reduction plan already making us safer

Fire services are working hard and the results are measurable, says Chris Arnol

SINCE its inception in 2014, the scientific and strategic approach of Tasmania’s Fuel Reduction Program has helped make us significantly safer from bushfires.

Tasmania is one of the most bushfire prone areas in the world and preparing for bushfires is everyone’s responsibility.

The Fuel Reduction Program was introduced after the devastating Dunalley bushfires in 2013. The Tasmania Fire Service, with our program partners Parks and Wildlife Service and Sustainable Timber Tasmania, have conducted more than 400 strategic burns across Tasmania. These burns don’t need to be large to make a positive impact on protecting communities.

A University of Tasmania study by James Furlaud, Grant Williamson and David Bowman found “the most effective risk reduction when using planned burning is having a more targeted approach, undertaken on a local scale … prescribed burning in and around urban, built-up areas.” That’s a welcome endorsement of the Fuel Reduction Program.

Professor Bowman also says cities need “green halos” to protect our urban areas. This is a conversation for the whole community. There is a role for all levels of government in deciding what other bushfire protections need to be put in place, in addition to the activities of the Tasmania Fire Service and other land managers.

While Tasmania has a significant fire history, both planned and unplanned, this generally has little to no impact on the statewide relative risk because by and large these planned burns/fire incidents did not occur in the right areas.

Burns under the Fuel Reduction Program occur only in areas of high risk to communities and community assets, and since the program commenced we can see a reduction in statewide relative risk by 4.5 per cent in three years.

Bushfire risk is regularly remodelled by TFS to take into account actual burning programs and risk reduction achieved.

In suburbs like Claremont, Lenah Valley, Mt Stuart, West Hobart and Mt Nelson we’ve observed a 10 to 25 per cent reduction in relative risk (the risk of ember attack on Greater Hobart has been reduced significantly more).

We are always going to have bushfires in Tasmania. One of the objectives of fuel reduction burning is to make fires that do occur easier to control by firefighters. We have seen the benefits of fuel reduction burning already.

In March the town of Rossarden was protected from fires caused by dry lightning strikes by strategic burns in 2014 and 2015.

In autumn TFS conducted an 86 ha burn near German Town with the objective of protecting towns around St Marys. The burn reduced fuels and in October significantly slowed a bushfire on one edge that was heading towards St Marys, allowing fire crews to focus on the other edges and reduced the potential size of the fire significantly.

The recent major fire at St Helens threatened to impact on the towns of Scamander and Beaumaris, and the eastern flank of the fire, which was recently treated in a fuel reduction burn, gave firefighters the opportunity they needed to control the fire.

Overall, the science tells us we are making a difference, and we are hearing from the Tasmanian public that they are pretty happy about the work we are doing for them.

Importantly, we have started reducing the impact of bushfires already, which we hope will be repeated as early as this fire season.

So, while bushfire readiness is everyone’s responsibility, the community can be assured we are doing our bit.