Only one way to cope with bushfires
AS MONSTROUS blazes overwhelm Australia, the need for a national bushfire policy is urgent. Active land management such as hazard-reduction burning and forest thinning must lie at the core of such policy.
Done well, controlled burning limits a bushfire’s spread and makes suppression easier, by reducing the amount of flammable material. Clearing or thinning vegetation on roadsides would also allow firefighters access to forests in an emergency.
Of all factors driving a fire’s severity – temperature, wind speed, topography, fuel moisture and fuel load – fuel load is the only one humans can influence.
Ten years ago I also called for a national approach to bushfires, including vegetation management.
Relatively little has changed since.
It is as though Australia suffers collective and institutional amnesia when it comes to bushfire preparedness. But the threat will only escalate. Australia must have a sustained commitment to better land management.
Bushfire management comprises preparation, response and recovery.
Preparation involves managing fuel loads and vegetation, maintaining access to tracks and fire breaks, planning fire response and ensuring sufficient human capacity and resources to respond to worst-case scenarios.
The response involves deploying aircraft, fire trucks and firefighting personnel, and recovery requires social, financial and institutional support.
Prescribed burning is considered a key element of bushfire preparation.
While there is some debate over its effect on a fire’s impact, fuel modification at a sufficient scale can reduce the impact of even high-intensity fires.
Other management actions include thinning dense forest areas, reducing the shrub layer where burning is not possible and maintaining fire breaks. As the climate changes, we may consider changing the tree species mix.
Federal funding is often piecemeal, doled out with little co-ordination. As federal programmes are implemented, states often withdraw funding.
Experts have warned that fuel reduction burning is “constrained by a shortage of resources in some states and territories”, as well as by warmer, drier weather which reduces the number of days burning can be undertaken.
At state level, since the major fires of the 2000s, funding for fire management has increased and co-ordination between fire response and land management agencies has improved.
However, the focus of the two groups remains divided, which can thwart progress. Fire services prioritise protecting lives and property once fires are going, while forest and land management agencies focus on cutting risk.
In a rapidly changing climate, land management requires a long-term adaptive strategy, underpinned by sound analysis and research, supporting laws and policies, with sufficient funding and human resources. Public education is also critical.
Hazard reduction is a sometimes risky, labour-intensive measure, and tensions between reducing fuel loads and conserving the environment must be managed. But after the grief, anger and recriminations from the fires have passed, it’s time for an urgent national rethink.