PREVENTION VS WATER BOMBERS: IFS’s
APPROACH TO FRASER BUSHFIRES REVIEW

IN a submission to the Fraser Island Bushfire Review, the Institute of Foresters of Australia is calling for a greater focus on year-round bushfire prevention activities over the use of water bombing aircraft.

Bushfires that started late last year burnt through more than 88,000 ha of the World Heritage island on Queensland’s south-eastern coast, known as K’gari by the Butchulla traditional owners.

IFA/AFG president Bob Gordon urged the review panel to weigh-up the effectiveness and cost of relying on water-bombing aircraft as a reactive measure against the need for conventional wildfire responses and enhanced year-round prevention activities across Queensland.

IN a submission to the Fraser Island Bushfire Review, the Institute of Foresters of Australia is calling for a greater focus on year-round bushfire prevention activities over the use of water bombing aircraft.

Bushfires that started late last year burnt through more than 88,000 ha of the World Heritage island on Queensland’s south-eastern coast, known as K’gari by the Butchulla traditional owners.

IFA/AFG president Bob Gordon urged the review panel to weigh-up the effectiveness and cost of relying on water-bombing aircraft as a reactive measure against the need for conventional wildfire responses and enhanced year-round prevention activities across Queensland.

“We often see aircraft bombing established fires, and people think that they put the fires out,” Mr Gordon challenged.

“They don’t put forest fire out. It is ineffective to attempt to water bomb a large fire out,” he said.

“The time to attack a fire is before it starts, with prevention and hazard treatments, and soon after while the fire is small in area, with aggressive, land-based attack. 

“Forest fires require a lot of work on the ground to remove fuels so that the fire is actually stopped from moving by a mineral earth break. These are often enlarged using backburns to remove fuel between the active fire edge and the constructed fuel break.

“Most people do not see this work on the ground take place.

Mr Gordon said a greater focus on year-round land management would ensure those equipped with the specialised skill set and resources to fight forest fires could mount timely and informed attacks on any new fire fronts.

The IFA/AFG is calling for an adequate network of fire access tracks and strategic fuel breaks to be maintained on Fraser Island to support safe burning operations and wildfire response and the establishment of an annual prescribed burn target.

“This burn target should be based on recommended fire regimes, cultural burning requirements and principles and should be somewhere in the vicinity of 15,000 ha annually,” Mr Gordon said.

“We also recommend an independent review of the effectiveness and efficiency of fire-fighting machinery and air fleet in comparison with fireline maintenance and wildfire mitigation activities.

“In Queensland, the immediate priority for future management should be on other extreme risk localities around the state, where the next fire disaster is more likely. This includes adequate fireline network design and maintenance, widespread burning involving traditional owners where possible, and adopting traditional burning design methods.”

Mr Gordon said this would require a commitment from all levels of government to better fund and resource active forest management and fire management programs.

In the bushfire review, IFA recommended that’s sufficient management controls should be in place to manage backburn risks, and the policy of remote approval should be abandoned in favour of authority for backburn approval remaining with the local, competent and qualified incident controller.

Also, funding and scale of air operations, including large aerial tankers  should be reviewed based on an objective independent analysis of operational efficiency and effectiveness and a comparative analysis should be made with fireline maintenance and wildfire mitigation activities.

A post-fire analysis by a competent, independent fire specialist of early containment should identify any real underlying causes for containment failure and ensure continual improvement of any identified weaknesses.

A full copy of IFA/AFG’s submission to the K’gari (Fraser Island) Bushfire Review can be found at www.forestry.org.au