NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service setting fire to native habitat while the weather is calm. What fauna, it’s an ‘Ecological Burn’?
This week’s hazard reduction burn in Barrington Tops NP, north of Dungog
[Source: Photo by Andy Boleyn, ^http://newcastleonhunter.com/2012/08/npws-burning-down-the-tops/]
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It’s that time of year across Australia, when bush arson is deemed acceptable (even noble) , so long as it is ‘prescribed‘ by government, even when it often gets out of control.
Australia’s native habitat is deliberately set fire to by Australian Government agencies every year, just in case it burns, which means that frequently they can’t put it out.
Dropping petrol bombs by immoral helicopter pilots ..”hey man, this is like Nam all over again!”
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None of the arson rationale respects native wildlife, as with illegal bush arsonists. There is little difference on wildlife impact as to who sets fire to their habitat – illegal or government sanctioned. In the above burn, Acting NPWS Barrington Tops Area Manager Peter Beard, justifies setting fire to wildlife habitat thus:
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“Hazard reduction burn aims to protect lives and property, whilst maintaining the biodiversity of the World Heritage-listed park.”
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Yet it is carried out without any thought or knowledge about the ecological impacts upon ground dwelling fauna populations or upon flora species that are fire sensitive nor the complex and fragile co-existences. Where are the independent scientific wildlife counts before and after each prescribed arson sortie? Where is the qualified wildlife ecologist’s report that made public that says burning this forest is not harmful?
The fire lighting is not even mosaic. It is blanket, broadscale and indiscriminate. Aerial incendiaries are dropped along the ridge top by helicopter casuing multiple ignition points so that the fire takes hold.
Aerial ‘habitat reduction’ occurs across National Parks and World Heritage Areas – no habitat is sacrosanct. It is euphemistically branded ‘Biodiversity Burning’ – fire is good for wildlife – watch them run, watch the Echinas and Wombats burn!
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It is one of many hundred being conducted across New South Wales native landscapes by the National Parks and Wildlife Services as well as by the Rural Fires Service and with assistance from regional fire brigades. Another 25 burns covering 6000ha are planned in the next week, including burns in In Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
Rather through unrelenting government propaganda, all Australian native vegetation is demonised as a ‘threat‘, a ‘hazard‘ and as ‘fuel‘ – just like the Christian church has for centuries demonised non-believers as heathens.
National Parks are deemed by Australian governments as a ‘hazards’!
It is a town park mentality – a bit of greenery for people to enjoy at weekends.
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It doesn’t take much effort by a layperson to access a computer, download Google Earth and zoom into New South Wales, then to realise that the native vegetation that remains is dotted in islands within vast landscapes of denuded cleared farmland, and then to respect that if the native wildlife exist anywhere, they are in these vegetation islands.
This is Destination New South Wales..about 90% deforested, or burned, or farmed, or mined, or housed or else deserted
“There are some amazing natural attractions in New South Wales. From the coast to the country you’re spoilt for choice. All over this state you can meander at your own pace and discover a whole world of extraordinary natural wonders. With close to 900 ^NSW national parks, forests and reserves, the State features the most diverse nature experiences in Australia ranging from rainforests, marine parks, a city within a national park, outback landscapes, mountains, islands and World-heritage listed areas.”
Then for these islands of native vegetation to be deliberately set fire to can only contribue to native wildlife extinctions. It doesn’t take more than a lay person to realise this by deduction. Yet wildlife extinction is exactly what these senseless fatalistic government bush arson culls are doing every year. Setting fire to wildlife habitat is wildlife desecration, just like an invading army razing a village.
Rural fire agencies throughout Australia are no different in mindset to paid professional urban fire brigades – their mandate is to serve only to protect human life and property – but all native vegetation and wildlife is demonised as a liability and dismissed as only a risk to human life and property. The key distinction between rural fire fighters and their urban counterparts is that the urban fire fighters are paid professionals. Governments save billions by not paying rural firefighters and by not training them to the skill level of urban firefighters – yet operationally their job is exactly the same. Volunteers have been conned by governments to being cheap fingers in the dyke, so that taxes can be channelled elsewhere instead of properly into emergency management.
When there is a wildfire under extreme bushfire weather conditions, the ill-equipped, under=prepared and under-resourced bushfire agenecies know full well, that they cannot reliably detect, reach or suppress ignitions most of the time. They are depressing forced to rely upon the vagrancies of wind changes to dictate the impact of wildfires and the fate to lives and property.
So that is why government is so keen to prescribe preventative fighting fire with fire. If the bush is burned so that there is litte to burn then when a wildfire erupts in hot, dry and windy conditions the risk is less.
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.. one has to destroy the village to save it!
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Oddly this mindset is not allowed to apply to plantation forests – because they are deemed ‘economic assets’ and so therefor evaluable and therefore worth protecting from fire.
Of course, after every major fire involving loss of human life, such as in Victoria in 2009, all the politicians come out crying “shocking, shocking, shocking”, promising expensive enquiries, promising more resourcing, and that it will never happen again. All the while, politicians full well know that when the media cameras lose interest, it is cheap volunteer business as usual, because by the time the next wildfire, they will be happily lifestyle pensioned out – polly gold card privileges and all.
The Victorian Bushfires of 2009 that caused the deaths of 173 people were in the main caused initially by either powerline neglect and arson. The fire brigade was not prepared for a catastrophe despite the bushfire danger index forecast days before to be well off the scale. The underprepared, under-resourced Dad’s Army preparedness contributed to the 173 deaths.
Instead, all Australian and State governments have blamed the Australian wildlife habitat for being the fuel like and ‘accessory before the fact’. It was the victim.
So hazard reduction is now ramped up Australia wide. In New South Wales hazard reduction this year is the NSW Government’s response strategy, costing $62 million “to boost wildfire preparedness“. Under the NSW NPWS ‘Enhanced Bushfire Management Programme’, NPWS aims to double the number of hazard reduction hectares each year, for the next five years. NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker said hazard reduction work is part of an ongoing State-wide operation.
If there is unburnt bush, it will be targeted for burning! Burn it before it burns, god damn! If the Rural Fire Starters had access to B52s and Agent Orange, they sure the would deploy both, such is the inculcated bushphobic mindset.
“NPWS crews are already taking advantage of favourable spring weather to carry out 12 burns covering more than 2,500 hectares of national park in the past fortnight.”
The NSW Government is doing everything it can to reduce the risk of fire, including in our national parks – particularly with a drier, hotter summer than we’ve recently experience predicted.”
Broadscale Hazard Reduction ‘So when summer comes we should be right – there’ll be nothing left to burn!’‘Job Done!‘
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It is a wicked species-anhilating strategy that most in the broader community ignorantly accept as justified, because government propaganda threats say so and because few folk have the wisdom or courage to dare question the propaganda.
Woops, the prescribed burn got out of controlThat’s ok its only Fraser Island World Heritage – it’ll grow back!
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Last weekend, a 12-year-old boy was charged with lighting a bushfire at Watannobi on the Central Coast around lunch time. Just like the fire fighters he must be watching and learning from, the bushfire was lit using multiple ignition points so that it took hold. Sure enough, the blaze quickly escalated. In the end some eighty hectares of native vegetation and grassland were burnt before the fire was contained in the mid afternoon.
He may be charged now, but no doubt he is recruitment material for the local Rural Fire Starters when he gets older.
But unlike the State-sanctioned arsonists, the boy was publicly apologetic for what he had done, realising that it was wrong. To his credit he said:
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“I’m sorry for what I have done .. and I won’t do it again.”
Government-sanctioned arsonists know what they are doing is wrong – but the Firie peer pressure is too great
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Why don’t gardeners of Australian native gardens follow the National Parks biodiversity burning mantra and set fire to their gardens? Because they respect the unburnt value of Australia’s flora.
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Why do we not see much wildlife anymore in National Parks?
The fire tragedy afflicted Australia’s legendary ‘Conservation Cradle’
A scorched Grose Valley from Evan’s Lookout, looking north up Govett’s Gorge
(Photo by Editor taken 20061209, free in public domain. Free Large Image)
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A heritage tragedy unfolds
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A simple lighting stike ignited remote bushland in rugged terrain within the Blue Mountains National Park, over 5km north of the township of Blackheath on 20061113.
Innocuously, the ignition started off on hilly Burra Korain Ridge,It was far from settlement but during relatively calm weather and low temperature, so it was not suppressed but ‘monitored’..then the wind picked up.
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It and a second ignition west were allowed to continue burning for days until they eventually coalesced with compounded backburning into a firestorm some ten days later down in the Grose Valley. On 20061122, the prized Grose Valley and its iconic and precious Blue Gum Forest were incinerated under a pyrocumulus cloud of towering wood smoke that could be seen from the Sydney coast a hundred kilometres away. Some 14,070 hectares of National Park habitat was burnt. The tragedy did not so much as ‘strike‘ from the lighting itself, but as Blue Mountains residents we saw it ‘unfold‘ over many days and nights under the trusteeship of Bushfire Management.
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..ten days later
The pyrocumulus cloud of a screaming, dying Grose Valley precious to many, including wildlife
The Grose Valley and its Blue Gum Forest and wildlife burning to death on 20061122
A greenhouse gas estimate was not taken.
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Community shock, sadness and overwhelming sense of loss
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How was this allowed to happen?
In the days that followed, many Blue Mountains residents and especially the many conservationists familiar with the Grose Valley and Blue Gum Forest over many years became deeply shocked at learning about the loss of this magnificent sacred preserved forest – its tall 300+ year old rare Blue Gums (Eucalytus deanii).
Without knowledge of personal accounts, one respects that the dramatic scenes of the smoke and fire inflicted personal trauma with many, given so many people’s long and established personal knowledge, affinity, love, awe and respect for..
‘The Blue Gum‘
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The Habitat Advocate reaches out to these people (doesn’t matter the fact that years have passed) and we choose to express the view of a need to tell truths and to seek some sense of learned maturity from it all. For the Grose Valley contained many tracks, many walks and many special places if one knew where to look. Popes Glen and from Govetts Leap down under Bridal Veil following the popular Rodriguez Pass to Junction Rock then Acacia Flat and the Blue Gum Forest in the heart of the Grose. Many special places includes Beauchamp Falls, Docker Buttress, Pulpit Rock, Lockley Pylon, Anvil Rock lookout, Perrys Lookdown, Hanging Rock, Pierces Pass, Asgard Swamp, and the inaccessible Henson Glen and David Crevasse gorge.
To this editor, the return in 2007 to a previously sacred special, but incinerated Neates Glen was emptying in spirit. There was heartfelt shock and dismay by many local conservationists familiar with the iconic Blue Gum Forest who became deeply saddened by the tragedy.
Neates Glen, as it was But since incinerated, not by the wildife, but by deliberately lit ‘backburning’
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Phone calls and emails were exchanged with many locals wanting to know the extent of the damage and whether ‘the Blue Gum‘ could recover. The original fire had been fanned westward from Burra Korain Head spotting along the Blackheath Walls escarpment, but then decended and burnt through Perrys Lookdown, Docker Buttress and down and through the Blue Gum. Deliberately lit backburns had descended and burnt out Pierces Pass (Hungerfords Track) through rainforest into the Grose and everyone had seen the pyrocumulus mushroom cloud towering 6000 feet above the Grose on the 22nd.
There was an immense sense of loss. The relatively small Blue Gum Forest, perhaps just several hectares, was unique by its ecological location, by its grand age and by its irreplaceability. The sense of loss was perhaps more pronounced amongst the more mature conservationists, now lesser in number, who knew its original saviours of the 1930s – Alan Rigby, Myles Dunphy and other dedicated bushwalkers who had championed to save it from logging 81 years ago.
The conservation heritage of The Blue Gum Forest dates back to Australia’s earliest conservation campaign from 1931For this reason ‘The Blue Gum Forest’ has been passionately respected as Australia’s ‘Cradle of Conservation’
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The region is home to threatened or rare species of conservation significance living within the rugged gorges and tablelands, like the spotted-tailed quoll, the koala, the yellow-bellied glider, the long-nosed potoroo, the green and golden bell frog and the Blue Mountains water skink. Many would have perished in the inferno, unable to escape. The Grose is a very quiet and sterile place now, with only birds. But to the firefighters, these were not human lives or property.
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Deafening silence from the ‘Firies’ naturally attractedcommunity enquiry and suspicion
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The day after the firestorm that enveloped the Grose Valley, the wind subsided and from 20061123 through to the final mopping up date of 20061203, the 2006 Grose Bushfire and its many ember spotfires came under bushfire management control and were ultimately extinguished or else considered to be ‘benign‘.
It is important to note that during the entire bushfire event from 20061113 through to 20061203, only NSW Rural Fire Service ‘Major Fire Updates’ on its website and headline journalism appeared in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper. Initially, the community, conservationists and ‘firies’ were respectfully passive. In the immediate aftermath of the fire from 20061204 through to the weekly issue of the Blue Mountains Gazette on 20061129, the local community, conservationists and ‘firies’ were letter silent in the paper. It was a combination of shock, preoccupation with the emergency and respectful anticipation of communication from the bushfire authorities.
One can assume here that given the scale of the tragedy, many in the Blue Mountains community were respectfully patient in anticipation of an assured announcement from Bushfire Management or some communication process. But none eventuated.
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Injustice
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The following weekly issue of the Gazette was published on 20061129, but no communication from Bushfire Management. Only dismissive bureaucratic statements came from Parks and Wildlife’s Regional Director Geoff Luscombe with a tone suggesting minimal damage and business-as-usual.
This was the article:
6th Dec: ‘Park managers take stock as smoke clears’
‘Hundreds of fire-fighters are celebrating a return to normality this week after cooler weather and an intense two-week campaign by volunteers and professionals brought a fire in the Grose Valley under control.
According to the Rural Fire Service this good weather, combined with a thorough mop-up operation and ongoing infra-red monitoring, means flare-ups are unlikely.However the 15,000 hectare burnt area – including the iconic Blue Gum Forest – is likely to remain closed for the “foreseeable future” due to safety concerns and regeneration.
Geoff Luscombe, regional manager of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), said the fact that only part of the Grose Valley burnt meant many animals had been able to seek refuge.
“Many of the Australian plants and animal species have learnt not only to survive fire but to exploit it,” he said. However he confirmed fears that the fire had burnt Blue Gum Forest – a Mecca for bushwalkers and conservationists in the heart of the Grose Valley.
“Blue gums aren’t a particularly fire-tolerant species,” he said. “Fire last burnt through Blue Gum in 1994. The effects of this fire we don’t know yet and we may not know for many months to come.”
A botanist has been sent to inspect the area and there could be ongoing monitoring.Mr Luscombe did not wish to comment on how the fire was handled due to a lengthy absence, but Inspector Jack Tolhurst from the Blue Mountains District Rural Fire Service has warded off any potential criticism.
“I think at the moment we should be looking at the positive,” said Inspector Tolhurst. “The fire is contained . . . It’s been a very long campaign but at the end of the day we haven’t lost any property or lives and half the Grose Valley at least remains intact.”
A fire that broke out near Zig-Zag Railway last week has also been contained. [Ed. According to inside reports, Zig Zag Railway Station was accidentally firebombed by an aerial helicopter attempting backburning].
“We’ve had a lot of help from a wide range of people. We’ve had wonderful support from the community . . . it was a wonderful effort from everyone.”
Meanwhile the hard work has only just begun for another group of dedicated volunteers.Blue Mountains WIRES are expecting to rescue a number of fire-affected native animals in coming months as they wander into residential areas for food and water.
“The arboreal animals – possums and gliders – they come to grief,” said chairperson Greg Keightly. “Birds suffer heat stress and smoke inhalation. They’re going to be flying around bewildered.”
He said residents who see native wildlife in urban areas should keep pets inside, provide water off the ground in a place safe from predators, and avoid the temptation to feed wildlife.
“Things come up for months after fires,” said Mr Keightley.“Do ring us (4754-2946) if you thing something is injured or doing it tough,” he said.
The national park south of the Great Western Highway, and the lookout at Govetts Leap, are open to visitors.For information on closures call 4787-8877 or visit www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au’
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Mismanagement?
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So the silence from the firies, from Bushfire Management and from the New South Wales Government ultimately responsible and accountable, was deafening. It was as if the entire Firie fraternity had gone to ground in a code of silence behind closed doors.
So naturally the community response was that something smelt fishy. This communication intransigence was a public relations blunder by Bushfire Management, to its detriment.
Then filtered out accounts of crazy operational mismanagement during the bushfire and of bush arson by the firies behind the roadblocks beyond the public gaze.
Rumours circulated that the initial ignition had been left for burn in the critical first few days of 13th November and 14th November up on Burra Korrain Ridge because it wasn’t right next to a road so that fire trucks could get to it. The fire had even been abandonned. Then the wind picked up and it spread. Airborne firefighting was not called in until a Section 44 incident declaration was effected on 15th November.
A second fire nearby to the west near Hartley Vale, purported also lit by dry lightning on 14th Nov, had attracted broadscale backburning from the Hartley Vale Road. But the backburn got out of control, ripped up the valley fanned by winds and crossed over the Darling Causeway on to the Blackheath Escarpment and the Upper Grose to join up with the first blaze. The onground evidence shows that this was a hazard reduction burn starting from alongside the Hartley Vale Road just east of the village of Hartley Vale.
Then came the account of senior bushfire management at the Rural Fire Service headquarters at Homebush ordering a ‘headburning’ a new 10km fire front along the south of the Bells Line of Road into the Grose Valley. Perhaps the NSW Government had stepped in demanding action. Perhaps RFS headquarters response was a series of overreactions, albeit too late and to be seen to be now ‘acting’ was only compounding the fire risk to the Grose . Apparently, the RFS Commissioner had even touted imposing a massive defacto hazard reduction north of the Bells Line of Road right though the vast wilderness of the Wollemi National Park, to somehow head off another fire on 20th November some 80km away north of Wiseman’s Ferry, but that strategy was rejected in a heated operational debate. [“The Wollemi National Park is part of the World Heritage Area and covers 488,620 hectares. Important values of the park include the spectacular wild and rugged scenery, its geological heritage values, its diversity of natural environments, the occurrence of many threatened or restricted native plant and animal species including the Wollemi pine and the broad-headed snake, significant plant communities, the presence of a range of important Aboriginal sites and the park’s historic places which are recognised for their regional and national significance.” – Wollemi NP Plan of Management, April 2001]
Even the Zig Zag tourist railway station was apparently accidently firebombed by an overzealous airborne firefighter starting backburning en mass
Then came the account of Blackheath residents who had their houses subjected to the risk of a deliberately lit backburn during the course of the bushfire. Despite the out of control wildfire being many miles to the north west of Blackheath, a broadscale backburn (some say is was really a ‘defacto hazard reduction‘) was lit along the fire trail below the electricity transmission line near Govetts Leap lookout. But it got out of control briefly and threatened to burn houses in Connaught Road. Indeed the entire Blackheath Escarpment fire from Hat Hill Road south through Govetts Leap Lookout and Ebans Head was started deliberately as a ‘strategic’ backburn.
Blackheath Escarpment completely burnt (top) for hectares, looking south from Hat Hill Road
(Photo by editor 20061209, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
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The rural property east of Hartley Vale where on 20070207 there was clear evidence of hazard reduction (HR)commencing only from the south side Hartley Vale Road, opposite.Eucalypts were burned only at the base, but further up the hill the tree crowns had been burned.The HR had quickly got out of control and then crossed over the Darling Causeway.
(Photo by editor 20070207, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
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Once two weeks had passed since the dramatic firestorm and with only silence emanating from Bushfire Management and the NSW Government, local people had had enough and they wanted answers.
Some 143 local yet disparate conservationists via ‘jungle drums’ met up, discussed the issue, united informally and agreed to go public. They informally formed the ‘Grose Fire Group‘ and contributed to a fighting fund some $1700 odd and became vocal. Two weeks after the Grose Valley Firestorm the Grose Fire Group managed a full page open letter in the local Blue Mountains Gazette on 20061206 on page 13. It was directed to the ultimate authority responsible and accountable for the Grose Fire Tragedy, the NSW Government. The Premier at the time was Labor’s Morris Iemma MP. The NSW Member for the NSW Seat of Blue Mountains as well as NSW Minister for Environment at the time was Bob Debus MP.
