Berejiklian Government bows to National Party slash & burn mentality in its media release but the Final Report of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry tells another story

In which the NSW Nationals through Deputy-Premier & MLA for Monaro John Barilaro insert into a government media release their dislike of national parks and unexploited Crown land. 

NSW GOVERNMENT, media release, 25 August 2020:

The NSW Government has released the independent NSW Bushfire Inquiry, which examined the causes, preparation and response to the devastating 2019-20 bushfires.

All 76 recommendations will be accepted in principle, with further work to be done on specific timelines to give communities assurance that changes will be made to keep them safe.

Any issues not covered in the report that are still relevant to the protection of property and life will also be further examined.

Resilience NSW, led by Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, has been tasked with coordinating and overseeing the implementation of the Inquiry’s recommendations as the government finalises its approach.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian thanked former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Owens and Professor Mary O’Kane AC for their hard work on this report.

“The NSW Government has worked in lock-step with the RFS and Resilience NSW to ensure the state is as prepared as it can be to face the next fire season, but the learnings from this Inquiry will help us further improve our preparedness and response,” said Ms Berejiklian.

“The NSW Government has already delivered more than $45 million in additional funding, announced in May 2020, to fast-track hazard reduction and deliver upgrades to our firefighting capability.

“This was a terrible bushfire season and we will look at all the steps we can take, especially in relation to helping people protect their property.”

The findings of the report show that there is an opportunity to strengthen governance and responsibility, which we are in the process of addressing.

The report also acknowledges the significant contribution of both climate change and the vast expanse of the state’s bushland towards these devastating fires.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro said all 76 recommendations in the Inquiry are based on the harsh lessons learnt from the catastrophic bushfires of last summer.

“Last bushfire season was unlike anything we have ever dealt with before and we need a government response to match,” Mr Barilaro said.

“Things like strategic hazard reduction and better land management no matter the tenure are essential when it comes to keeping our communities safe.”

Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott said NSW is more prepared than ever before for the 2020-21 fire season.

“We have already begun implementing the Inquiry’s recommendation to replace and retrofit the fleet, with 120 new trucks and 70 refurbished trucks to be rolled out before the end of the financial year,” Mr Elliott said.

“I would like to thank all our emergency personnel and volunteers who made us all proud over this relentless bushfire season.”

Read the Final Report of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry

Find out about the NSW Bushfire Inquiry and public submissions

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In which the conclusion was reached that when it came to bushfires, precautionary hazard reduction had limited value and, assumed land management practices in national parks and state forests or on private land did not significantly influence whether a fire started or a fire's outcome.

FinalReport of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry, 31 July 2020, excerpts, pp. 49, 52-53, 56:

2.2.2.1 Fuels on different types of land

Another common theme in the feedback to the Inquiry has been that fuel is managed better (or worse) on different types of land, with national parks in particular being criticised for ‘locking up’ land and allowing fuel to accumulate putting other landowners at risk, and that activity such as grazing should have been allowed in the parks to manage fuel loads.

The Research Hub examined this question using the Bees Nest fire in northern NSW as a case study to see whether aspects of fuel structure in forests – in terms of its cover and vertical connectivity – differed between different tenures: conservation estate (national park and State conservation area), State forest and privately owned land. These aspects of fuel cover and vertical connectivity are the factors considered likely to influence the likelihood of high intensity crown fires occurring.

The analysis used airborne LiDAR imagery to look at vegetation cover of the understorey (0.5-5 m height), lower canopy (5-15 m height) and upper canopy (greater than 15 m height).

In summary, this analysis showed that fuel cover and vertical connectivity between fuel levels were similar across different land tenures, and that there was no clear influence from inferred different management practices (for example, logging in State forests or grazing on private land) on the fuel properties of the forests on different land tenures. Therefore, in this case study area in northern NSW, the resultant bush fire hazard may have been similar across land tenure and the forest flammability (represented by measures of fuel structure) did not appear to have been a significantly influenced by different land management regimes.

The Inquiry notes that this work is only one case study and, as noted in the Research Hub’s report, relies on certain assumptions about management practices on the different tenures, and does not exclude the possibility that variations in logging and livestock grazing practices (e.g. different harvesting treatments, stocking rates etc.) could result in different results, or that different forest types might respond differently. However, as an initial case study, this points to some important issues that should be examined further in a more detailed investigation of the information generated from the 2019-20 fires across NSW.

2.2.2.2. Would more hazard reduction have helped?

…..In general, recent bush fires (unplanned fires) appeared to have a greater influence on preventing fire spread than recent prescribed burns, and while some recent prescribed fires had an influence on reducing fire severity, many had no obvious influence on fire severity. These effects are shown for the three case study areas in Figures 2-11, 2-12 and 2-13.

Overall, this work concluded that prescribed burns can reduce the severity of subsequent bush fires. However, “this effect is less than that of wildfires, it is short lived, and it is less effective under severe fire weather conditions”, findings that are consistent with much of the available literature…..

Another important question is whether fuel load or age had an impact on the number of successful ignitions. Certainly, dryness had an impact on the efficiency of ignitions by lightning (i.e. many lightning strikes resulted in ignitions because the fuel was so dry).

While this question cannot be answered with certainty for the 2019-20 season, research by Penman, Bradstock and Price (2013)123 on the Sydney basin found that, on days of Severe or Extreme fire risk, with a Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI)124 value greater than 50, the likelihood of ignition in younger fuels (recently burnt areas) is still high. This work found that fuel reduction is likely to influence lightning ignitions on days with low values of the FFDI – however, it notes that days with low FFDI values are not the conditions when large, serious bush fires tend to occur.
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