Those who valued the Blue Gum Forest challenged those responsible for its protection. The tragedy certainly stirred and polarised the Blue Mountains community. Conservationists naturally wanted answers, an enquiry, a review of bushfire prevention and management from:
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service under the direction of Regional Director Geoff Luscombe
NSW Rural Fire Service under the direction of Commissioner Phil Koperberg
Blue Mountains Bushfire Management Committee aligned with Blue Mountains City Council and chaired by Councillor Chris Van Der Kley.
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‘Grose Valley Fire – World Heritage takes a hit’
“The Blue Gum Forest, birth-place of the modern conservation movement, was badly damaged by the Grose fire on Wednesday the 22nd of November. If this precious forest was a row of houses, then there would automatically be a major investigation into how the fire was fought. The fact that this major loss of our natural heritage is only now becoming known is testimony to the prevailing attitudes of those controlled the media spin during this recent fire event,” said Keith Muir director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness.
“Until today the overall perception from the media was that this fire was a good one. No houses or lives lost”, Mr Muir said.
“There where no media updates on the struggle to save Blue Gum. No the reports of success in saving fire sensitive rare plants and rainforests along the escarpment edge. All the media reports spoke of bushland burnt; not on the success of any strategy to minimise the impact on the World Heritage listed national park, while saving lives and property”, he said.
“The Blue Mountains National Park Fire Management Strategy 2004 sets out all the necessary actions to protect the natural environment, as well as life and property. Yet for some reason it appears at this stage that the fire was not fought according to that agreed Strategy, as far as its provisions on natural heritage were concerned”, said Mr Muir.
“Increased fire is a major threat to World Heritage values of the Greater Blue Mountains national parks. Unless we develop and implement better strategies to defend the bush, as well as lives and property, then climate change will make this threat much worse,” Mr Muir said.
“The fire management strategies and techniques undertaken during the fire need to be re-examined to ensure the diversity of the Blue Mountains forests is protected into the future,” he said.
“Future fire management requires the feedback that only an inquiry into the Grose Valley Fire can achieve. Such an inquiry should not be taken as a criticism of those involved in fighting fire. It is an opportunity to ensure that everyone stays on fully board with future efforts to minimise fire damages,” Mr Muir said.’
What exacerbated the conflict was not some much that the bushfire had got out of control and had raged through the precious Grose Valley per se, but it was more the defensive, aloof reaction by ‘Firies’ which escalated into a barrage of defensive and vocal acrimony against any form of criticism of the firefighters.
In the face of such palatable denial by the Firies,of any accountability the initial shock and sadness within the local community within days quickly manifested into outrage and anger, and even to blame and accusations.
Most conservationists however felt a right to question and seek specific answers from Bushfire Management about the Grose Fires, for lessons to be learned, for fundamental changes to be made to bushfire management policy, bushfire fighting resourcing and practices, all simply so that such a tragedy should not be repeated.
But the key problem was that the ‘Firies‘ adopted an ‘in denial’ approach to a community suffering loss. Many Firies denied that they had done anything wrong and rejected any criticism by conservationists. Some Firies vented their anger in the local media attacking anyone who dared criticise. Clearly, Bushfiore Management’s debriefing and review of the bushfire in its immediate aftermath was poorly managed.
Underlying the conflict was the Firies urban fire fighting mandate to ‘protect lives and property” – that is human ones, not forests, not wildlife. Whereas what emerged with many in the Blue Mountains community was the implicit expectation that the World Heritage Area is an important natural asset to be protected, including from devastating bushfire.
The Grose Valley Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
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Hence, it was a conflict between differing cultural value systems. It was about recognition of the value of the natural assets of the Blue Gum Forest and the Grose Valley within the Bue Mountains National Park within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
The iconic Blue Gum Forest
(Acacia Flat, before the pyrocumulus firestorm of 22nd November 2006)
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The iconic Blue Gum Forest
(The aftermath)
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20 Sep: (2 months prior)…‘Fire crews prepare’
[Source: ‘Fire crews prepare’, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20060926]
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‘With warmer days just around the corner and continuing dry weather the Blue Mountains Region National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is again undertaking rigorous preparation for the coming fire season.
“Every year around this time the NPWS run a number of fire preparedness days to ensure staff and fire-fighting equipment are fully prepared for the season ahead,” said Minister for Environment Mr Bob Debus.
NSW Labor Minister for Environment Mr Bob Debus MP
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“Fire preparedness days require fire-fighting staff to check their personal protective equipment, inspect fire-fighting pumps and vehicles and ensure that communication equipment and procedures are in place and working before the fire season begins.”
Mr Debus said a number of exercises, including four-wheel drive and tanker driving, first aid scenarios, entrapment and burnovers, were also employed to re-familiarise staff with all aspects of fighting fires.
“Burnovers, where fire-fighters are trapped in a vehicle as fire passes over it, is one of the worst case scenarios a fire-fighter can face so pre-season practice is critical to ensure that their response is second nature”, he said. “Local fire-fighters have also undergone stringent fitness assessments to make sure they are prepared for the physical demands of fire-fighting – like being winched from a helicopter into remote areas with heavy equipment, to work long hours under very hot and dry conditions wearing considerable layers of protective clothing”, Mr Debus explained.
Mr Debus said that fire preparedness and fitness assessment days worked in conjunction with a number of other initiatives as part of a year-long readiness campaign for the approaching summer.
“Over the past 12 months, NPWS officers have conducted more than 150 hazard reduction burns on national park land across NSW.”
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“Nineteen hazard reduction burns have been conducted in the Blue Mountains region covering nmore than 4500 ha” ~Bob Debus MP
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Mr Debus said that while fire-fighting authorities are preparing themselves to be as ready as possible for flare ups and major fires, home-owners in fire prone areas of teh Blue Mountains should also be readying themselves for the approaching season. “Now is the time to start cleaning gutters, ember proof houses and sheds, prepare fire breaks and clear grass and fuel away from structures”, he said.’
‘Residents in the historic Hawkesbury River village of St Albans prepared for the worst as raging bushfires neared. Their predicament came with a fresh fire outbreak in a remote corner of Wollemi National Park, 73 kilometres north of Windsor about 2pm. A Rural Fire Service spokesman said the blaze had destroyed 450 hectares by 3pm. It was being fanned by a string of north-westerly winds and had jumped Putty Road, causing its closure to traffic between Singeleton and Richmond. Winds of up to 80kmh forecast for the early hours of tomorrow are expected to drive the fire towards St Albans. About 45 Rural Fire Service volunteers with 10 tankers have been deployed to protect the small community as residents tried to safeguard their homes from floating embers. At least two helicopters were in the air to assist the operation.
Wildfire, spot fires and back burning across the Blackheath plateau
(Photo by Rural Fire Service)
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Blue Mountains:
‘Meanwhile a spokesman for the RFS, Andrew Shade, told (the Sydney Morning Herald) firefighters were waiting to see if changing winds would affect the Blue Mountains fires, which jumped containment lines overnight. “The fire is across about 7000 hectares; we’ve got 18 aircraft working the fire, including two sky cranes, [and] 400 personnel at the fire on about 60 trucks.”
..Other fires continue to burn across the state, with a number of fires across 7000 hectares in the Hunter Valley burning in remote and inaccessible areas. Two other fires, near Forbes and Bathurst respectively, are both contained but the RFS has expressed concerns over the weather and its ability to cause a change in the nature of the the two blazes. Firefighters set up a containment line to protect the outskirts of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.
Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg said today winds gusting up to 80kmh were predicted for about 3am tomorrow – a time when firefighting planes are unable to fly. At a news conference in Katoomba, Mr Koperberg described the present threat to Blue Mountain towns as “fairly serious … not grave”. However, he urged residents to clean fuel away from their homes as a precaution. This afternoon the most intense efforts were along a containment line at the northern end of Hat Hill Road at Anvil Rock. If that line was breached, the outskirts of Blackheath could be under threat, he said. Firefighters expected wind changes in the area between 4pm and 6pm today. The Bells Line of Road remains closed and the Blue Mountains National Park will remain closed until further notice.
The Great Western Highway and the Darling Causeway were open but drivers were advised to proceed with caution, with smoke likely to affect the roads. A total fire ban now applies in all but the north-east corner of the state as temperatures in the high 30s (Celsius), the strong winds and low humidity combine to produce potentially savage conditions…’
‘Thick smoke continues to drift across the Blue Mountains as the largest firefighting and backburning operation in the region since January 2003 enters its second week.
Hundreds of RFS volunteers, NSW Fire Brigades, SES and NPWS personnel, a number of remote firefighting units and 16 waterbombing aircraft are enlisted under a Section 44 declaration with a mission of containing and then attacking bushfires burning in the Grose Valley. The fires are believed to have been ignited by lightning on Monday, November 13 and at the time of going to press had burnt out 3800 hectares of bushland and private parkland in the valley below Blackheath, Mt Victoria, Bell and Mt Tomah.
No homes were under threat on Tuesday morning, but the RFS almost doubled its resources in the Blue Mountains on Monday night following unfavourable weather conditions.
The NSW FireBrigades also deployed extra fire engines and firefighters ot the Blue Mountains on Tuesday.
The large Blue Mountains bushfire broke its containment lines at Anvil Rock about 11 pm on Monday. Earlier, a comprehensive backburning operation involving 300 firefighters commenced on Saturday night between Blackheath and Mt Victoria to protect the townships if conditions worsened. A second phase began along Bells Line of Road between the Darling Causeway and Mt Tomah on Monday morning, continuing to Pierces Pass picnic area to the south.
The backburning activities can cause heavy smoke to linger in residential areas and residents are advised to close windows and doors. An emergency operations centre is active in Katoomba under the control of Local Emergency Operating Controller and Blue Mountains Police Local Area Commander Patrick Paroz, with the RFS as the lead combat agency.
Blue Mountains RFS community safety officer Eric Berry said remote area firefighting units will continue to attack the fire at the fringe and a fleet of 16 aircraft based in Medlow Bath airfield will operate to contain the fire.
“14 medium to heavy capacity helicopters have been operating 24/7 since last Tuesday [Ed: This contradicts the official RFS Section 44 Incident Controllers Report – Wednesday 15th not Tuesday 14th] and we now have three air crane helicopters on the job,” Inspector Eric Berry said. “This is a massive operation, certainly the biggest in the last three years. “It involves up to 300 RFS, NSW Fire Brigades, NPWS, police and SES personnel and volunteers at any one time, sourced from all over eastern NSW as well as every Blue Mountains RFS brigade. “Then there are the support services chipping in like the Salvation Army, who have been supplying breakfast at 5.30 am on a daily basis for the firefighters.”
Inspector Berry said RFS community information meetings last weekend were very successful in seven upper Mountains towns. “More than 200 residents attended one of the meetings held at Blackheath Golf Club, giving us an opportunity to explain what is going on in plain English. “More meetings may occur, but in the meantime residents should phone the RFS information line for updates. “We are getting nearly 6000 hits on our website per day and are updating the site at regular intervals.”
The Gazette visited the Medlow Bath Airfield last Friday, which continues to be a hive of activity. Six helicopters, including a giant sky crane chopper, took off and landed several times inside an hour, collecting water loads from nearby dams and dropping them into and ahead of the flames. Kev Adams, an RFS volunteer from Gloucester, described the conditions the pilots had to deal with early last week as wild.
“I came down from Gloucester last Wednesday and we went up in a chopper and the wind was blowing at about 41 knots. “We hit a pocket of turbulence and I hit my head on the ceiling even though I was strapped in, that’s how wild the wind was. “Hopefully we’ll be able to head home soon.”
Inspector Eric Berry said good progress has been made, but the weather ahead could test the containment lines.’
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Ed: Additional reporting in the online version of this article:
‘Severe weather is expected for the Blue Mountains this afternoon between 2.00pm and 5.00pm. A Total Fire Ban has been declared for a number of areas across the state today, including the Blue Mountains. Temperatures in the Blue Mountains are expected to reach 31 degrees with west-north-west winds gusting up to 45km/h.
Fire behaviour yesterday was subdued due to mild conditions and the main front extinguishing in very low fuel levels. Advantage was taken of these conditions to consolidate containment lines. The fire has now been burning for fourteen days and burnt nearly 15,000 hectares.
The amount of smoke is likely to increase today. Aircraft and ground crews will be actively patrolling the fire for reactivation of fire edges. Infrared hot spot technology is being used in an attempt to identify stumps and roots that are still smouldering near the edges. Crews can then locate the hotspots and extinguish them.
The Bells Line of Road between the Darling Causeway and Mount Tomah has been re-opened but may be closed intermittently. Mount Banks and Pierces Pass trails and tracks are closed to the public. Residents in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury should remain vigilant.’
Volunteers back burn along Bells Line of Road as smoke from the fire front can be seen overhead
(Photo by Wade Laube)
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‘A major bushfire burning out of control in the Blue Mountains again broke containment lines overnight ahead of forecast rugged day for fire fighters. Two separate blazes have blackened more than 8,000 hectares of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, with the larger of the two burning on a massive front about four kilometres north of the township of Blackheath.
Wind gusts of up to 70kph are forecast to push through that area, around Grose Valley, about 4am (AEDT) today. Blustery conditions expected for most of the day with temperatures in the low 30s (Celsius).
Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Phil Koperberg has said the towns of Mt Tomah and Mt Wilson would be vulnerable to a wind change. An RFS spokesman said crews had been working on a 35km containment line through the night but the bigger fire had now broken its eastern containment lines. He said crews were prepared for the “tricky” conditions expected early today, with wind gusts expected to pick up as the day gets warmer. Waterbombing aircraft cannot take off until first light but no property is currently under direct threat.
Meanwhile, a new bushfire burning in the Wiseman’s Ferry area is not posing any immediate threat to the village of St Albans, 90km north-west of Sydney. However, the RFS spokesman said that could also change depending on today’s winds. A total fire ban has been declared for much of the state today, including the Greater Sydney and Greater Hunter areas, the Illawarra and far south coast, southern and central ranges, the upper and lower central west plains and the eastern Riverina.’
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23 Nov: “Massive fire back-burn effort’
[Source: ‘Massive fire back-burn effort’, Mx (free Sydney commuter newspaper), by Matt Sun, 20061123, page 1]
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‘Hundreds of firefighters are today hoping a massive 30km containment line will stop the Blue Mountains bushfire in its tracks. [Ed: Bit late, this is the day after that pyrocumulus firestorm]
About 200 Rural Fire Service and NSW Fire Brigade firefighters worked overnight on a back-burn between Blackheath and Wentworth Falls. Firefighters were on standby until temperatures dropped and winds died. They were sent in to light the back-burn as soon as conditions calmed down. Crews spent this morning back burning on the Bells Line of Road and hoping to create containment lines near the village of (Mt) Tomah if winds subside.
The RFS said 400 firefighters started work on the blaze this morning. The weather bureau forecast a maximum temperature of 27C, 45kph gusting winds and 17% humidity this afternoon.
Two fires, both ignited by lightning 10 days ago, joined up this week and have now destroyed 14,500 ha. An RFS spokeswoman said the fire was burning 2.5 km south of Mt Tomah and 7km north of Wentworth Falls…Crews and 15 aircraft will remain on standby to extinguish any spot fires that pass over teh containment line. Fire-bombing helicopters Elvis and Shania were likely to be sent to other fires burning across NSW.
The RFS today said Blue Mountains townships were not in immediate danger but should remain alert. But experts warned the extreme weather conditions would return next week, with the mercury reaching the mid 30s.’
The above photo shot taken by the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper’s lead journalist, achieved front page on 20061129. The caption read: “Assessing the aftermath: Medlow Bath RFS crew member Noah Taylor and team leader Michael Anderson near Evans Lookout last Friday.”
This same photo was re-used by the Blue Mountains Gazette a year later on 20071024 (page 7) to support an article by the Rural Fire Service incident controller in charge of co-ordinating the fire-fighting of the 2006 Grose Fire, Mal Cronstedt, who responded to an article in the paper on this subject by The Habitat Advocate dated 20071010.
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‘Hundreds of weary but determined firefighters are steadily gaining the upper hand over a Grose Valley bushfire that has burned about 15,000 hectares since November 13.
Daylight waterbombing by a fleet of choppers based at Medlow Bath airfield, increasing access by remote area firefighting units, successful backburns along the northern and southern escarpments and milder than predicted weather conditions since Saturday have limited the spread of the fire.
At the time of going to press, 130 RFS, NSW Fire Brigades and NPWS firefighters and nine helicopters were conducting backburns, mopping up buffer zones and cutting in access trails to the fire’s fringes. The active front of the fire was within containment lines yesterday morning, allowing the Bells Line of Road and Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens to re-open.
A small fire that started at Mitchells Lookout in Mt Victoria on November 23 is extinguished and investigations are continuing into its cause.
Blue Mountains RFS is warning residents to remain vigilant by continuing to prepare their homes for fire if conditions worsen and to immediately report any suspicious activity to CrimeStoppers by calling 1800-333-000.
The milder conditions are a welcome relief from the heat and 100 km/h wind gusts that put residents of Hazelbrook, Linden, Faulconbridge and Winmalee on high alert last Wednesday afternoon.
An explosion within the fire, which witnesses described as causing a mushroom-like cloud to develop, ignited spotfires four kilometres north of Lake Woodford and five kilometres north of Hazelbrook. Many residents headed home early from work to clear gutters and roofs and two Winmalee schools opted to close for 24 hours as a precaution. Eighteen water-bombing aircraft attacked the spotfires, extinguishing one within hours and the second by Thursday evening.
For daily fire updates and advice, go to www.bluemountains.rfs.nsw.gov.au, phone a dedicated 24-hour hotline manned by local volunteers on 1800-264-525 or visit your local RFS station, staffed by volunteer station officers.
“These people are the unsung heroes of the RFS,” Blue Mountains RFS public liaison and education officer Paul McGrath said.
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Overwhelming grief shunned by government hush, galvanised an immense sense of environmental injustice :
It was time to challenge (with due civility) the unaccountable bastards in authority…the NSW Government:
An extract of a full page letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette 20061206 on page 13 It was commissioned by 143 concerned Blue Mountains residentsIt was addressed not to the ‘firies’, but to the NSW Government.
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Pulpit Rock on the left of the Grose Valley, before the firestorm
It is easy to see why the Blue Mountains, with their Eucalytus tree oil suspended in the atmosphere, get their famous name.
(Photo by Chris Ellis)
The following article is from the Tasmanian Times entitled ‘This is just plain wrong. Why is it allowed to continue?‘ contributed by Tasmanian resident Prue Barratt 20120614. Tigerquoll has contributed to the debate condemning prescribed burning. Further investigation has revealed the extent of the bush arson culture on the Island and is included below.
What’s left of Tombstone Creek old growth rainforest in Tasmania after a ‘Planned Burn’This wet forest was dominated by sassafras, myrtle, tree-ferns and tall Eucalyptus after logging and subsequent regeneration burn, 2006. It is situated at the headwaters of the South Esk River catchment water supply for the town of Launceston.
(Photo by Rob Blakers, 2006)
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‘My name is Prue Barratt and I live in Maydena in the Derwent Valley (Tasmania). I’m writing this to highlight what small towns around this state have to deal with in Autumn and Winter.
Today (Wednesday) started off as a spectacular crisp winter’s day; one of a few really beautiful days we get through our colder months. So I was excited to get outside for the day to enjoy the sun. But by the time I organised myself to venture out it was too late … as I opened my front door I was confronted by smoke … it was literally blowing in my door.
I covered my nose and stepped out to see what was going on and realised there were fires right around our little town; not one fire but a two or maybe three, I couldn’t actually see how many because I couldn’t see and I could hardly breath, I stepped back inside, grabbed the camera, and took the pictures above; this was the view from my roof … 360 degrees surrounded by smoke.
It was one of the worst smoke-outs I had experienced whilst living here and by the time I got back inside I reeked of smoke.
This is just plain wrong. It is the 21st Century on a planet that is worried about carbon pollution! Our leaders need to put an end to these archaic practices now. There is no need to subject communities or the environment in general to this kind off filthy practice.
Tasmania already has one of the country’s highest rates of asthma allergies and lung problems. Why is this allowed to continue? Tassie is supposed to be the “Clean Green State”.
I’m pretty sure the tourist bus loaded with people which crawled through town didn’t think it was a clean green state. I’m pretty sure they were horrified that this happens in a supposed developed country every year.
When your eyes are stinging and you are too scared to open the doors of your home because your house will become unbearably flooded with smoke; when you are concerned for the wellbeing of old and frail family members because you just can’t get away from it unless you completely pack up and leave for the night …
You feel like a prisoner in your own home … in country in this day and age.. There is a serious problem!
Postscript: I just needed to add to my article that three Norske Skog (Boyer pulp mill) employees just turned up on my doorstep and apologised for all the smoke. They weren’t burning coupes but were asked by a couple of locals to burn piles close to their houses; most of the coupes were already burnt earlier in the season, so I need to acknowledge that … but the whole burning off thing needs to stop regardless. They said they were looking into alternatives but it needs to stop now; not later. They have had long enough to change the way they do things … at our expense.’
[end of article]
.Smoke-filled atmosphere engulfing Maydena, South West Tasmania
(Photo by Prue Barratt, April 2012)
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In 2009 paper maker, Norske Skog, with its pulp mill plant situated at Boyer on Tasmania’s Derwent River, axed 50 jobs as a combined consequence of its automation upgrade to its pulp mill plant and due to the structural downturn in paper sales by its newspaper clients.
Ed: Newspapers are losing advertising revenue to Internet based businesses like Seek.com, CarSales.com.au, and HomeSales.com.au and so selling less newspapers and so buying less paper from the likes of Norske Skog.
Pile burning and forest (coupe) burning by Norske Skog is typical business-as-usual deforestation across Tasmania, not only by the forestry industry but by National Parks, the Tasmanian Fire Service and by rural landholders. It is all part of an inherited colonial cult of bush arson that is a key threatening process driving habitat extinctions across the island. Prescribed burning, aka ‘hazard reduction’, is a euphemism for State-sanctioned bush arson which is endemic practice not only across Tasmania’s remanining wild forests, but throughout Australia. It is a major contributor to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, which are what many scientists argue are Man’s cause of global warming and climate change.
The Gillard Labor Government is about to introduce a Carbon Tax on 1st July 2012, whereby Australia’s major industrial polluters must pay a Carbon Tax of $23 per tonne. Yet the many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of timber that are burnt by bushfires is somehow excluded – whether it be lightning ignitions allowed to get out of control, or deliberate State-sanctioned bush arson. This makes the Carbon Tax nothing but discriminating political greenwashing, with minimal climate impact. Meanwhile, and more critically, Australia’s ecology, regions by regions, is being driven closer to extinction by destructive bushfire management.
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Comments to Prue’s article by Tigerquoll
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‘CEO Bob Gordon and his Forestry Tasmania (FT) forest marauders along with his partners in eco-crime Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) Chief Officer Mike Brown need to be paying Julia’s Carbon Tax. But instead of $23 per tonne, it ought be $23 per cubic metre.
Send the two organisations broke. Do not donate to the TFS bastards. They light more fires than they put out. ‘Fuel’ Reduction is a euphemism for bush arson. It gives ‘em somthing to do in the off season. It reflects the helpless defeatism of Tasmania’s non urban fire emergency service denied proper and effective government resources to put out serious wildfires when they occur.’
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TFS bastards setting fire to native forests is defeatism, knowing that unless native vegetation is converted to sterile parkland that in a real wildlife it is every man for himself.
They even have removed the ‘Low Fire Risk’ category and added a ‘CatastrophicFire Risk’ category. They may as well add an ‘Armageddon’ category and be done with it! It is defeatism at its worst.
Local case in point – look recent Meadowbank Fire near Maydena in February this year east of Karanja. It started on Saturday, reportedly by “accident” at the Meadowbank Dam and burnt out 5000 hectares. Two days later was still officially ‘out of control’. The meaningless and flawed motto of ‘Stay or Go’ was supplanted by the false sense of security of ‘Prepare, Act, Survive’. In reality the pragmatic community message ought to be ‘You’re On Your Own’.
This Tassie Dad’s Army fire agency is more adept at starting bushfires than putting them out.
The under-resourced, raffle funded volunteer dependent model is abject Government neglect of emergency management. Every time someone criticises the non-urban fire fighting performance, the government bureaucracy and politicans hide behinds the nobleness of community volunteers.
Imagine if URBAN fire fighting was volunteer dependent on someone’s pager going off? Goodbye house.
I feel for the volunteers, but have no respect for the policy or organisation.’
Here’s a question..what is the impact on Tasmanian fauna?
Here’s some research…
“It’s spring, and soon we’ll start to get sensationalist stories predicting a horrendous bushfire season ahead. They will carry attacks on agencies for not doing enough to reduce fuel loads in forests close to homes, for unless those living on the urban fringe see their skies filled with smoke in winter they panic about losing their homes in January.
Fighting fires with fear is a depressing annual event and easy sport on slow news days. Usually the debate fails to ask two crucial questions: does hazard reduction really do anything to save homes, and what’s the cost to native plants and animals caught in burn-offs?
…A new scientific paper published in the CSIRO journal Wildlife Research by Michael Clarke, an associate professor in the department of zoology at La Trobe University, suggests the answer to both questions is: we do not know.
Much hazard reduction is performed to create a false sense of security rather than to reduce fire risks, and the effect on wildlife is virtually unknown.’
State-sanctioned bush arson in Tasmania
[Source: http://www.forestrytasmania.com/fire/fire1.html]
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Bushfires, their smoke and heat, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. So Bushfire Management has an obligation to reduce bushfires, not create them. Bushfire Management needs to pay a Carbon Tax just like any other industrial polluter.
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‘Forestry tries to spin results of CSIRO Emissions Study’
..more smoke and mirrors from an out-of-touch agency.
‘The Tasmanian Greens today said that a CSIRO study comparing smoke emissions from wood-heaters with forestry burn-offs did nothing to justify Forestry Tasmania’s outdated and unsustainable management practices. The study, commissioned by Forestry Tasmania, found that the majority of smoke pollution in specific parts of the Huon Valley during 2009 and 2010 was caused by wood-heater emissions.
Greens Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP said that these results aren’t surprising, particularly in the more densely populated areas such as Geeveston and Grove where the study was conducted.
“This is not a case of one type of smoke pollution being better than another. All smoke emissions are an unwanted nuisance for the community, particularly for those with pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma.”
“The commissioning and release of this study by Forestry Tasmania is another obvious attempt to justify their so-called regeneration burns. That’s despite the Environment Protection Authority identifying numerous breaches of guideline safety levels for particle emissions caused by burn-offs.”
“We need to be working as a community to reduce all smoke emissions and improve air quality. This means that we must work to educate people on the importance of installing heaters that burn efficiently, and comply with Australian standards.”
“Forestry can’t play down the negative impact of its burn-offs. The Greens receive many complaints from people suffering from respiratory problems, such as asthma, who have no option in some cases but to pack up and leave home during the forest burns season.”
“Proper systems need to be put in place, or its time these burns were stopped once and for all.”
2010: Escaped Controlled Burn at Ansons Bay in mid-Summer
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‘The derived fire location..corresponds to a wildfire at Ansons Bay(north-east Tasmania, near Bay of Fires) , listed on the Tasmanian Fire Service (TFS) webpage on the 23rd of January.
This fire had burnt out 100 ha on 23rd January 2010, and had burnt a total of 200 hectares when reported as extinguished on the 26th.
The fire was reported as an escaped permit burn. The permit burn was ignited on the 22nd of January 2010. The local TFS brigade responded to the wildfire at 14:00 EDT on the 23rd. The wildfire burnt mainly in grassland.
Smoke from a bushfire at Ansons Bay on the 23rd of January 2010 moved westwards towards the Tamar River. The BLANkET air stations at Derby, Scottsdale and Lilydale each detected the smoke as it moved. Ti Tree Bend station(Launceston) and the Rowella station in the lower Tamar also detected the smoke. Derby is approximately 35 km from the fire location, while Ti Tree Bend and the Rowella stations are approximately 100 km from the burn. The peak 10–minute PM2.5 concentrations at these stations were of order 10 to 15 μg m−3.
At Rowella the hourly–averaged PM2.5 reached to near 20 μg m−3 near 21:00 AEST.
[Source: ‘Blanket Brief Report 7: ‘Smoke from a bushfire at Ansons Bay, north–east Tasmania moving into to the Tamar Valley 23rd January 2010’, Air Section, Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Tasmanian Government, February 2011, ^http://epa.tas.gov.au/Documents/BLANkET_Brief_Report_07.pdf, Read Report]
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Tasmanian Forest Industry – its case for burning native forests every year
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‘The Tasmanian forest industry planned burning program, which includes both burning for forest regeneration, and burning for property protection generally commences in mid-March if conditions are suitable.
.. The Coordinated Smoke Management Strategy developed by the Forest Practices Authority is being used by the Tasmanian forest industry.
As of 2011, all smoke complaints are being received and investigated by the Environment Protection Authority, a Division of the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. [Ed. But the EPA has no watchdog besides the community, so it can be as incompetent, as negligent, as complicit, as dismissive, as colluding with its sister Tasmanian Government agencies all it likes. The EPA does not have any law that requires it to be publicly transparent. The photos in this article evidence the Tasmanian EPA as an ineffectual and spurious organisation.]
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Forest Regeneration
Fire is an important part of the life cycle of Eucalypts. In nature most eucalypt species require the disturbance provided by fire to regenerate. Eucalypt seeds and seedlings need a mineral soil seedbed, abundant sunlight and reduced competition from other plants to establish and grow. In nature this situation is provided by a major wildfire. Tasmanian forest managers mimic nature by using fire in a planned and controlled way to re-establish healthy fast growing trees after harvesting.
Planned burns are part of an industry-wide programme by :
Forestry Tasmania (FT)
The Forest Industries Asssociation of Tasmania (FIAT).
Tasmania Fire Service
Parks & Wildlife Service, Tasmania.
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Forests & Timber
Forests managed for timber production take more carbon out of the atmosphere over time than unmanaged forests locked up in reserves. Tasmania currently has 47% of forests locked up and unmanaged.
Timber from managed forests is used to build an array of structures from houses to multi-level buildings, sports arenas to architecturally designed public spaces. Timber is light and easy to work with and allows for flexibility and efficiency in design. Timber is warm, aesthetically pleasing and most importantly, renewable. Environments rich in timber have a kinship with nature and make people living and working in them feel at one with the outdoors.
It is so important, in these tough economic times, to use local products. Tasmanian timber produced in the state comes from sustainably managed forests, administered under processes established by Government. In addition, all public and most private forests in Tasmania are third party certified as being sustainably managed by the Australian Forestry Standard. Tasmanian timber is a particularly environmentally friendly choice and we should be using more wood to help combat climate change.
Wood is stored greenhouse gas – held together with stored sunlight. If we are serious about trying to address greenhouse and climate change problems, we should be growing and using more forests, for sustainable energy-efficient products that store carbon and for sustainable biomass-based energy systems.
Harvesting a forest results in the release of some carbon dioxide back into the air from which it came however a considerable portion remains stored in resulting forest products such as furniture, timber for housing and a myriad of paper products.
Ed: Fire is unnatural in old growth wet Eucalypt forests. Many forest plant species are fire sensitive so will not recover in teh evnt of a fire. No fauna are fire tolerant – they either burn to death or die after fire from starvation, exposure or predation. Those who burn forests have no idea of the impacts upon fauna populations, nor the impacts of fire upon biodiversity. Their lay observation upon seeing regrowth of some species is that setting fire to forest habitat must be ok.
Those who perpetuate and extend this myth, fabruicate the notion that fire is healthy and indeed essential for forest regeneration and survival. All new recruits of the Tasmanian Forest Industry, Tasmania Fire Service and Parks & Wildlife Service are duly indoctrinated to this dogma. Of course it is unsubstantiated crap. Al one needs do is walk through an ancient Styx forest that has not been burnt for hundreds of years to disprove the myth.
Those vested interests who stand to profit from deforestation and exploitation of native forests, brandish all protected forest habitat as being ‘locked up’ and ‘unmanaged’. The ecological values of the forests are dismissed as worthless. It is no different to 17th Century traders denied access to Africans for the slave trade.
Timber that is from native old growth forests is not “renewable” unless the industrial logger is prepared to wait 500 plus years to harvest. Logging old growth is eco-theft and irreversibly ecologically destructive.
Tough economic times means that the smart investment is into sustainable industries where there is strong market demand and growth for products not vulnerable to buyer rejection on the basis of immoral sourcing or production.
Biomass-based energy is a technical euphemism for burning forests, which is unacceptable because is causes green house gas emissions. Buring natiuve forests also drive local habitat extinctions.
Use LESS wood NOT more!
2010: Smoke rises into the sky above the Huon Valley in southern Tasmania as the state’s Forestry Department (Forestry Tasmania) conducts fuel-reduction burns on April 18, 2010
[Source: ‘Anger over smoke haze prompts review’ , ABC Northern Tasmania, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/19/2877011.htm?site=northtas]
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Parks & Wildlife Service – its case for burning native forests every year
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‘Planned burning is an important part of fire management designed to maintain biodiversity and to reduce the risk posed by bushfires to people, houses, other property and the natural environment. Fire plays a major role in the ecology of the Tasmanian natural environment. Fire can be a vital force in maintaining healthy bush. But in the wrong place at the wrong time, it can also lead to the destruction of unique vegetation communities, human life and property.
Our diverse vegetation communities have differing responses to fire, from potentially devastating impacts in alpine areas and conifer forests, to ecologically sustainable effects in buttongrass moorlands and dry scelerophyll forest. Tasmania’s unique fauna has some interesting adaptations to fire. For some species, it is essential for their habitat requirements.
‘The Parks and Wildlife Service is responsible for the management of bushfires on all reserved land in Tasmania.
This management includes:
control of unplanned bushfires
planned burning to reduce fuel loads and make fire control easier and safer
planned burning to help maintain biodiversity, promote regeneration of plants that depend on fire and to maintain suitable habitat for animals
maintaining assets that assist with bushfire control, for example, fire trails, firebreaks and waterholes.
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Planned Burning of Tasmania’s National Parks (to date) for 2012
The first planned burn area in the table above labelled as ‘Narawntapu‘ applied to Narawntapu National Park, specifically at Cosy Corner, Bay of Fires Conservation Area, in north-east Tasmania. The ecology is renowned for its Wombats and Tasmanian Devils. Where do they go when Parks Service starts fires?
Tasmania’s famous ‘Bay of Fires’
(Narawntapu National Park)
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The posted notice read:
‘Parks and Wildlife Service is today (Tuesday 8 May) conducting a fuel reduction burn in the Bay of Fires Conservation Area south of St Helens at the Cosy Corner North campground. The burn is about 20 hectares. The objective is to reduce fuel loads to provide protection for the campground in the event of a wildfire.’
So somehow the planned burn of 20 hectares extended to nearly 800 hectares inside the protected National Park! Was this yet another escaped burn? Where is the ecological report of damage to flora and fauna? So much for the National Parks motto ‘leave no trace’. How hypocritical!
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“How can walkers help keep Tasmania wild and beautiful?
Leave No Trace is an internationally accepted way of minimising impacts on the places we visit.”
~ Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania
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The National Park before the burn
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A wombat in Narawntapu National Park cannot run from fire
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The Burn Area of nearly 2800 hectares of Tasmania’s National for 2012, translates to 28 square kilometres.This is that aggregate area relative to Hobart – the entire map above!It’s like Hobart’s 1967 Black Tuesday every year in Tasmania’s National Parks
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Forest Smoke across southern Tasmania, from planned burning, April 2008
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Tasmania Fire Service – its case for burning native forests every year
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Ed: It doesn’t just have one programme, but two. One programme to burn native forests every year, the other to slash and bulldoze access to get good access to burn the native forests.
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Fuel Reduction Programme
‘Each summer, bushfires in our forests pose a significant threat to communities in rural areas, and on the rural-urban interface. Large, uncontrollable bushfires can have serious consequences for Tasmanians. The Tasmanian Government has committed funds towards a program of planned fuel reduction burns to help protect Tasmanians from the threat of wildfires. The program will see the State’s three firefighting agencies, Forestry Tasmania, the Tasmania Fire Service and the Parks and Wildlife Service combine their expertise in a concerted program aimed at reducing fuel loads around the state.
The objective of the inter-agency Fuel Reduction Burning Program is to create corridors of low fuel loads to help prevent large wildfires. The program complements but does not replace fuel reduction burning and other means of fuel reduction close to houses and other assets.’
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Bushfire Mitigation Programme
‘The Bushfire Mitigation Programme provides funds for construction and maintenance of fire trails and associated access measures that contribute to safer sustainable communities better able to prepare, respond to and withstand the effects of bushfires.
The program is administered by Australian Emergency Management (AEM) within the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department. Tasmania Fire Service is the lead agency in Tasmania for the Bushfire Mitigation Program.
In the 2009 Budget the Australian Government announced funding of $79.3m over four years for a new Disaster Resilience Program (DRP).
The DRP will consolidate the existing Bushfire Mitigation Program (BMP), the Natural Disaster Mitigation Program (NDMP) and the National Emergency Volunteer Support Fund (NEVSF) in an effort to increase flexibility for the jurisdictions and streamline the associated administration for both the Commonwealth and the States and Territories.
The Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department is currently working with representatives from each jurisdiction to ensure that the transition to the new DRP is as smooth as possible.
The DRP will commence in 2009-10 and details of the funding arrangements, program guidelines and implementation plans will be announced by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s department and disseminated to the relevant agencies and stakeholders in each jurisdiction in due course.’
Smoke haze from burnoffs pushed Tasmania close to breaching air safety standards last week.
In one 24-hour period, emission levels from the forestry regeneration and fuel-reduction burns “were approaching the standard”, state environmental management director Warren Jones told the Sunday Tasmanian.
Elevated particle levels had been detected in Launceston and Hobart on several days during the week.
A Sunday Tasmanian investigation into the smoke haze has revealed:
Between 5000ha and 7000ha is earmarked for forestry regeneration burns this season.
About 70,000ha of the state’s forest was razed by wildfire in the past summer.
The smoke contains a mix of carbon monoxide, tar, ash, ammonia and known carcinogens such as formaldehyde and benzene.’
The Tasmanian Greens today said that the Parliament needs to commission an independent study into the total social, environmental and economic costs of forestry burns, as they continue to emit pollutants into the air causing distress to the many Tasmanians suffering from respiratory complaints, and also impacting on Tasmania’s clean, green and clever brand.
Greens Health spokesperson Paul ‘Basil’ O’Halloran MP burn-off practice as outdated, old-school and not in line with appropriate practice today, especially when it continues to put thousands of Tasmanians with respiratory complaints in distressing situations. These airborne emissions impact disproportionately on children.
“Once again Tasmania’s beautiful autumn days are blighted by the dense smoke plumes blocking out the sun and choking our air,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“This is an unacceptable situation. It compromises Tasmanians’ health, our environment, and is an insult to common-sense.”
“The Greens are calling for the Minister to commission independent social, environmental and economic impact study of these burns.”
“Tasmania’s tourism industry also has reason for concern over this due to the plumes of smoke that choke up the air sheds and appear as a horrible blight on the Tasmanian Landscape.”
“We also want to see an end to these burns, and are calling on the Minister to consult with the community to establish a date by which this polluting practice will end once and for all.”
“It is also concerning at the impact these burns have on Tasmania’s biodiversity and threatened species such as the Tasmanian Devil, burrowing and freshwater crayfish, and a myriad of other plant and animal species.”
“The annual so-called forest regeneration burns have just commenced with Forestry Tasmania alone intends to conduct 300 coupe burns over five districts, and this will emit copious amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change, not to mention the risk this poses for the many Tasmanians who suffer from respiratory complaints such as Asthma,” Mr O’Halloran said.
The Killing of Wild Tasmania – Extinction by a Thousand Fires
.
These photographs provide an illustration of current Tasmanian forestry practices. The photos are from Coupe RS142E, in the upper valley of Tombstone Creek, one kilometer upstream from the Tombstone Creek Forest Reserve in the northeast highlands of Tasmania. Tombstone Creek is a tributary of the upper South Esk River, the headwaters of the water supply for Launceston.
Majestic ancient Rainforest in Tombstone Creek (c.1000 AD to 2006)BEFORE the Tasmanian Government’s State-sanctioned arson
(Photo taken in 2003)
.
AFTER
(Photo taken in October 2006)
‘I first came upon this forest in May 2003, and was so struck by it’s beauty that I made several return visits during the following 12 months. This steep valley-side supported a wet and mossy forest characterized by myrtles, blackwood, tall eucalypt emergents, groves of tree-ferns up to eight meters high and some of the largest sassafras that I have seen anywhere in Tasmania. Many of the sassafras trees had trunk diameters of one meter or more at chest height.
This forest was clear-felled by cable-logging in the summer of 2005 and burnt in an exceedingly hot fire in April 2006. All of the rainforest trees were killed outright. The site is steep and soils are sandy and the valley side was left in a condition which was highly vulnerable to severe soil erosion. This coupe is bordered by some areas that were logged within the last 10 years or so, and the regrowth in these adjacent coupes is a mix of wattle and eucalypt. A narrow strip of rainforest remains at the new coupe’s lowest edge, along Tombstone Creek, but recolonization by the rainforest trees cannot occur, due to the competitive advantage of the eucalyptus and wattles in a full sunlight situation. This is especially so in the context of a drying climate. Simply put, the process enacted here is conversion, in this case from a mature mixed rainforest dominated by myrtle and sassafras, with eucalypt emergents, to an uncultivated crop of wattle and, presumably, the aerially sown eucalypt species.
In this process of conversion, which is far from being confined to this particular coupe, two options are precluded. Firstly, the option for the natural forest to continue to exist for it’s own sake and to develop towards rainforest, a point from which, given the age of the eucalypts, it was not far removed. The second opportunity forgone is for the possibility of alternative uses of species other than wattle and eucalypt, including wood uses, for future generations of people.
Other negative and significant ecological impacts have occurred here, including devastating effects on wildlife, altered hydrology, atmospheric pollution, weed invasion and not least, the release of massive amounts of carbon, previously sequestered within the soil and the living vegetation, into the atmosphere.
The scenes depicted here are all within 100 meters of each other. The forest scenes were photographed in 2003, the other scenes in October 2006.
‘It’s spring, and soon we’ll start to get sensationalist stories predicting a horrendous bushfire season ahead. They will carry attacks on agencies for not doing enough to reduce fuel loads in forests close to homes, for unless those living on the urban fringe see their skies filled with smoke in winter they panic about losing their homes in January.
Fighting fires with fear is a depressing annual event and easy sport on slow news days. Usually the debate fails to ask two crucial questions: does hazard reduction really do anything to save homes, and what’s the cost to native plants and animals caught in burn-offs?
A new scientific paper published in the CSIRO journal Wildlife Research by Michael Clarke, an associate professor in the department of zoology at La Trobe University, suggests the answer to both questions is: we do not know.
What we do know is a lot of precious wild places are set on fire, in large part to keep happy those householders whose kitchen windows look out on gum trees.
Clarke says it is reasonable for land management agencies to try to limit the negative effects of large fires, but we need to be confident our fire prevention methods work. And just as importantly, we need to be sure they do not lead to irreversible damage to native wildlife and habitat.
He argues we need to show some humility, and writes: “The capacity of management agencies to control widespread wildfires ignited by multiple lightning strikes in drought conditions on days of extreme fire danger is going to be similar to their capacity to control cyclones.” In other words, sometimes we can do zip.
Much hazard reduction is performed to create a false sense of security rather than to reduce fire risks, and the effect on wildlife is virtually unknown.
The sooner we acknowledge this the sooner we can get on with the job of working out whether there is anything we can do to manage fires better. We need to know whether hazard reduction can be done without sending our wildlife down a path of firestick extinctions.
An annual burn conducted each year on Montague Island, near Narooma on the NSW far South Coast, highlights the absurdity of the current public policy free-for-all, much of which is extraordinarily primitive. In 2001 park rangers burnt a patch of the devastating weed kikuyu on the island. The following night a southerly blew up, the fire reignited and a few penguins were incinerated. It was a stuff-up that caused a media outcry: because cute penguins were burnt, the National Parks and Wildlife Service was also charcoaled.
Every year since there has been a deliberate burn on Montague, part of a program to return the island to native vegetation. Each one has been a circus – with teams of staff, vets, the RSPCA, ambulances, boats and helicopters – all because no one wants any more dead penguins.
Meanwhile every year on the mainland, park rangers and state forests staff fly in helicopters tossing out incendiary devices over wilderness forests, the way the UN tosses out food packages. Thousands of hectares are burnt, perhaps unnecessarily, too often, and worse, thousands of animals that are not penguins (so do not matter) are roasted. All to make people feel safe. Does the burning protect nearby towns? On even a moderately bad day, probably not. Does it make people feel better? Yes.
Clarke’s paper calls for the massive burn-offs to be scrutinised much more closely. “In this age of global warming, governments and the public need to be engaged in a more sophisticated discussion about the complexities of coping with fire in Australian landscapes,” he writes.
He wants ecological data about burns collected as routinely as rainfall data is gathered by the agricultural industry. Without it, hazard reduction burning is flying scientifically blind and poses a dangerous threat to wildlife.
“To attempt to operate without … [proper data on the effect of bushfires] should be as unthinkable as a farmer planting a crop without reference to the rain gauge,” he writes.
In the coming decades, native plants and animals will face enough problems – most significantly from human-induced climate chaos – without having to dodge armies of public servants armed with lighters. Guesswork and winter smoke are not enough to protect our towns and assets now, and the risk of bushfires increases with the rise in carbon dioxide.
James Woodford is the editor of www.realdirt.com.au.
This article was initially written by this editor and published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper on 20051005 as a letter to the editor, entitled ‘RFS strategy misguided‘.
.19th Century heritage-listed ‘Six Foot Track’
..bulldozed by the Rural Fire Service in July 2005, widened into a convenient Fire Trail for its fire truck crews.
.
It has been revealed that the June bulldozing or grading of the Six Foot Track near Megalong Creek (Blue Mountains, New South Wales) was a mere drop in the Rural Fire Service (RFS) Bushfire Mitigation Programme.
Across the Blue Mountains, some twenty natural reserves including the Six Foot Track were targeted under the RFS 2004-05 Fire Trail Strategy:
Edith Falls
McMahons Point
Back Creek
Cripple Creek
Plus some 95 hectares inside the Blue Mountains National Park.
According to the Australian Government’s (then) Department of Transport and Regional Services (DOTARS) website, some $151,195 was granted to the RFS in the Blue Mountains alone, for it to bulldoze and burn 144 hectares of native bushland under the euphemism of “addressing bushfire mitigation risk priorities” (Ed: Read ‘bush arson‘)
‘The Six Foot Track Conservation and Management Plan 1997, Vol II’ lists numerous vulnerable species of fauna recorded near Megalong Creek – the Glossy Black-Cockatoo (Clyptorhynchus lathami), Giant Burrowing Frog (Heleioporus australiacus), Spotted-tailed Quoll (Dasyurus maculatus).
Spotted-tailed Quoll
(Dasyurus maculatus)
Blue Mountains top order predator, competing with the Dingo
.
The RFS contractors wouldn’t have had a clue if they were within 100 metres or 1 metre of rare, vulnerable or threatened species.
The RFS is not exempt from destroying important ecological habitat; rather it is required to have regard to the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD).
The ‘Rationale‘ of this RFS ESD policy states at Clause 1.2:
‘The Bush Fire Coordinating Committee, under the Rural Fires Act 1997 Sec 3 (d), is required to have regard to ESD as outlined in the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991, which sets out the following principles:
a) The precautionary principle namely, that if there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation. In the application of the precautionary principle, public and private decisions should be guided by:
i. careful evaluation to avoid, wherever practicable, serious or irreversible damage to the environment, and ii. an assessment of the risk-weighted consequences of various options.
.
b) Inter-generational equity namely, that the present generation should ensure that the health, diversity and productivity of the environment are maintained or enhanced for the benefit of future generations
.
.
c) Conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity should be a fundamental consideration in all decisions.
.
d) Recognising the economic values that the natural environment provides. The natural environment has values that are often hard to quantify but provide a benefit to the entire community. By recognising that the natural environment does have significant economic and social values we can improve decision making for the present and future generations.’
.
.
Yet the RFS policy on hazard reduction is woefully loose in the ‘Bushfire Co-ordinating Committee Policy 2 /03 on ESD‘ – which (on paper) advocates protecting environmental values and ensuring that ESD commitments are adopted and adhered to by contractors.
Experience now confirms this policy is nothing more than ‘greenwashing’. The RFS wouldn’t know what environmental values were if they drove their fire truck into a Blkue Mountains upland swamp. There is not one ecologist among them.
While the critical value of dedicated RFS volunteer fire-fighters fighting fires is without question, what deserves questioning is the unsustainable response of the RFS ‘old guard’ to fire trails and hazard reduction with token regard for sensitive habitat. Repeated bushfire research confirms that bushfires are mostly now caused by:
Bush arson (hazard reduction included, escaped or otherwise)
More residential communities encroaching upon bushland.
.
Under the ‘Blue Mountains Bushfire Management Committee Bushfire Risk Management Plan’(Ed: their bureaucratic name), key objectives are patently ignored:
‘Ensure that public and private land owners and occupiers understand their bushfire management responsibilities’
‘Ensure that the community is well informed about bushfire protection measures and prepared for bushfire events through Community Fireguard programs’
‘Manage bushfires for the protection and conservation of the natural, cultural, scenic and recreational features , including tourism values, of the area’.
.
Instead, the Rural Fire Service is content to look busy by burning and bulldozing native bushland. The RFS actively demonises native vegetation as a ‘fuel hazard‘, in the much the same way that ignorant colonists of the 18th and 19th centuries demonised Australia’s unique wildlife as ‘vermin‘ and ‘game‘.
.
Further Reading:
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[1] Previous article on The Habitat Advocate: ‘RFS Bulldozes Six Foot Track‘ (published 20101220): [>Read Article]
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[2] Tip of the Bush-Arson Iceberg
What these government funded and State-sanctioned bush-arsonists get up to, deliberately setting fire to wildlife habitat, is an ecological disgrace.
The following list is from just 2005 of the vast areas of native vegetation deliberately burnt across New South Wales in just this one year. [Source: DOTARS].
Not surprisingly, this State-sanctioned bush-arson information is no longer published by government each year for obvious clandestine reasons, as the bush-arson continues out of the public eye.
The hazard reduction cult is similarly perpetuated across other Australian states – Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, West Australia as well as Northern Territory and the ACT. No wonder Australia’s record of wildlife extinctions tragically leads the world! There is little precious rich wildlife habitat left.
.
National Park and Wildlife Service (NSW) Bush Arson:
(Note: ‘NR’ = Nature Reserve, ‘NP’ = National Park, ‘SCA’ = State Conservation Area… as if these bastards care)
Reserve / Activity Name
Treatment Area (km2)
Baalingen NR
5
Baalingen NR
6
Bald Rock NP
7
Banyabba NR
0.5
BANYABBA NR
3
BANYABBA NR
24
BANYABBA NR
8
Barakee NP
6
Barool NP
20
Barool NP
6
Barool NP
5
Barool NP
4
Barool NP
2
Barool NP
5
Barrington Tops NP
2.5
Barrington Tops NP
2
Barrington Tops NP
6
Barrington Tops NP
18
Barrington Tops NP
6
Barrington Tops NP
16
Barrington Tops NP
11
Barrington Tops NP
1
Barrington Tops NP
4
Barrington Tops NP
2
Barrington Tops NP
1
Barrington Tops NP
3
Basket Swamp NP
1
Basket Swamp NP
12
Basket Swamp NP
2
Basket Swamp NP
4
Bellinger River NP
1
Ben Boyd NP
0.8
Ben Boyd NP
3
Ben Boyd NP
0.9
Ben Boyd NP
0.9
Ben Boyd NP
5
Ben Boyd NP
13
Ben Boyd NP
5
Ben Boyd NP
0.4
Ben Boyd NP
1
Ben Boyd NP
2
Ben Boyd NP
3
Ben Boyd NP
5
Ben Boyd NP
3.6
Ben Boyd NP
1.9
Ben Boyd NP
1.6
Ben Halls Gap NP
3
Bindarri NP
2
Black Bulga SCA
8
Black Bulga SCA
12
Black Bulga SCA
21
Blue Mountains NP
42
Blue Mountains NP
8.3
Blue Mountains NP
23
Blue Mountains NP
10
Blue Mountains NP
12
Bogendyra NR
Bolivia NR
1
BOLLONOLLA NR
2
Bondi Gulf NR
8
Bondi Gulf NR
6
Bondi Gulf NR
10
BONGIL BONGIL NP
0.3
BONGIL BONGIL NP
0.5
Boonoo Boonoo NP
9
Boonoo Boonoo NP
10
Booti Booti NP
0.5
Booti Booti NP
0.3
Booti Booti NP
3
Booti Booti NP
0.3
Booti Booti NP
3
Border Range NP
6
Border Ranges NP
4
Border Ranges NP
3
Border Ranges NP
4
Border Ranges NP
2.8
Bouddi NP
0.5
Bouddi NP
0.3
Bouddi NP
0.9
Bouddi NP
0.9
Bouddi NP
0.5
Bouddi NP
1.1
Bouddi NP
0.5
Bouddi NP
1.9
Bouddi NP
1.1
Bouddi NP
0.6
Bouddi NP
2.3
Bournda NR
10
Bournda NR
5
Bournda NR
0.5
Bournda NR
0.5
Bournda NR
0.5
Brindabella NP
20
Brisbane Water NP
4.4
Brisbane Water NP
2.4
Brisbane Water NP
3.7
Brisbane Water NP
3.6
Brisbane Water NP
0.3
Brisbane Water NP
3.1
Brisbane Water NP
0.6
Budawang NP
4.8
Budderoo NP
10
Bugong NP
3.1
Bundgalung NP
2
BUNDJALUNG NP
7
BUNDJALUNG NP
4.5
BUNDJALUNG NP
8
BUNDJALUNG NP
1.5
BUNDJALUNG NP
0.5
BUNDJALUNG NP
6
BUNDJALUNG NP
3
BUNDJALUNG NP
3
BUNDJALUNG NP
4
BUNDJALUNG NP
2
BUNDJALUNG NP
1
Bundundah Reserve
1.94
Bundundah Reserve/Morton NP
4.7
Bungawalbyn NP
2
Bungawalbyn NP
2.25
Bungawalbyn NP
4
Bungawalbyn NP
5
Bungawalbyn NP
3
Bungawalbyn NP
4.5
Bungawalbyn NP
6.5
Bungawalbyn NP
5
Bungawalbyn NP
1.65
Bungawalbyn NP
1.5
Burnt Down Scrub NR
2
Burnt School NR
2
Burrinjuck NR
8
Burrinjuck NR
15
Burrinjuck NR
3
Butterleaf NP
Butterleaf NP
3
Butterleaf NP
3.2
Butterleaf NP
1.2
Butterleaf NP
1.6
Butterleaf NP
1.2
Butterleaf NP
2
Butterleaf NP
1.8
Butterleaf NP
1.4
Butterleaf NP
0.5
Butterleaf NP
2.3
Butterleaf NP
3.3
Butterleaf NP
3.9
Butterleaf NP
5.3
Butterleaf NP
0.4
Butterleaf NP
0.5
Butterleaf NP
1.5
Butterleaf NP
2.9
Butterleaf NP
5.3
Butterleaf NP
4
Butterleaf NP
3.3
Butterleaf NP
3.6
Butterleaf NP
1.5
Butterleaf NP
8.8
Butterleaf NP
0.5
Capoompeta NP
10
Cataract NP
Cataract NP
1.5
Cataract NP
2
Cataract NP
2
Cataract NP
1.5
Cataract NP
2
Cataract NP
1
Clayton Chase
5
Clayton Chase
10
Clayton Chase
3.5
Clayton Chase
4
Clayton Chase
3
Clayton Chase
3
Clayton Chase
4
Conjola NP
5.7
Conjola NP
1.8
Conjola NP
8.3
Conjola NP
4.8
Conjola NP
2.9
Conjola NP
4.5
Conjola NP
6.5
Coolah Tops NR
28
Coolah Tops NR
1
Coolah Tops NR
6
Copeland Tops SCA
3
Copeland Tops SCA
3.5
Corramy SCA
0.7
Cottan-bimbang NP
6
Cottan-bimbang NP
16
Cottan-bimbang NP
15
Culgoa NP
30
Curramore NP
Curramore NP
8
Curramore NP
8.9
Curramore NP
11
Curramore NP
5.5
Dapper NR
10
Deua NP
15.2
Deua NP
1.4
Deua NP
1
Deua NP
4
Deua NP
21.5
Deua NP
2.1
Deua NP
1.4
Deua NP
3.3
Deua NP
8.5
Deua NP
20.8
Deua NP
5.3
Deua NP
6.6
Deua NP
28.2
Deua NP
5.65
DUNGGIR NP
4
Eurobodalla NP
0.8
Eurobodalla NP
2.5
Eurobodalla NP
0.8
Eurobodalla NP
2.4
Eurobodalla NP
2
Flaggy creekNR
3
Flaggy creekNR
1.8
GANAY NR
2
GANAY NR
2
Garawarra SCA
Garby NR
2
Gardens of Stone NP
18
Gibraltar NP
14
Goobang NP
5
Goobang NP
25
GUMBAYNGIR SCA
12
GUMBAYNGIR SCA
7
GUMBAYNGIR SCA
6
Ironbark NR
13.5
Jerrawangala NP
6.83
Jervis Bay NP
2.37
Jervis Bay NP
5.42
Jervis Bay NP
0.56
Jervis Bay NP
0.82
Jervis Bay NP
1.45
Jervis Bay NP
1.72
Jervis Bay NP
0.21
Jervis Bay NP
0.32
Jervis Bay NP
0.7
Jervis Bay NP
0.4
Jervis Bay NP
0.35
Jervis Bay NP
0.35
Jervis Bay NP
0.48
Jervis Bay NP
1.03
Jervis Bay NP
0.65
Jervis Bay NP
1.91
Jervis Bay NP
0.34
Jervis Bay NP
0.95
Jervis Bay NP
1.46
Jervis Bay NP
0.71
Jervis Bay NP
1.07
Jingellic NR
20
Karuah NR
10
Karuah NR
28
Karuah NR
10
Karuah NR
12
Karuah NR
1
Kings Plains NP
7
Kings Plains NP
0
Kings Plains NP
4
Koreelah NP
6
Kosciuszko NP
30
Kosciuszko NP
9.5
Kosciuszko NP
22
Kosciuszko NP
22
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
12
Kosciuszko NP
12
Kosciuszko NP
17
Kosciuszko NP
5
Kosciuszko NP
28
Kosciuszko NP
9
Kosciuszko NP
6
Kosciuszko NP
6
Kosciuszko NP
26
Kosciuszko NP
8.9
Kosciuszko NP
15
Kosciuszko NP
15
Kosciuszko NP
2.5
Kosciuszko NP
8.9
Kosciuszko NP
10
Kosciuszko NP
11
Kosciuszko NP
4.8
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
19
Kosciuszko NP
7.2
Kosciuszko NP
7.2
Kosciuszko NP
13
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
15
Kosciuszko NP
12
Kwiambal NP
7
Kwiambal NP
3
Kwiambal NP
2
Kwiambal NP
2.25
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.3
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.4
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.4
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.4
Ledknapper NR
15
Linton NR
12.5
Meroo NP
2.4
Meroo NP
0.9
Meroo NP
0.6
Meroo NP
3.3
Meroo NP
3.9
Meroo NP
3.5
Meroo NP
0.5
Morton NP
5.9
Morton NP
8.3
Morton NP
3.8
Morton NP
6
Morton NP
13
Morton NP
0.4
Morton NP
4.5
Morton NP
5
Morton NP
2.7
Morton NP
0.7
Morton NP
2.1
Morton NP
1
Morton NP
6
Mt Canobolas SCA
1
Mt Clunnie NP
6.5
Mt Dowling NR
2
MT NEVILLE NR
11
MT NEVILLE NR
1
MT NEVILLE NR
1.5
MT NEVILLE NR
11
MT NEVILLE NR
1.5
MT NEVILLE NR
3.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
4
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
1.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
1.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
4
MT PIKAPENE NP
7
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
6
MT PIKAPENE NP
3
MT PIKAPENE NP
0.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
0.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
1
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
6
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
1
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
1.5
Mummell Gulf NP
3
Mummell Gulf NP
7
Mummell Gulf NP
5
Munmorah SRA
0.7
Munmorah SRA
0.8
Munmorah SRA
0.45
Munmorah SRA
1
Munmorah SRA
2
Munmorah SRA
0.9
Munmorah SRA
1.6
Muogamarra NR
1
Murramarang NP
0.9
Murramarang NP
8
Murramarang NP
1
Murramarang NP
5.1
Murramarang NP
8.2
Murramarang NP
3.1
Murramarang NP
6.8
Murramarang NP
16
Murramarang NP
4.3
Murramarang NP
4
Myall Lakes NP
5
Myall Lakes NP
5
Myall Lakes NP
1.5
Myall Lakes NP
2
Myall Lakes NP
1
Myall Lakes NP
5
NGAMBAA NR
2
NGAMBAA NR
5
Nombinnie NR
10
Nymboida NP
6
Nymboida NP
12
Nymboida NP
3
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
1
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
3.2
Nymboida NP
4.5
Nymboida NP
2
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
2.8
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
7
Nymboida NP
6
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
10.7
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
19.1
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
13.4
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
18
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
18
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
15
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
33
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
33
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
5
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
5
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
4
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
3
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
7
Parma Creek NR
0.21
Parma Creek NR
0.07
Parma Creek NR
0.3
Parma Creek NR
0.01
Parma Creek NR
0.29
Parma Creek NR
5
Paroo Darling NP
60
Policemans Cap
10
Razorback NR
17
Richmond Range NP
3.9
Richmond Range NP
6.5
Richmond Range NP
3.8
Richmond Range NP
4.5
Richmond Range NP
5.5
Richmond Range NP
9
Royal NP
1
Seven Mile Beach NP
1.09
Seven Mile Beach NP
1.79
Seven Mile Beach NP
2.24
Seven Mile Beach NP
0.74
Seven Mile Beach NP
2.03
Severn River NR
6
Single NP
21
South East Forest NP
5
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
2.6
South East Forest NP
3
South East Forest NP
10.9
South East Forest NP
1.3
South East Forest NP
1
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
2.8
South East Forest NP
2
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
2
South East Forest NP
5.1
South East Forest NP
3.5
South East Forest NP
0.5
South East Forest NP
6
South East Forest NP
3
South East Forest NP
1
South East Forest NP
5.5
South East Forest NP
0.8
Stoney Batter NR
6
Tapitallee NR
0.52
Tapitallee NR
0.33
Tapitallee NR
0.36
Tapitallee NR
0.32
Tarlo River NP
3.8
Tarlo River NP
2.1
Tarlo River NP
2.9
Tarlo River NP
5.9
Tarlo River NP
6.5
Tarlo River NP
2.7
Tarlo River NP
2.1
Tarlo River NP
6
Tollingo NR
150
Tomaree NP
1.8
Tooloom NP
3
Toonumbar NP
31.9
Toonumbar NP
8.5
Toonumbar NP
17
Toonumbar NP
21.5
Triplarina NR
0.71
Triplarina NR
0.32
Triplarina NR
0.66
Triplarina NR
0.75
Triplarina NR
1.34
Triplarina NR
0.31
Triplarina NR
1.24
Triplarina NR
1.35
Ungazetted (Kalyarr NP)
48
Ungazetted (Kalyarr NP)
26
Unknown
7
Wa Hou NR
10
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
7
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
11
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
7
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
1
Wallaroo NR
3
Wallaroo NR
1.5
Wallaroo NR
8
Wallaroo NR
5
Wallaroo NR
11
Wallaroo NR
7
Wallaroo NR
7
Wallaroo NR
16
Wallaroo NR
6
Wallingat NP
2
Wallingat NP
1.3
Wallingat NP
3.6
Wallingat NP
3.3
Washpool Np
18
Washpool NP
5.3
Washpool NP
5.6
Washpool NP
7.1
Washpool NP
6.4
Washpool NP
1.6
Washpool NP
7
Washpool NP
2.8
Watson’s Creek NR
5
Wereboldera SCA
9
Woggoon NR
144
Wollemi NP
21
Wollemi NP
12
Wollemi NP
10
Wollemi NP
30
Wollemi NP
7
Wollemi NP
11
Wollemi NP
7
Wollemi NP
16
Wollemi NP
2
Wollemi NP
8
Wollemi NP
5
Woodford Island NR
1.5
Woodford Island NR
2
Woodford Island NR
3
Woodford Island NR
3
Woollamia NR
1.51
Woollamia NR
0.77
Woollamia NR
1.95
Woollamia NR
1.88
Woollamia NR
0.74
Woomargama NP
15
Yabbra NP
8
Yabbra NP
45
Yango NP
0.45
Yanununbeyan NP
11
YARRIABINNI NP
2
YARRIABINNI NP
3
YARRIABINNI NP
5
YARRIABINNI NP
6
YARRIABINNI NP
4
Yuraygir NP
4
Yuraygir NP
3.5
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
1
YURAYGIR NP
0.03
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
3.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
28
Yuraygir NP
10
Yuraygir NP
12
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
4
Yuraygir NP
3.5
3,785.10 Ha
i.e. An area 6km x 6km
.
NSW Local Government Areas (LGAs)
Bush Fire Management Committee / LGA
Reserve / Activity Name
Treatment Area (km2)
Blue Mountains
Northern Strategic Line -Primary
8
Blue Mountains
De Faurs Trail – Mt Wilson -Primary
2.8
Blue Mountains
Mitchell’s Creek Fire Trail – Primary
3.5
Blue Mountains
Nellies Glen Fire Trail
2.8
Blue Mountains
Back Creek Fire Trail – Primary
3.2
Blue Mountains
Mt Piddington Trail – Hornes Point
N/A
Bombala
Gibraltar Ridge Fire Trail (2) (PT)
20
Bombala
Mt Rixs Fire Trail (PT)
6
Bombala
Roaring Camp Fire Trail (PT)
12
Cooma-Monaro
Brest Fire Trail (2) (PT)
15
Cooma-Monaro
Calabash Fire Trail (2) (PT)
22
Cooma-Monaro
Murrumbucca Fire Trail (2) (ST)
15
Cooma-Monaro
Bridge Fire Trail (2) (PT)
6
Cooma-Monaro
Log In Hole Fire Trail (2) (PT)
5
Gloucester
Upper Avon Fire Trail
11
Greater Argyle
Mountain Ash Fire Trail
10
Greater Argyle
Mootwingee Fire Trail
6
Greater Hume
Murphy’s Fire Trail
0.2
Greater Hume
Mandaring Fire Trail
1
Greater Queanbeyan City
Queanbeyan River Fire Trail
5.5
Greater Queanbeyan City
Gourock Fire Trail
5.8
Hawkesbury District
Jacks Trail
1.6
Hawkesbury District
Duffys Trail (2) ?tenure
3
Mallee
Various Fire Trails
N/A
Mallee
No 21 Fire Trail
20
Namoi/Gwydir
Warialda State Forest
6.5
Namoi/Gwydir
Zaba-Kaiwarra-Kiora Fire Trail (check)
10
Namoi/Gwydr
Blue Nobby Fire Trail (check)
8
Namoi/Gwydr
Araluen Fire Trail (check)
6
Snowy River
Snowy Plain Fire Trail (2) (PT)
18
Snowy River
Crackenback Fire Trail (PT)
10
Snowy River
Devils Hole Fire Trail (PT)
18
Snowy River
Golden Age Fire Trail (2) (PT)
8
Sutherland
Sabugal Pass Fire Trail
N/A
SW Mallee
Various Fire Trails
N/A
SW Mallee
Oberwells Fire Trail
28
SW Mallee
Mandleman Fire Trail
40
Upper Lachlan
Johnsons Creek Fire Trail
15
Warringah/Pittwater
Lovett Bay Trail (2)
2.5
Warringah/Pittwater
Elvina Bay Trail (2)
1.5
Yass Valley
Nelanglo Fire Trail
21
Yass Valley
Hayshed Fire Trail 1
7
Yass Valley
Hayshed Fire Trail 2
7
391.90 km2
i.e. An area 20km x 20km
.
Forests NSW (government’s industrial logger of NSW remnant forests).
(Forests NSW did not publish the area burnt, only the cost. As a rule of thumb use $3000/square km)
Bush Fire Management Committee
Reserve / Activity Name
NSW Allocation
Clarence Zone
Dalmorton SF
$30,000
Future Forests
Swan
$20,050
Future Forests
Tindall
$10,680
Future Forests
Tooloom
$10,425
Future Forests
Mazzer
$7,341
Future Forests
Kungurrabah
$4,435
Future Forests
Morpeth Park
$3,773
Future Forests
Loughnan
$3,155
Future Forests
Inglebar
$3,000
Future Forests
Lattimore
$2,604
Future Forests
Byrne
$1,755
Future Forests
Ziull 4
$1,677
Future Forests
Lejag
$1,670
Future Forests
Ziull 2
$1,600
Future Forests
Bates
$1,563
Future Forests
Ziull 3
$1,454
Future Forests
Envirocom
$1,410
Future Forests
Morgan
$1,361
Future Forests
McNamara
$1,279
Future Forests
Neaves
$967
Future Forests
Zuill
$872
Future Forests
Boyle
$807
Future Forests
Fitzpatrick
$791
Future Forests
Morrow
$785
Future Forests
Morrow
$785
Future Forests
Morrow
$785
Future Forests
Wallwork
$665
Future Forests
Smith
$665
Future Forests
Wilson
$622
Future Forests
Jarramarumba
$600
Future Forests
Hession
$597
Future Forests
Edwards
$563
Future Forests
Maunder
$558
Future Forests
Kuantan
$515
Future Forests
Billins
$484
Future Forests
Cox
$475
Future Forests
Paterson
$461
Future Forests
Gladys
$415
Future Forests
O’Keefe
$371
Future Forests
Woodcock
$369
Future Forests
Pratten
$346
Future Forests
Truswell
$323
Future Forests
Divine
$323
Future Forests
Hastings
$323
Future Forests
White
$300
Future Forests
Miller
$300
Future Forests
Koop
$300
Future Forests
Lacy
$277
Future Forests
Nosrac
$277
Future Forests
Tully
$277
Future Forests
Baker
$277
Future Forests
Yaganegi
$277
Future Forests
Siezowski
$254
Future Forests
Zuill
$254
Future Forests
Atcheson
$254
Future Forests
Dissevelt
$254
Future Forests
Hoy
$254
Future Forests
Woods
$254
Future Forests
Dawson
$254
Future Forests
Hagan
$254
Future Forests
Skelly
$231
Future Forests
Robards
$231
Future Forests
Maunder
$231
Future Forests
Day
$231
Future Forests
O’Connell
$231
Future Forests
Kompara
$231
Future Forests
Carmen
$231
Future Forests
Maurer
$231
Future Forests
Cunin
$208
Future Forests
GCC
$208
Future Forests
White
$208
Future Forests
Hayer
$208
Future Forests
Southgate
$208
Future Forests
Peck
$208
Greater Taree
Kiwarrak SF
$40,000
Hastings
Cowarra SF
$30,000
Hastings
Caincross SF
$4,000
Hume
Clearing fire trails
$100,000
Hume
New FT
$6,000
Hunter
Pokolbin SF
$13,600
Hunter
Myall River SF
$12,800
Hunter
Myall River SF
$12,800
Hunter
Heaton SF
$12,400
Hunter
Bulahdelah SF
$6,100
Hunter
Watagan SF
$3,200
Hunter
Awaba SF
$3,200
Hunter
Myall River SF
$3,100
Macquarie
Warrengong
$16,250
Macquarie
Vulcan & Gurnang
$11,519
Macquarie
Kinross SF
$8,800
Macquarie
Mount David
$6,101
Macquarie
Newnes SF
$5,199
Macquarie
Printing 25 fire atlas’
$2,048
Macquarie
Black Rock Ridge
$447
Mid-Nth Coast – Taree
Knorrit SF
$36,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Taree
Yarratt SF
$16,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Boonanghi SF
$37,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Northern Break
$9,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Caincross SF
$3,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Western Break
$2,000
Monaro
Clearing fire trails
$114,685
North East
Thumb Creek SF
$46,000
North East
Candole SF
$29,535
North East
Various State Forests
$20,000
North East
Mt Belmore SF
$12,115
North East
Candole SF
$8,900
North East
Lower Bucca SF
$5,500
North East
All North Region
$3,300
North East
Wild Cattle SF
$3,000
North East
Orara East SF
$1,900
Northern -Casino
Barragunda
$11,522
Northern -Casino
Yaraldi 2003
$8,847
Northern -Casino
Yaraldi 2004
$3,207
Richmond Valley
Bates
$20,000
Richmond Valley
Whiporie SF
$13,154
Richmond Valley
Swanson
$12,000
Richmond Valley
McNamara
$10,180
Richmond Valley
Whiporie SF
$9,582
Southern
Pollwombra FT
$6,360
Southern-Eden
Various – whole district
$112,019
Tamworth
Nundle SF
$40,000
Walcha
Nowendoc SF
$30,000
Walcha
Styx River SF
$20,000
$1,073,482
i.e. Approximately an area 20km x 20km
.
NSW Department of Lands (what native vegetation’s left).
Bush Fire Management Committee
Reserve / Activity Name
Treatment Area Ha / Other
Treatment Area (km2)
Baulkham Hills
Porters Rd / Cranstons Rd
5
Baulkham Hills
Porters Rd / Cranstons Rd (2)
4
Baulkham Hills
Pauls Road Trail
5
Baulkham Hills
Mount View Trail
1
Baulkham Hills
Idlewild
2
Baulkham Hills
Maroota Tracks Trail
7
Baulkham Hills
Yoothamurra Trail
1
Baulkham Hills
Kellys Arm Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Dargle Ridge Trail
5
Baulkham Hills
Dargle Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Days Road Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Dickinsons Trail
6
Baulkham Hills
Fingerboard Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Floyds Road Trail
8
Baulkham Hills
Neichs Road Trail
4
Bega
Eden Strategic Fire Trail
3
Bega
Illawambera Fire Trail
1
Bega
Merimbula/Turu Beach Strategic Protection
2
Bega
Yankees Gap
2
Bega
Millingandi Special Protection (Trail)
1
Bega
Wallagoot Strategic Protection (Trail)
1.2
Bega
South Eden Strategic Protection (Trail)
1
Bega
Merimbula/Pambula Strategic Protection (APZ)
1
Bega
Pacific St Tathra
0.5
Bland
Bland Villages (FTM)
2
Bland
Water Tower Reserve FTM
3
Blue Mountains
Cripple Creek Fire Trail Stage 2
5
Blue Mountains
Cripple Creek Fire Trail Complex
5
Blue Mountains
Caves Creek Trail
0.4
Blue Mountains
Edith Falls Trail
2
Blue Mountains
Boronia Rd – Albert Rd Trails
1
Blue Mountains
Perimeter Trail – North Hazelbrook
1.5
Blue Mountains
McMahons Point Trail – Kings Tableland
7
Blue Mountains
Back Creek Fire Trail
3.2
Blue Mountains
Mitchell’s Creek Fire Trail
3.5
Bombala
Gibraltar Ridge Fire Trail
11
Bombala
Burnt Hut Fire Trail
5
Bombala
Merriangah East Fire Trail
12
Bombala
Bombala Towns & Villages (Trails)
10
Campbelltown
St Helens Park – Wedderburn Rd (Barriers)
0.3
Campbelltown
Barrier / Gate
Campbelltown
Riverview Rd Fire Trail
0.65
Canobolas
Calula Range FTM
Canobolas
Spring Glen Estate FTM
Cessnock
Neath South West Fire Trail
2
Cessnock
Neath South East Fire Trail
1.5
Cessnock
Neath North Fire Trail (2)
1
Cessnock
Gates – Asset Protection Zones
Cessnock
Signs – Asset Protection Zones
Cessnock
Signs – Fire Trails
Cessnock
Kearsley Fire Trail
0.5
Cessnock
Neath – South (Trail)
4
Cessnock
Neath – North (Trail)
2
Clarence Valley
Bowling Club Fire Trail
1
Clarence Valley
Brooms Head Fire Trail
0.2
Clarence Valley
Ilarwill Village
0.3
Cooma-Monaro
Chakola Fire Trail
21
Cooma-Monaro
Good Good Fire Trail
12
Cooma-Monaro
Inaloy Fire Trail
19
Cooma-Monaro
Cowra Creek Fire Trail
4
Cooma-Monaro
David’s Fire Trail
2.1
Cooma-Monaro
Clear Hills Fire Trail
5
Cooma-Monaro
Mt Dowling Fire Trail
16
Cooma-Monaro
Towneys Ridge Fire Trail
6
Cunningham
Warialda Periphery 2
20
Cunningham
Upper Bingara Fire Trail
Dungog
Dungog Fire Trail Signs
Far North Coast
Byrangary Fire Trail
1
Far North Coast
Main Arm Fire Trail (NC67)
2
Far North Coast
Burringbar Fire Trail (NC69)
1
Far North Coast
Mill Rd Fire Trail (NC95)
1
Far North Coast
Broken Head Fire Trail (NC68)
0.5
Far North Coast
New Brighton Fire Trail (NC44)
0.5
Far North Coast
Mooball Spur Fire Trail
1
Far North Coast
Palmwoods Fire Trail (NC06)
0.5
Gloucester
Coneac Trail
6
Gloucester
Moores Trail
6
Gloucester
Mt Mooney Fire Trail
6
Gosford District
Signs – Fire Trails
Great Lakes
Ebsworth Fire Trail
1
Great Lakes
Tuncurry High Fire Trail
0.6
Great Lakes
Monterra Ave Trail – Hawks Nest
0.7
Greater Argyle
Browns Rd Komungla
12
Greater Argyle
Greater Argyle Fire Trail Maintenance
Greater Argyle
Cookbundoon Fire Trail
2
Greater Taree District
Tinonee St Road Reserve
0.25
Greater Taree District
Beach St SFAZ – Wallabi Point
0.35
Greater Taree District
Sth Woodlands Dr – SFAZ
1.3
Greater Taree District
Cedar Party Rd – Taree
2
Hawkesbury District
Sargents Road (2)?tenure
0.75
Hawkesbury District
Parallel Trail (2)
2.5
Hawkesbury District
Parallel Trail (1)
1.1
Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai
Tunks Ridge, Dural
1
Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai
Radnor & Cairnes Fire Trail
0.5
Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai
Binya Cl, Hornsby Heights
1.5
Shellharbour District
Saddleback – Hoddles Trail
3
Shellharbour District
Rough Range Trail
1
Lake Macquarie District
Kilaben Bay Fire Trail
1.5
Lake Macquarie District
Gates – Access Management
Lake Macquarie District
Signs – APZ
Lake Macquarie District
Signs – Fire Trails
Lithgow
Wilsons Glen Trail
6.1
Lithgow
Kanimbla Fire Trail No 314
7.8
Lithgow
Camels Back Trail No 312
4.5
Lithgow
Crown Creek Trail No 206
7
Lithgow
Capertee Common Trail No 203
3
Lower Hunter Zone
Access Infrastructure – All Districts
Lower North Coast
Cabbage Tree Lane Fire Trail, Kempsey
1.5
Lower North Coast
Bullocks Quarry Fire Trail
0.66
Lower North Coast
Perimeter Protection, Main St, Eungai Creek, Nambucca
This article by the Editor was first published as a letter entitled ‘Premises at Risk’ in the Blue Mountains Gazette 20051116.
Flogging the bush for housing, undefendable in the event of a bushfire
Stuarts Road, Katoomba – a house has since been approved by Council and subsequently built on this site, killing the wildlife habitat in the process.
(Photo by Editor 20070922, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
Part and parcel of choosing to live in the Blue Mountains is that, by being on ridgelines surrounded by Eucalypt forests, many properties are inherently exposed to bushfire threat. Whether bushfires be caused by lightning (rarely), accidentally by people, RFS-prescribed, or by arson (usually); bushfire risk management is a community responsibility – not just the lot of Rural Fire Service volunteers.
The arson threat aside,
“residents, land owners and land managers of the Blue Mountains need to accept that they are in a bushfire prone area and their properties may be subject to ember attack when threatened by bushfire.”
[Blue Mountains Conservation Society Bushfire Policy].
.
To dispel a rural myth, not all native habitats recover from bushfire. Certain species exist only in ecosystems that are never burnt. Post-bushfire regrowth often sporns dominant species like Eucalypt and Acacia, whereas original biodiversity may take centuries to recover. Bushfire is often a precursor to infestations of grass and weeds, and if followed by intense
rain, also a catalyst for eroding irreplaceable native soils.
The antique premise ‘hazard reduction’ has become spin for pre-emptive burning that is prone to escaping out of control and so itself a hazard.
Slashing and bulldozing under the premise of ‘Asset Protection Zone’ is also proving ineffective against ember attack and wildfire. But like arson, the Hazard Reduction and APZ theories contribute to the net loss of important habitat.
Proven effective and sustainable is early detection & response to spot fires.
Most artificial fires start on developed land, so this is where control measures should be focused – maintenance of gardens and guttering, retrofitting houses with materials and defences to resist fire, planting fire-retardant hedging around houses and implementing countermeasures recommended by Australian Standard 3959.
The future of sustainable bushfire risk management starts by preventing houses being built where they cannot be safely protected from bushfires.
Effective ‘hazard reduction’ is investigating and catching the arsonists.
Broadscale State-sanctioned arson to West Australia’s wild Kimberley
.
Habitat Editor’s preliminary comment:
.
What is revealing about the following article is more the defensive comments contributed by members of bushfire management (in red) – reflecting the entrenched beliefs and practices of their ‘bushphobic cult‘ is being challenged and so they unleash sanctimonious vitriol to anyone who dares criticise.
The euphemism ‘Hazard Reduction‘ has become a bushfire management cult.
It has evolved as a consequence of generations of fire fighters denied proper and appropriate reasources by successive Liberal-Labor governments to fight bushfires when they occur. Fighting bushfires requires instantaneous detection technology and standby effective suppression technology. Instead Australian governments at all levels deliver urban firetrucks and hollow promises. The rest is left to fit and willing resident volunteers. It is politicians again sending ouir sons to fight their war.
Since government pollies have always denied bush fire fighting the ability to effectively detect and respond to ignitions, bushfire management’s response strategy has descended into the defeatist arsonist ‘burn the bush before it burns‘. Australian bushfire fighting has become an arson disgrace.
Such defeatism ignores the fact that native vegetation is the innocent victim of fire. Instead the cult belief demonising Australia’s natural ecological asset as ‘fuel’, a ‘hazard’, a liability. It is a similar simplistic attitude that early colonists had toward wildlife, considering them as ‘vermin’ and ‘game’. Hazard Reduction has been euphemistically rebranded ‘prescribed burning’ by the so-called ‘fire ecologists’. It remains arson no less.
The scale and frequency of hazard reduction has exponentially increased so that what was once a buffer of cleared land around specific houses is now broadscale incineration including remote aerial incendaries setting fire to vast regions of forest and bushland many kilometres from houses. The so-called ‘cool burns’ often reach into the tree canopies and cause the same irreparable tree damage as intense wildfires. Many hazard reductions escape and get out of control – such as the 2011 Perth Hills experience that destroyed 68 houses.
Then when a wildfire does occur, standard bushfire management practrice invariably leaves to burn until/unless houses are directly threatened. Remote wildfire has become default hazard reduction. And so, every year thousands of hectares of native vegetation understorey is destroyed and the dependent fauna are driven closer to exinction. Hazard Reduction is Australia’s worst ecological crime.
The quoted article:
.
Start of Article:…’It’s spring, and soon we’ll start to get sensationalist stories predicting a horrendous bushfire season ahead. They will carry attacks on agencies for not doing enough to reduce fuel loads in forests close to homes, for unless those living on the urban fringe see their skies filled with smoke in winter they panic about losing their homes in January.
Fighting fires with fear is a depressing annual event and easy sport on slow news days. Usually the debate fails to ask two crucial questions: does hazard reduction really do anything to save homes, and what’s the cost to native plants and animals caught in burn-offs?
A new scientific paper published in the CSIRO journal Wildlife Research by Michael Clarke, an associate professor in the department of zoology at La Trobe University, suggests the answer to both questions is: we do not know.
What we do know is a lot of precious wild places are set on fire, in large part to keep happy those householders whose kitchen windows look out on gum trees. Clarke says it is reasonable for land management agencies to try to limit the negative effects of large fires, but we need to be confident our fire prevention methods work. And just as importantly, we need to be sure
they do not lead to irreversible damage to native wildlife and habitat. He argues we need to show some humility, and writes: “The capacity of management agencies to control widespread wildfires ignited by multiple lightning strikes in drought conditions on days of extreme fire danger is going to be similar to their capacity to control cyclones.” In other words, sometimes we can do zip.
Much hazard reduction is performed to create a false sense of security rather than to reduce fire risks, and the effect on wildlife is virtually unknown.
The sooner we acknowledge this the sooner we can get on with the job of working out whether there is anything we can do to manage fires better. We need to know whether hazard reduction can be done without sending our wildlife down a path of firestick extinctions.
An annual burn conducted each year on Montague Island, near Narooma on the NSW far South Coast, highlights the absurdity of the current public policy free-for-all, much of which is extraordinarily primitive. In 2001 park rangers burnt a patch of the devastating weed kikuyu on the island. The following night a southerly blew up, the fire reignited and a few penguins were incinerated. It was a stuff-up that caused a media outcry: because cute penguins were burnt, the National Parks and Wildlife Service was also charcoaled. Every year since there has been a deliberate burn on Montague, part of a program to return the island to native vegetation. Each one has been a circus – with teams of staff, vets, the RSPCA, ambulances, boats and helicopters – all because no one wants any more dead penguins.
Meanwhile every year on the mainland, park rangers and state forests staff fly in helicopters tossing out incendiary devices over wilderness forests, the way the UN tosses out food packages. Thousands of hectares are burnt, perhaps unnecessarily, too often, and worse, thousands of animals that are not penguins (so do not matter) are roasted. All to make people feel safe.
Does the burning protect nearby towns? On even a moderately bad day, probably not. Does it make people feel better? Yes.
Clarke’s paper calls for the massive burn-offs to be scrutinised much more closely. “In this age of global warming, governments and the public need to be engaged in a more sophisticated discussion about the complexities of coping with fire in Australian landscapes,” he writes. He wants ecological data about burns collected as routinely as rainfall data is gathered by the agricultural industry. Without it, hazard reduction burning is flying scientifically blind and poses a dangerous threat to wildlife. “To attempt to operate without proper data on the effect of bushfires should be as unthinkable as a farmer planting a crop without reference to the rain gauge,” he writes.
In the coming decades, native plants and animals will face enough problems – most significantly from human-induced climate chaos – without having to dodge armies of public servants armed with lighters. Guesswork and winter smoke are not enough to protect our towns and assets now, and the risk of bushfires increases with the rise in carbon dioxide.’
..end of article.
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Article comments:
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Ian MacDougall (20080909):
“The theme of this piece is the saving of wildlife that might be destroyed by hazard reduction burning. But the trouble is that Australian plant species divide into two broad groups: the pyrophytes or ‘fire plants’ and the pyrophobes, or ‘fire loathing plants’. There can be little argument about it: much of the Australian bush has incorporated fire into its life cycle, with eucalypts, acacias and many undergrowth plants loaded with volatile oils. All that is needed to convert them into incendiary bombs is a hot summer’s day. Even the old ‘banksia man’ with his beard of dried flower parts surrounding the seeds ready to go is designed by nature to catch fire, though his tree is not.
I regularly drive through the Warrumbungle Park. There is nothing so pathetic as the signs they have up everywhere warning people that gathering firewood is forbidden. Nor do they control burn there. So every few years the whole park goes up like a bomb and damn near everything gets burnt to smithereens.
This continent was ‘firestick farmed’ by the Aborigines, arguably back to 110,000 years ago. The animals and plant species survived their cool burns.
We need to adopt that practice, which was lost when the country was fenced and farmed, and preventing bush fires became the name of the (futile) game.
I recommend ‘Australian Rainforests: Islands of Green in a Land of Fire’, by DMJS Bowman for those looking for further information.”
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Adam 20090909:
“James, read your piece in the Herald. I live on the edge of the bush in the Blue Mountains, and I disagree with you.
Having seen fire, there’s no doubt in my mind that backburning makes a difference, but the worse the fire is, the harder to contain it. To extend the analogy you quote….we can’t control cyclones but its still worth owning an umbrella for lesser storms. If you believe that no animals or trees should die in the name of housing insurance, I think that is a different question.”
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john p (20080909):
“Great article – now brace for the inevitable backlash from the pro fire lobby.”
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Jeremy (20080910):
“As an enthusiastic CFU (Community Fire Unit) member in Sydney, I read your SMH article with interest – but then recalled my recent visit to the Garma Festival in NE Arnhemland. There much was made of the controlled burns being increasingly managed by indigenous rangers on the basis of their traditions, but also increasingly funded as carbon offsets by international polluters like Conoco because the controlled burns were so much less polluting than uncontrolled ones – which would in time occur anyway. How does that fit in with your thesis?”
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Robert Morse 20080911:
“Talk about a sensationalist story. Yes there probably is no scientific data, but there is anecdotal evidence. Hazard reduction is only part of a holistic approach to protecting the community. They can reduce the intensity of a bushfire and allow the firefighters or residents to defend their homes.
This is also true for the environment, some plants can withstand a low intensity fire but would be destroyed in a high intensity wildfire. As for the wildlife, you just have to stand at the edge of a hazard reduction to see the multitude of creatures fleeing the burn. Do they all get out? I don’t know, but I’ve seen more dead and injured animals after a bushfire than a hazard reduction.
One thing most people don’t take into account is that the bush has evolved to burn at a particular time of year, usually when it’s hot and dry. But, of course, hazard reduction burning are done in the cooler months. It is reason to think that this must effect the plants and alter their community, but so does any fire or even lack of fire. After decades of natural fires and hazard reductions (mosty done with little regard to the environment, unlike what is done now), I still can look out on thousands of hectares of World Heritage bushland full of animals.
Do land managers and fire agencies always get the hazard reductions right? No, but it is used as a learning experience to be able to do it better next time.”
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Henk Hagedoorn (20080914):
“More and more scientific evidence is surfacing showing that fire is not good for the environment as a whole including vegetation and in particular the soil biota. Even a so called cool burn devastates the top 25mm of all life slowing the future uptake of carbon into the soil.
Just look at the release of CO2 by reduction burning (any burning) and the subsequent inability of the burned area to capture CO2 for the next 10 years or so. We know far too little to make a statement that “burning is ok” while science could ultimately show that it is NOT.
Most of our decisions to burn or not to burn are based on hearsay and anecdotal evidence. Just not good enough. A very good article. there must be more of these to get people thinking.”
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Ross Constable (20080915):
“Good article James, interesting how you skillfully worked the Penguins into it. The two questions the article was based on are only part of the this very complex issue. Others might be: Where do we get the biggest fire mitigation (protection) bang for the taxpayers buck? Do we need to focus mitigation more towards the “points of risk” (lives & assets), or towards the hazard (fuels).
The problem here is the politically perceived, remote fuel hazards being burned repeatedly at the expense of our biodiversity and water catchments, while the points of risk and their surrounds remain the primary part of the hazard.
How effective are low intensity, autumn, hazard reduction (HR) burns?
Here is my rock sold, gold guarantee regarding the effectiveness of a dry eucalypt forest fuel based HR burn: A HR will completely protect an asset if:
The wildfire that threatens the asset via the HR occurs across flat ground, under exactly the same environmental conditions as the HR burn.
The HR is unbroken (no ground fuel gaps)
The wildfire occurs within 14 days of the HR.
This is a bold guarantee… or is it? Think about it.”
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S. Ridd (20080915):
“Dear James, I regularly skim the Opinion & Letters sections of the Herald because I value reader input. It was refreshing to read your article on hazard reduction, and encouraging because I support your stated views; the sensationalist predictions of bushfire Armageddon, the bush morphed into threatening fuel loads, and questioning the post-War II practice of hazard reduction.
Thank you for investigating and publicising research on this issue. So often the research is not made public and little reference is made to research by those hell bent on perpetuating the bushphobic culture of hazard reduction.
The key problem is no one is measuring the environmental impact of hazard reduction, certainly not in the Blue Mountains where I live. As you state: “the effect on wildlife is virtually unknown”. Another key problem is the lack of investment in resources to detect and respond to ignitions promptly.
Another problem, more cultural defence, is the kneejerk reaction by those who fail to suppressed bushfires quickly, to say see we told you so, so give us millions to hazard reduce more of what bush we’ve got left and there will be no bush to burn – so problem solved! This is a scorched earth simplistic approach, that as you contend creates “a false sense of security rather than to reduce fire risks.”
You refer to Montague Island. The Grose Valley Fires of 2006 was a defector hazard reduction of 14070 hectares of important conservation bushland including so-called protected World Heritage.
Ian MacDougall’s response [9 Sep 08] would have merit if we had similar large tracts of quality habitat across NSW that existed pre 1788, not the 25% of forested NSW that we now have. The Aboriginal firestick justification is reserved for a pre-1788 dreamtime.
Adam’s input [9 Sep 08] contends “backburning makes a difference” but his argument is to destroy the natural asset we should be protecting. The argument is flawed because it admits current bushfire fighting methods are so bad that we cannot adequately detect and suppress bushfires in 2008.”
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Christine 20080916:
“Your article on Fire was read with great interest. We have lived in the ‘bush’ for 20 years, are active members of a wildlife care group and my husband is an active member of the local bush fire brigade. We have seen so-called ‘controlled’ burns get out of control (causing the tragic death of a local in one instance), and have often wondered if these burns are really doing any good at all, for either the bush or the wildlife. Thanks for bringing this subject to the forefront and stimulating debate. It will be interesting to see the results of further research, especially by Prof. Michael Clarke.
An interesting book to read on how Australia’s landscape has been drastically altered, not just by white settlement, but by earlier Aboriginal settlers burning off, is “Back from the Brink” by Peter Andrews.”
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Ross Constable (20080916):
“S. Ridd, your point regarding our fire authorities ability (or lack of it) to quickly detect and respond to fire, especially remote area fires is the key to fire suppression in this country. The recent Bushfire CRC Project A3.1 aerial suppression research, Pollack H. N. 2003, looks at this very issue. In summary, the research has found that the rapid deployment of aircraft and ground crews to a fire will have a high probability of suppression success even when high fuel loads and fire danger indexes exist. The cost of this type of approach is not big, especially when one considers the enormous costs associated with suppression of large fires, not to mention the life and property costs.
For further info on this research see: http://www.bushfirecrc.com.au’
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Greg (20080919):
Indigenous burning practices have been around in a range of global climate scenarios over south-east NSW for at least 6,000 years up until European intervention about 200 years ago. These Indigenous burning practices put frequent small burns into areas that were inhabited, and allowed large ‘natural’ fires on an average of every 20 years into uninhabited areas. The small frequently burned areas contained the runs of large ‘natural’ fires.
Biodiversity 200 years ago was much higher than it is today. In a global warming world I think we can learn a lot from the Indigenous burning practices to apply in contemporary fire management.
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Mick (20090919):
“James, You may have bitten off more than you can chew with this story!
Fire management in Australia is a very complex issue and aside from the common view that fire is a natural part of the Australian environment we are managing it in a unatural world. We have built our homes next to our fire prone ecosystems and should a fire start by lightning – the fire is suppressed – in itself an unatural act.
I agree that more information is better than less when we’re managing the impacts of prescribed fire on the environment – for respondants to suggest however that low intensity fire has a greater impact on the environment than high intensity fire is a generalisation and does not consider frequency, ‘patchiness’ and vegetation community or forest type.
Further assertions by respondants that we should increasingly rely on emergency response and suppression of wildfires rather than also using land management approaches is niave and does not recognise the full range of fire management tools available for managing risk (such as established road networks, rapid response resources, suitable infrastructure for detection, prescribed burning, manual hazard reduction, development and planning controls etc) and balancing ecological outcomes with those for protecting life and property.
Lets get the real dirt on this issue and tone down the tears!”
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Phil (20081025):
“I note that neither Michael Clarke’s original paper or your article say that prescribed burning doesn’t stop bushfires; all they say is that we don’t know how well it works. As a fire manager & researcher I couldn’t agree more.
Its not enough to say that it worked a couple of times in Jarrah forest or American Ponderosa Pine, we need to know how often and under what conditions it will work in Sydney heathland, Cumberland Woodland or montane Candlebark/Ribbon Gum forest. As you say, we need to know the effects of this artificially frequent fire regime on wildlife, but we don’t. We are also in no position to make the sweeping claim that “the Aborigines did it”, as if all of the indigenous nations used fire in the same way in all environments and communities from the desert to the alpine area. The traditions and evidence say that they didn’t and don’t.
The reality is that for such an influential force that we wield, we know far too little to say whether we are helping things or making them worse.
Good on you for putting the heat on! Keep it up, we need the pressure on us to get some real answers.”
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John Blunden (20081123):
“Thanks for you article. I agree the problem facing the forest burners is more mental than physical. they are sick puppies. to use the indigenous people and how they treated the environment seems a total insult. one thing I know for sure about the indigenous people is that they didn’t bomb it from helicopters with hi intensity incendaries. what have we adopted from these people except a few place names, nothing, not their lore their dance their hunting and gathering, housing, their connection to mother earth. i have read reports about the koori people and what we call burning off. they certainly don’t describe a gang of double bogan rednecks going rat with diesel. nothing enjoys being burnt. especially something as sensitive as the forest and all it contains. i sometimes get a kick out of the lies, things like cool burn controlled burn hazard reduction blah blar. mostly i think there scared little men waging genocide on plants and animals, who grope around for reasons to justify their sick behavior.”
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Blue Mts Firefighter (20100815):
“There are some unbelievably ignorant or just plain naive posters on here. You obviously have no idea how difficult it is for us to get a hazard reduction burn approved because of the need to plan in cooperation with National Parks and Wildlife, the local council, and others, mostly to protect the environment. We don’t have a problem with protecting the environment, except that the bureaucratic process takes far, far too long.
In one of our most vulnerable areas in the Blue Mountains (Weemala) the process took 6 six years. It was a hazard reduction in an area where the fire typically jumps the Great Western Highway and the lower Blue Mountains then turns to sh*t.
Do you really believe we don’t care about the flora and fauna? You are fools if you do. Of course we care. We also care about people and their homes. And believe it or not if your hopelessly unprepared house, roof and walls overgrown with natives, gutters full of leaves, garden full of long dry grass (yes they do exist – all over the place) happens to catch fire, we will do our damndest to save it even if you are an idiot.“
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Simon (20101023):
“I have been involved in the bushfire services for 13 years and can say that when hazard reduction burning is done correctly and in a strategic manner it makes a major difference during summer. I have been involved with many large scale fires where the only way they have been controlled is because they have burnt into low fuel areas. Western Australia through DEC has always been heavily involved in bushfire mitigation efforts and it shows in the reduced frequency of large scale bushfires.
Argue all you want about terrain etc but the reality it is the strategic large scale burns that DEC conduct protects WA from similar large scale bushfires that you see on the East Coast. We have to remove ourselves from the European thinking that fire is bad and realise that since Australia started drying out 100,000′s of years ago we have had fires, the difference is we have stopped them for the past 100 years, now we have excessive fuel loads that damage the eco system when they burn due to the high intensity fires they produce.”
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Macca (20120102):
“What a great article back in 2008, i notice that most people relate their experience to NSW or Victoria, i moved from wollongong to Mackay in queensland and if you want to see the results of HR burning completed over 100 years come to central queensland and check out the dust bowl that is now queensland , creeks full of mud , and only surviving animal .. kangaroos ..well done queensland .. im moving to New Zealand … bye”
Defeatist Policy: ‘Burn it before it burns, bugger the wildlife’!
Most of Australia’s native vegetation cover, over 75% of that predating the 1788 Colonial Invasion, has been ‘cleared’ – a euphemism for deforested, logged, destroyed, killed.
Today, as one travels around Australia and sees vasts areas of unproductive, degraded, denuded and abandoned farmlands – one questions why destroy more fragile environment? Yet the exploitative bastards are still hell bent on killing more native forest and bushland, even though they can’t properly manage the ‘already ‘cleared’ lands they’ve got. It is a short sighted insatiability, harking to a 19th Century ‘old blighty’ mindset of taming the land. It is deluded thinking that just because the native vegetation is green and looks fertile that it can be replaced for pasture and cropping and that new cleared land will be any different to that already cleared.
The Liberal-Labor governments and their rural National mates haven’t given a toss throughout the entire 20th Century and still couldn’t give a toss.
Recent land clearing in the Daly River catchment area
Northern Territory, Australia.
Photo: Environment Centre NT
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Moree region New South Wales – mainly deforested
Visit Google Earth and zoom into any area of NSW and see that most of it has been deforested
(click image to enlarge)
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Still across Australia in 2011, thousands of hectares of native forests continue to be deforested – albeit for farming, logging and development, or just bizarre bushfire abandonment. Not only is this occurring on private land, but in State Forests, which most people think are protected. Native forests on land are being cleared branded by State governments as ‘State Forests’ are simply not protected.
The native trees, flora and fauna are not protected from logging, bushfire, State-sanctioned arson (aka ‘hazard reduction‘), State napalming (aka indiscriminate ‘hazard reduction‘), indiscriminate State aerial poisoning with 1080, wildlife poaching, 4WD hooning, trail bike hooning, or even backpacker murdering. The watercourses (and the interconnected groundwater aquifers), that flow through State Forests are not protected from fishing, stormwater run-off, mine tailing contamination, farm pesticide and herbicide, industrial pollution.
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Helicopter Aerial Incendiary
Over Bindarri National Park, 20km south-west of Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
Yes, even our National Parks and Wildlife Service sets indiscriminate fires to National Parks!
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For the likes of taxpayer funded government industrial loggers ‘State Forest’ is a euphemism ‘for not logged yet‘. This applies to the likes of Forestry Tasmania, VicForests, Forests NSW, Forestry SA (spot the naming trend), as well as the more aptly Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, and likewise the Forest Products Commission of Western Australia.
It seems that doesn’t matter whether there is proof that there is an endangered and protected species such as the Long-Footed Potoroo in the Cann Valley State Forest or Drummer State Forest in Victoria, or protected Koalas in the Murrah/Mumbulla State Forests of New South Wales, or three identified endangered species, the wedge-tailed eagle, the swift parrot and the wielangta stag beetle in Tasmania’s Wielangta State Forests, the Liberal-Labor governments of those States turn a blind eye to deforestation.
It is only when self-funded local communities take the respective government logger to the Supreme Court and win that logging stops momentarily, such as in the recent Victorian Supreme Court case Environment East Gippsland Inc v VicForests [2010] VSC 335. In 2006, the Victorian State Government committed to increasing the conservation parks and reserves within the broader Brown Mountain area. Disregarding its elected master and ignoring any concerns for the ecological Precautionary Principle, State industrial logger VicForests, got stuck in with its mechanical clearfelling of old growth forests in the Brown Mountain area.
Not-for profit group Environment East Gippsland (EEG) self-funded and obtained numerous studies of the area indicated the presence of important threatened and rare species. EEG requested the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Gavin Jennings, to make an interim conservation order to conserve critical habitat of the endangered Long-footed Potoroo, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Sooty Owl, Powerful Owl and Orbost Spiny Crayfish at Brown Mountain. Even then, the Minister for Environment and Climate Chang did not grant a conservation order, but instead increased the conservation area surrounding Brown Mountain. It took the overriding legal authority of the Supreme Court to stop the Victorian Government and its delinquent logger trashing protected old growth habitat.
Victorian Labor Minister for Environment (etc), 2007-2010
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In March 2010, Forests NSW began controversial logging operations in the Mumbulla State Forest, south of Bermagui on the state’s far south coast. Despite being criticised, after a recent survey identified the forest as a key colony for the region’s remaining koala population, Forests NSW Regional Manager Ian Barnes says the logging must go ahead across 240 hectares of the forest, in order to satisfy a supply agreement with the timber industry.
Deforestation is all about lining ones pockets out of ecological wanton exploitationIt’s a ‘wam bam thank you mam’ approach no different to what the Vikings did to the British in the eight Century. Colonial Australians and their descendants are doing the same to Australian ecology in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries.
Mr Barnes says the logging will not affect the koala habitat. “We’ve taken quite some effort to avoid any possible conflict there,” he says. “As anybody who reads the recent report will know, the koalas have been found in the eastern side of the forest, and our logging is planned for the western part, as far away as we can get from the koalas.”
Despite assurances, anti-logging campaigners have organised a vigil in the forest in an attempt to stop the logging. Conservationist Prue Acton says the activity will devastate the koala population.
“Why risk the only healthy koala colony left in the far south coast. For what? “ she said. “95% of what is going to be logged is going to end up at the Eden woodchip mill, be shipped to Japan for cheap copy-paper. What a disgrace.”
The Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says the Premier should put the protection of koalas ahead of the interests of logging companies. “The New South Wales Government has refused to end logging in the south east native forest but they should step in and stop the destruction of the koala habitat,” she said.
The amount of bushland being cleared by logging in NSW soared last year to the highest level since state-wide records began in 1988. An area equivalent to 138,400 football fields was cleared for crops, forestry or infrastructure, says a government report.
The Office of Environment and Heritage said the rise in logging was probably cancelled out by regrowth, leading to no net loss of trees, though its most recent survey took place in 2008, before the land clearing spike. It said the reasons for the logging increase were unclear.
”[The] most likely factors relate to market demand and favourable climatic conditions and [they] can be expected to fluctuate over time,” a department spokesman said. ”It is also possible that recent changes in forestry methods are more readily detectable by satellite monitoring.”
Environment groups said the annual vegetation report was evidence that logging companies were operating in an unrestrained manner.
Bushfires remain the biggest destroyer of forests in the state, leading to a net loss of 48,300 hectares in 2010, the report said.
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But logging activities now come a close second, accounting for the removal of 42,700 hectares of trees in 2010. This is up from 31,000 hectares the previous year, and an average of about 21,000 hectares a year since 1988.
About 21,200 hectares of bushland was cleared in 2010 to make new areas for crops and grazing, while 5300 hectares were cut down to make way for roads, factories and housing.
”The NSW government is currently conducting a review of native vegetation controls,” said the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Pepe Clarke. ”They should take this report as a warning – what is required are stronger land- clearing laws that do more to protect the environment, not weaker ones.”
The Wilderness Society said the government had ”failed in its promises to restrain land clearing, resulting in rapid and accelerating degradation of wildlife habitat and water catchments.”
The most recent State of the Environment report found that there had been no net loss of ”woody cover” across NSW between 2003 and 2008.
”This is because, although clearing has occurred over that period, there has also been an equivalent amount of regrowth including government sponsored environmental and forestry planting programs conducted by private landholders and state forests, within crown forests areas,” the department said.
”Notwithstanding no net loss over the whole state, some regions have experienced net declines in woody cover.”
The report uses the international definition of ”woody cover”, which includes land at least 20% covered by the crowns of trees higher than 2 metres, a description which would include relatively open country.
The introduction of a satellite monitoring system for land clearing last year appears to have increased the level of prosecution for illegal land clearing on private property. On crown lands, the number of prosecutions has increased threefold, from a low base, since 2007.
In 2010, the government received 471 reports of suspected illegal land clearing.
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‘Landowners sent satellite images identifying land clearing‘
NSW Department of Environment Climate Change and Water (DECCW) today began a high tech education campaign to encourage compliance with native vegetation laws by sending letters to landholders including before and after satellite pictures identifying land clearing.
DECCW Director-General Lisa Corbyn said the letters were part of an ongoing education program to encourage compliance with the laws and inform landowners of the proper channels available to them if they want to clear native vegetation.
“We’ve been using satellite technology for some time to identify changes in vegetation cover that may warrant further investigation,” Ms Corbyn said.
“Now we are also using the technology as an education tool. From today, advisory letters will be sent to landowners including before and after satellite pictures showing that vegetation has been cleared on their land.”
Ms Corbyn said the letters aim to inform to the landowner that the satellite imagery has picked up that vegetation had been cleared and highlight the proper channels available to them under the legislation to allow clearing of native vegetation, such as property vegetation plans.
The letters support other tools used by DECCW to encourage compliance with the legislation, including strategic investigations, prosecutions, penalty notices, stop work orders, remedial directions, warning and advisory letters.
The letter also alerts landowners to incentive funding available to restore and protect native vegetation on their properties.
The Native Vegetation Act was introduced in 2003 to bring an end to broadscale land-clearing in NSW. Since then, more than 400,000 hectares of native vegetation has been conserved or rehabilitated on private land through property vegetation plans (PVPs) and 1.6 million hectares has been managed for thinning and invasive native scrub management.
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Over 60 % of the native vegetation in NSW has been cleared, thinned or substantially disturbed.
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The impacts of native vegetation clearing have included the extinction of 77 plant and animal species, soil erosion, increased dryland salinity and a decline in water quality.’
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2003: ‘Clearing rate in NSW 116,000 to 216,000 hectares per year: NSW Govt report’
[Source: ‘Clearing rate in NSW 116,000 to 216,000 hectares per year: NSW Govt report’, by Stephanie Peatling, Environment Reporter, Sydney Morning Herald, 20031117, ^http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/id64.html]
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The equivalent of up to 200,000 football fields may be illegally stripped of native trees and grass each year in NSW, figures suggest.
The first estimates on the extent of the clearings, which the Department of Natural Resources field staff prepared for the Government’s vegetation taskforce, suggest the figure could be as high as 100,000 hectares a year. The figures show between 150,000 hectares and 560,000 hectares were illegally cleared between 1997 and 2002.
The advice is the first official guess at NSW’s illegal clearance levels. The highest rates are in the Barwon, Central West and Far West regions where much of NSW’s remaining native vegetation is located.
The figures have shocked environmentalists, who stress the urgency of making changes to the state’s natural resource management system, which Parliament is debating this week.
A Wilderness Society campaigner, Francesca Andreoni, said: “The new system needs to be fair to everyone, particularly farmers doing the right thing.
“The shocking extent of illegal clearing confirms the urgent need for the Government to implement its decision to end broadscale clearing.”
Figures recording the rate of illegal land clearing each year are almost impossible to compile because it so hard to charge people who breach native vegetation laws. There is also a complicated system of exemptions which allow people to clear land for purposes such as maintaining fire access trails.
Monitoring illegal clearing is potentially dangerous for departmental compliance officers. After reports of illegal clearing earlier this year on a property near Nyngan, in the state’s west, department officers were prevented from entering the property by an angry crowd of up to 150 people.
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When the amount of land illegally cleared is added to land that is legally approved for clearance, the department estimates between 700,000 hectares and 1.3 million hectares of land were cleared between 1997 and 2002.
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The figures suggest clearing was faster than the Department of Natural Resources’ previously admitted figure of about 60,000 hectares a year. That figure would give NSW the second-highest clearing rate in the country behind Queensland.
Debate on the Government’s package to overhaul native vegetation laws, based on an election promise to end broad-scale clearing, will take place this week. Last month the Premier, Bob Carr, announced a $406 million deal between farmers and environmentalists to end broad-scale clearing.
Most of the money is expected to go towards such things as tree planting and fencing waterways to help counter salinity and erosion. But local authorities may also compensate farmers for not clearing land. Clearing will still be allowed where it is deemed environmentally necessary.
Under the new system, natural resource management is being overhauled. Thirteen catchment management authorities will replace 19 catchment management boards, 20 regional vegetation committees and 33 water management committees.
Scientists often name land clearing as one of Australia’s most urgent environmental concerns. It contributes to soil salinity, loss of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions because carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when the cleared timber is disposed of, usually through burning.
Environment groups have banded together to criticise the level of logging occurring in New South Wales. The Nature Conservation Council, The Wilderness Society, National Parks Association, the Northern Inland Council for the Environment and the North Coast Environment Council have issued a joint warning that iconic and endangered species are being threatened by land clearing.
Illegal deforestation for fire wood, near Taralga, on the western edge of the Blue Mountains
Source: ^http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/article_%20conservation_no3.htm
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In a joint press release, the groups said the NSW annual report on native vegetation released by the Office of Environment and Heritage (Ed. yet another money wasting name change) this month showed 2009/10 was the “worst year on record for clearing of native bushland”.
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The Wilderness Society campaigns manager Belinda Fairbrother said the report showed that in 2009/10 an area equating to 138,400 football fields was cleared for crops, forestry or infrastructure.
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“This is higher than any other year since records commenced in 1988 and shows the NSW Government has failed in its promises to restrain land clearing, resulting in rapid and accelerating degradation of wildlife habitat and water catchments,” she said.
North Coast Environment Council president Susie Russell said the report made a sad end to the International Year of Forests.
“The area cleared for forestry in 2009/10 was almost five times greater than it was in 1988/89,” she said.
“It reveals a massive increase in the rate and intensity of logging in NSW, which will be causing untold damage to the extraordinary high diversity forests of north-east NSW.”
Nature Conservation Council chief executive officer Pepe Clarke said land clearing was recognised as the single greatest threat to wildlife in Australia.
“It causes the death of birds and animals, the extinction of species, leads to the poisoning of soils from salinity and makes a major contribution to global warming,” he said.
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The Liberal-Labor Party ‘Island Vision’ for Australia’s State Forests
‘The Hill’ (Penrose State Forest, NSW) 2007, drawing by James King
^http://www.jamesking.com.au/drawings.html
[This article was initially published by Tigerquoll on CanDoBetter.net 20090626, in the aftermath of the Victorian Bushfires which conflagrated on 20090207]
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The Australian Press Council has just dismissed a complaint against Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine about her ‘opinion’ article back on 12-Feb-09 ‘Green ideas must take blame for deaths.’
But although provocative, Devine’s ‘opinion‘ article pales in comparison to the social implications of headline media reporting of extreme bushfire risk immediately BEFORE the bushfires! [‘Complaint against Devine dismissed’, SMH, 26-Jun-09, p.5]
Note that the date of the article was made while fires still raged. Also, note that the article was published on the front page of the Herald, indicating that the editor was unusually highly supportive of it. Normally, the Herald’s ‘Opinion and Letter’s‘ articles are printed way back around page 12.
The main inflammatory bits drawing criticism in Devine’s article were:
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“It wasn’t climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend…it was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts.” [and] “If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.”
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Clearly, the article’s emotive tone expresses anger, frustration, retaliation and spiteful provocation. Perhaps this is understandable given the scale of the disaster and public shock, disbelief and for many, the personal loss. People react in their own way to tragedy. Devine’s article upset many and presumably it was intended to in order to unseat entrenched community complacency about Australia’s bushfire management generally.
If so I agree with her motive, but not her method.
The Australian Press Council considered the article’s lead paragraphs as ‘dogmatic’ and ‘confrontational’. But the complainants asserted that the article breached a number of Press Council principles. Yet the Press Council’s principles or journalism are vague and advocate the rights of journalists rather than prescribing responsibilities. The principles include noble motherhood ideals such as being accurate, fair and balanced, not being misleading, acting in the public interest and not being biased against minority groups. So then perhaps the complainants were misguided and it is not surprising that the Press Council found that publicising the article didn’t breach any of these principles.
Devine was accused of incitement in her article, which is a fair interpretation.
On Crikey, Greg Barns questions whether Devine’s article incited violence. He suggests that in “these fraught times, where there is a smell of blood in the air as well as smoke, as communities, individuals and the media look to find someone to blame for the Victorian bushfires, are just the environment where incitement flourishes.” Barns goes on: “To date no one appears to have acted on the inflammatory statements of Ms Devine and her fellow sabre rattlers, but that does not matter, says the law. It is enough that the incitement to commit a offence occurs, it is irrelevant that no one acted on the statement made.”
In the press at the time, local anger in Gippsland was palpable and vigilante feeling clearly was at breaking point. But it was targeted at the arsonists.
No-one rationally can blame the conservation movement and its ecological principles for the Victorian Bushfires. The bush and its creatures were innocent victims of the fires, just like people, livestock and houses. Many tend to forget this in the wake of such enormous tragedy. But one must blame the arsonists.
Yet it wasn’t apparently just arsonists that caused the ignitions and it is the task of Brumby’s Royal Commission to investigate and find out the causes of all the ignitions. However, thereafter, the real problem solving should start, but I doubt Brumby will have the will and instead will want to close the political door on the bushfire tragedy – just like the bushfire investigations of the past and interstate.
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But let’s turn more importantly to the media incitement before the bushfires!
The Age newspaper in Melbourne during the Victorian heatwave through January and early February 2009 immediately preceding the bushfires, ran headlines repeating the extreme bushfire risk. On 6 February 2009, the day before the fires started, indeed the Premier of Victoria John Brumby issued a warning about the extreme weather conditions expected on 7 February:
“It’s just as bad a day as you can imagine and on top of that the state is just tinder-dry.
People need to exercise real common sense tomorrow”.
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Was this wise?
To serial dormant bush arsonists and to would be arsonists, this frenzied media excitement about such pending doom surely would have been been read by arsonists and I suggest directly incited the bush arson. Yet at the time there was no complaining or realisation of this.
If bush arsonists are found to have been the key causes of the ignitons and indeed of the most catestrophic firestorms that burt alive people for instance Marysville and Kinglake, then the investigation must focus on the root cause of the arsonist motivations. I argue that media arousal through its sensationalising of the bushfire risk and its portrayal of the bushfire threat is directly responsible and accountable for actual bush arson. Let’s see what the Royal Commission concludes.
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Compare the Media Restrictions on Reporting of Suicide
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Getting back to the subject of press responsibility, let’s look at where the Press Council actually prescribes reporting restrictions on journalists.
Take the subject of media reporting of suicide.
In the Council’s General Press Release No. 246 (i) (July 2001) on Reporting of Suicide, The Press Council:
“calls upon the press to continue to exercise care and responsibility in reporting matters of suicide consistent with government attempts to curb the suicide rate. Research shows that an association exists between media portrayal of suicide and actual suicide, and that in some cases the link is causal. So the Press Council recommends journalists avoid reporting which might encourage copy-cat suicides and which unnecessary references details of or the place of a suicide, or which uses language which trivialises, romanticises, or glorifies suicide.”
So on the sensitive topic of suicide, the Press Council is quite prescriptive, moreso than in its broader principles for journalists rights.
Serious thought needs to be given by all levels of government and by the Press Council as the media industry’s representative body to the reporting of bushfire risks. Just as links can be drawn between the media portrayal of suicide and actual suicide, causal links can be drawn between the media portrayal of bushfire risk and bush arson arousal.
This is a matter for criminal psychology. Media sensationalising of bushfire risk and of bush arson is known to incite bush arson and copy-cat bush arson. This is a little known and neglected form of social deviant behaviour, yet it has become increasingly prevalent and deadly.
There is an urgent need for national level investment into bush arson criminology research and investigations. Media rights and responsibility for reporting bushfires play a critical role, perhaps more than many of us realise.
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Editor’s submission to ABC Four Corners ahead of its programme ‘Two Days in Hell’ aired 20090216
Thank you for highlighting this perennial problem.
The Australian Institute of Criminology reported last month that half of Australian bushfires are deliberately lit. Bushfire research needs to go further to evaluate whether in fact of the most damaging most are deliberately lit.
Test: If one excluded arson ignitions and their related spotover fires (between 29 Jan at Delburn to 8 Feb) would the firestorms have occurred? Assuming the answer is no, then clearly arson must be Australia’s key focus in combating the impacts of bushfire. Unlike the other two causes of bushfire, (lightning and accident) which are random, bush arson targets the worst conditions, upwind of a specific target and often involving multiple ignitions.
The term ‘fire bug’ is too docile and to start seriously dealing with it, we must change the perception and the language. Bush arson has become so deadly and catastrophic a crime that it warrants the term ‘pyroterrorism’. See the application of this term in the recent California fires. [^http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/thepyroterroristsarecoming.html]
The forthcoming Royal Commission into the Victorian Bushfires of 2009 risks concluding similar theme recommendations as the 2004 COAG Enquiry into the 2003 Canberra Firestorm, which itself repeated those of many previous bushfire enquiries. The implementation of any recommendations requires budget, timeframe and an independent federal watchdog accountable to the public. I will be analysing its terms of reference.
Aside from serious resourcing of bush fire fighting (nationalising it, building approvals, building codes, etc), the key systemic problem is the cultural disconnect between bushfire research and fire fighting practice. Criminal arson investigation needs to be a permanent and dedicated arm of bushfire management, properly resourced with primary data collected from all Australia and overseas using the best criminal psychologists and with a proactive mandate.
In NSW, the government set up Strike Force Tronto to investigate serial bush arsonist after the Christmas 2001 bushfires. Then the government got complacent, other priorities emerged and it was disbanded in 2005.
But following a series of arson bushfires in 2006 (with houses lost in (Picton and Cattai) the force was reinstated on 26 Sep 06 (Daily Telegraph p1). Reactive sporadic resourcing of bush arson investigation clearly isn’t effective.
To seriously address the main cause of deadly bushfires, a national organisation needs to be permanently established and perpetually funded to focus on criminal investigation into bush arson/pyroterrorism with a mandate to recommend deterrent policies and practices across Australian bushfire fighting as well as the media.
Media reporting leading up to the 7-Feb-09 firestorms, simply incited dormant serial arsonists. Go back and read The Age and television media in the days before and after 29 Jan when the first bush arsonist struck at Delburn (south wast of Churchill). The front page of The Age on Saturday 7-Feb-09 read: ’44 degree heat “as bad a day as you can imagine”
– which was a quote from of all people the Victorian Premier made to the general public the day prior.
Just like the media policy of not reporting suicides due it being known to encourage copy cats, so too media reporting of heatwaves and of extreme bushfire conditions needs to be tempered to avoid inciting dormant serial arsonists.
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‘The Fire Starters’ – ABC TV Four Corners programme of 2003 about bush arson in NSW, following a spate of bush arson
[Source: “The Fire Starters”, ABC TV Four Corners programme, 20030224, ^http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/20030224_fire_starters/default.htm]
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‘It’s a summer ritual: fire fighters across Australia battling hundreds of bushfires, putting themselves at risk to save other people’s lives and property. But these men and women are confronting dangers they should never have to face. While most fires, like the recent Canberra inferno, are ignited by lightning strikes or by stray sparks, investigators say a growing proportion of fires are being deliberately lit – by serial arsonists playing havoc in the bush.
As Australia tallies the cost of one of its worst bushfire seasons, Four Corners looks at the devastation that firebugs wreak on the landscape and the fear they generate in vulnerable communities. Reporter Stephen McDonell focuses on two communities where a firebug has been at work. In one case the arsonist has been caught and jailed; in the other the offender remains at large, apparently still living among anxious neighbours who suspect his every move.
McDonell builds a profile of offenders who typically crave power and status. For all their fundamental inadequacies, arsonists often presents normally enough to other people – even to their fellow volunteers in the local fire service. Authorities are fighting a difficult battle against these elusive, superficially unremarkable people, whose crimes rely on secrecy, solitude and destruction of evidence.’
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Interview by ABC journalis Stephen McDonell with NSW Police Assistant Commissioner John Laycock (edited transcript):
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STEPHEN MCDONELL: It’s been suggested by some people there should be a full time arson squad in NSW, do you think that we’re getting to the stage where that’s what we need?
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER JOHN LAYCOCK: Well there is at the moment. With the establishment of Strike Force Tronto last year, that will be ongoing on a needs basis and we saw very quickly in October this year how quickly that Task Force got up and running.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: You don’t think though there’s a need for developing some expertise in the area, have a team specifically designed just to look at arson?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Well, we have that now with Strike Force Tronto and in addition to the permanent team, we’re also training up investigators right across the state to look at the fire investigations across the board so we’re fairly well on top of that now.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Can you just tell us the thinking that’s led to you having a team that is assembled as the need arises rather than having a full time squad?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look Strike Force Tronto is virtually full time on a needs basis. We started off in 2001 with the large volume of fires in the state. It took a little time to get that up and running but that expertise and the database and the skill they’ve learnt from that has now flowed to, very quickly, starting up (Strike Force) Tronto II. So, whilst ever the actual need is there, the strike force will be there to assist. In addition to that, you’d normally find that between bushfires or wild fires there’s a three or four year gap. We have 94, 97, then 2001, on this occasion we’ve had two years in a row so the need this year is unusual to say the least.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: If you were asked if bushfire arson is getting worse, what would you say to that?
JOHN LAYCOCK: No I don’t think so. I think the reporting of it has improved. All our local area commands now are on the scene as soon as it occurs, they’re investigating the fires straight away. In the past that might not have always been the case. With Strike Force Tronto up and running, all fires are investigated and eliminated: whether it’s accidental or lightning or what have you and others are put aside for further investigation.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So you don’t think we’re getting more bushfire arson?
JOHN LAYCOCK: I think the community’s become more up to date and aware of arsonists being involved. The majority of our people apprehended are done by information from the public and, in a lot of cases, actually apprehended by people from the community and people are just sick and tired of people being involved lighting fires so they’re doing something about it which is great.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So, in other words, are you saying that while the statistics might bear out something of an increase, it’s really just that more people are being caught?
JOHN LAYCOCK: That’s one interpretation. In addition to that: our scientific skills, our forensic skills – with both the Rural Fire Service and the NSW Fire Brigade, with our own forensic people – have enhanced tremendously. Technology has increased. There’s a lot more out there that we can use, we can tap into, and plus the skill level of our people on all fronts has also increased.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Just on the question of your ability to investigate bushfires, what would you say is the area that has come on the most, that is changing the fastest and is enabling you to catch people?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look without doubt the technology, our forensics, the scientific people, our research people. We tap into overseas data; we tap into overseas experts. Our own local people here are well down the road to being able to fully investigate a fire, to track it from A to Z, with help from the community. Our crime scene investigation has enhanced tremendously and it’s improving all the time. There’s satellite inventory; there’s aerial photography; there’s video links; there’s a whole raft of things we can tap into now.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: I’ve seen some statistics that show that while the offending appears to be going up, the clear up rate remains static, what would you attribute that to?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Probably wouldn’t agree with that entirely and I think I can play with figures with the best of them. For example, in our 2001 fires, there were 22 people charged straight out with arson. There was another 130, 140 odd processed for various breaches, minor breaches of the Rural Fires Act and other Acts of parliament. None of those persons have re-offended again this year to our knowledge. Now most arsonists I think you’d have to agree are not sort of rocket scientists and one would expect that, if they were continuing to offend, they would be apprehended. That hasn’t occurred. So I don’t think the clear up rate has decreased per se. I think the instance of reporting and investigation activity has increased.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: What do you think that those statistics tell us about the impact that catching people has on their likelihood of them re-offending when it comes to bushfire arson?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look, again, with the number of people we’ve processed – from those that went to gaol, to those who were fined, cautioned or were conferenced – none of those people have re-offended to our knowledge, which indicates whatever process did take place, whether it be gaol or a caution or bond or what have you, has worked in that case. In addition to that, all persons processed have been, their details have been given to our our local area command so at the first sign of an investigation being required, those people would have their names up as a possible suspect to get looked at so the heat is on if I can use that phrase for those people locally in the first instance.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: We’ve spoken to one person who suggested that part of the problem with catching people when it comes to bushfire arson is that crime scene can be totally destroyed, especially if the fire moves over it a couple of times, would you agree with that?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Probably to the contrary and our forensic capacity with the Rural Fire Service, the Fire Brigade, our own forensic people now has increased to the extent that we can get a lot of information from the crime scene long after the fire has gone.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So, even if a big fire has moved through an area, there’s still a lot there at the crime scene?
JOHN LAYCOCK: There’s a lot of signs, there’s a lot of expertise, and we tap into a lot of stuff still left behind and, as I keep saying, cold fires leave hot trails.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: How sophisticated would you describe the bushfire arsonists as compared to other criminals?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Not very sophisticated: they’re certainly not rocket scientists. Arson is an unusual crime because there’s no financial profit or gain. There’s normally no great planning goes into it: it’s unusual, to say the least. I think that the people involved are possibly not of brilliant intelligence.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Do you think that, across Australia, we’re doing enough to catch bushfire arsonists?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look we can always do more but here in NSW the community is up and running. The number of reports we get through crime stoppers, continually, for the police to act upon is encouraging to say the least. The number of a people apprehended at fire scenes, lighting fires where people got out of their cars and physically grabbed hold of them where they’re capable of doing it and just hand them over to the police just shows a no nonsense approach. The three organisations working together -with the Rural Fire Service and the Fire Brigade – it’s ongoing, I think we’re doing a lot, we can always do more but, as each year goes on, our expertise increases.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Do you ever worry about discussion in the media relating to bushfire arson: that it might encourage copycat behaviour?
JOHN LAYCOCK: And certainly I think that does occur (but) to what extent…? but we have to weigh up the public interest – the need for the public to know what is happening around them. We’ve found, with the community support, with the open campaigns we’ve been running, they’ve been nothing short of outstanding.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: If we could just look at why one of the cases that your team has dealt with, the Burgess case, can you just tell us, from the outset, what the idea was in terms of when you heard that he was hanging around this brigade in the Blue Mountains, what did you intend to do, especially in relation to that brigade?
JOHN LAYCOCK: We first got some information not long after the fire season started in relation to that offender and I can only speak in general terms. Information is fine but we needed sufficient evidence to place him before a court, it was obvious to us that he was a very firm suspect. We then tapped into the support from the Rural Fire Service. We spoke to the executive and we virtually placed him under surveillance. They did report issues to us. We had our surveillance teams actually follow him from site to site. In the meantime, in the background, our forensic people were linking the crime scenes together and, of course, you’re aware he’s virtually working from one part of the state to the other – from the Central Coast down to Albury and then up to the Blue Mountains, so a fairly wide area – but we were able to link him into all those scenes. Our surveillance people tracked him into places where fire had been lit, just a painstaking good thorough investigation by Strike Force Tronto Police.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Now, for people who don’t know much about crime and the detection of crime, can you explain what this linking of the crime scenes was and how significant that was?
JOHN LAYCOCK: It was quite significant because each offender has their own way of doing things or committing a crime – quite, sort of, peculiar to anybody else – so no arsonists would work alike, as a general statement. So the way in which the fires are lit at all locations were almost identical and that gives us a guide only to the fact that he was the person responsible. But it’s not just the crime scene, it’s sightings, information from other people in the community, people from the Rural Fire Service that felt things weren’t quite right, that was all fed into our system to give us enough to get out and charge him.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So, is this right, it was something like that there was a pattern to his behaviour, is that right, that he was doing similar sorts of things?
JOHN LAYCOCK: There was a pattern to the way he was committing the offences, which showed very promising signs to us.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: What could you say about Burgess’s behaviour that led you to actually apprehend him?
JOHN LAYCOCK: It wasn’t so much his behaviour, I think it was the investigation results from behind the scenes. Evidence from witnesses, admissible evidence we could place before a court, the linkages between the forensics at the crime scenes and the fact that we were able to place him at those particular sites either before, after or during a particular fire breakout. That’s the cold hard evidence that we need.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: I think you were saying something before about his behaviour being consistent and that, because he didn’t vary it so much, you were able to say right, bang, bang that he did all those, lit all those fires. Can you just tell us a bit about that?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Yeah, look we have to prove each individual fire by itself. We just can’t say that we think it’s him because all the fires appear to have lit the same way. We need admissible evidence to place before a court to put him at the scene and, what happens at the crime scene, there’s only a small part of the jigsaw. So each investigation needs to be complete and be able to stand in its own right but the common factor was the linkage between the crime scenes.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Can you tell us a bit about how Cameron Burgess’s behaviour assisted police in catching him?
JOHN LAYCOCK: I think: in the way that he exposed himself to other members of the fire fighting fraternity; that he was always there at the crime scene, he was in the locations at the time when the fires went up; on occasions he actually went to help fight the fire, it didn’t do him any favours when we started putting the brief together.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So you could see the same sorts of things coming up again and again?
JOHN LAYCOCK: There was a pattern there but there was also admissible evidence that we could use and place before a court.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: What was found out about Cameron Burgess’s mental state?
JOHN LAYCOCK: According to the psychologist’s report that was tended to the court at the time, he had no mental illness or condition, probably can’t comment too much further than that.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Was there anything significant about this Burgess case?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look all police investigations are virtually quite different but the one thing that struck out with him was that he was operating in such vast distances away from each other: the Central Coast, Albury, Wagga and the Blue Mountains, entrenching himself in with the local fire fighting sort of type community and committing offences of that nature. It was quite unusual. Most arsonists tend to work fairly close in one area.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Why do you think he was moving from area to area?
JOHN LAYCOCK: I don’t really know, I never could find that out. I think he had contacts in all those locations and he entrenched himself in with the local community.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Have you ever had a problem with other members of the volunteer brigades being arsonists?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look occasionally with all large organisations you might have one or two, even a handful of people who fall through the cracks and obviously Burgess is one of those but probably no more than any other group from the community. We’ve found offenders from all walks of life so I don’t see that as particularly unusual or significant.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: How important do you think it is for the bushfire brigades to be vigilant in keeping an eye out for arsonists in their midst?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Very important. We work so closely together, we find that most captains of all the outfits, all brigades, do report anything unusual to us through their own chain of command. Obviously, if they’ve got one of their own out lighting fires, it’s a big risk. It does them damage so they are very supportive of the police and, on quite a few occasions, they have been entrusted and vice versa with sensitive details and they don’t breach security so the probability of that sort of continuing can’t be excluded but it’s small on the scale.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Do you think that the checks are sufficient at the moment: the background checks of people wanting to join volunteer brigades?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look that’s a question I think for the Rural Fire Commissioner, Mr Koperberg. Whether that would solve all the problems I don’t know. I don’t profess to be an expert. It’s a question of how far you go and what expense and what are the risks involved if you don’t…? There’s the odd one that falls through the crack but whether what you’re going to do is enough to weed them out I don’t know.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: If you could look into your crystal ball – 5, 10 years down the track – paint us a bit of a picture of the likelihood that you’ll be catching more bushfire arsonists.
JOHN LAYCOCK: I think, from what we’ve developed now, is that if you’re going to go out and start lighting fires, the probability of being caught is fairly high. Our forensics, our working with the other agencies, our scientific, our expertise, our skill base, our investigators, the probability of being caught is very high. As the years progress that capacity’s only going to increase and will get better and better. The end result will be that, if you’re going to be an arsonist, you better pack a toothbrush because you’ll be going to gaol.
[Ed: Monday 24th October 2011 was the first hot day for some months in the Blue Mountains and it was a day where winds were forecast to pick up in the afternoon from the west. The bush arsonist must have known this. What were the media reports ahead of this? What language did the media use on Sunday 23rd October to describe the weather forecast?]
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‘Arson may be behind the Mountains’ second major bushfire outbreak in a month that saw hundreds of schoolchildren and residents evacuated, and damaged seven homes.
The blaze broke out shortly before 2pm on Monday, October 24 at Cliff Drive near Echo Point and forced the evacuation of 450 children from Katoomba High School and 25 residents from 12 nearby homes.
Tourists were also warned to stay away from the area and fears were held at the height of the blaze for landmarks including Katoomba’s Scenic Skyway, Lilianfels and Echoes Hotel, with the Skyway’s terminal scorched by the flames.
“During the blaze, seven homes sustained minor damage, and a garden shed was destroyed,” a police statement said.
Local detectives and Strike Force Tronto officers together with Rural Fire Service investigators are looking into the cause of the fire, with initial inquiries suggesting the fire “may have been deliberately lit”, according to a police statement.
Blue Mountains Crime Manager Inspector Mick Bostock told reporters yesterday (Tuesday) while the fire had “two points of origin”, investigators believed it was lit by the one arsonist. He could not say exactly how. Police were interviewing one witness, an overseas tourist living in Bondi, who reported a fire in the area, he said.
Firefighters worked on Monday night to secure the fire edges and by Tuesday morning it had burned out 20 hectares of bushland and was no longer a threat to property. Fire and Rescue NSW sector commander for the incident, Inspector Kernin Lambert, said he was amazed no homes had been lost, with conditions creating “the perfect storm”.
“On this occasion the timely response and some brilliant firefighting from Fire and Rescue NSW and the Rural Fire Service saved the day,” he told the Gazette. “We are told that fire has not burned through that area for 35 years and the high accumulation of bush . . . the angle of the slope, wind direction, the aspect, it was like the perfect storm in terms of potential for fire disaster.
[‘Blue Mountains bushfire: police investigate arson’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20111025, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/blue-mountains-bushfire-police-investigate-arson-20111025-1mgvj.html]
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‘A bushfire in NSW’s Blue Mountains, which was believed to be deliberately lit, is now under control after firefighters back-burned overnight. Police are investigating if arson is to blame for a bushfire that is burning in the Blue Mountains for a second day. The blaze, which started about 2pm yesterday, has scorched 19 hectares at Katoomba, west of Sydney, and forced the evacuation of a high school.Detectives from the Blue Mountains Local Area Command and Strike Force Tronto and the Rural Fire Service will investigate the circumstances of the fire burning between Cliff Drive and Katoomba Street.’
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‘Arson investigators probe Katoomba blaze’
[Source: ‘Arson investigators probe Katoomba blaze’, ABC, 20111025, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-25/arson-investigators-probe-katoomba-blaze/3598740]
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Detectives specialising in arson cases are heading to the Blue Mountains to investigate a bushfire that damaged seven homes at Katoomba yesterday. Police believe the blaze was deliberately lit near Cliff Drive or Katoomba Street about 2:00pm (AEDT). Officers would like to speak with anyone who saw any suspicious behaviour in the vicinity.
"We're coming to you from the custodial lands of the Hairygowogulator and Tarantulawollygong, and pay respects to uncle and grandaddy elders past, present and emerging from their burrows. So wise to keep a distance out bush."
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service setting fire to native habitat while the weather is calm.
What fauna, it’s an ‘Ecological Burn’?
This week’s hazard reduction burn in Barrington Tops NP, north of Dungog
[Source: Photo by Andy Boleyn, ^http://newcastleonhunter.com/2012/08/npws-burning-down-the-tops/]
Dropping petrol bombs by immoral helicopter pilots
Aerial ‘habitat reduction’ occurs across National Parks and World Heritage Areas
– no habitat is sacrosanct.
It is euphemistically branded ‘Biodiversity Burning’ – fire is good for wildlife – watch them run, watch the Echinas and Wombats burn!
National Parks are deemed by Australian governments as a ‘hazards’!
It is a town park mentality – a bit of greenery for people to enjoy at weekends.
This is Destination New South Wales..
about 90% deforested, or burned, or farmed, or mined, or housed or else deserted
Broadscale Hazard Reduction
‘So when summer comes we should be right – there’ll be nothing left to burn!’
‘Job Done!‘
Woops, the prescribed burn got out of control
That’s ok its only Fraser Island World Heritage – it’ll grow back!
Government-sanctioned arsonists know what they are doing is wrong
– but the Firie peer pressure is too great
