The open path, rich in fuel loads, wove a complicated course across the landscape, jinking between private property and public holdings controlled by an array of government instrumentalities, defying Buch’s to wrangle all the permits required to burn during the brief, safe window in late winter-early spring. As Murphy’s law dictates, the fire took that track.
The above quote is from a story in the Weekend Australian, September 7-8, 2024, “BINNA BURRA RISES FROM THE ASHES”.
On 8 September 2019 the historic holiday lodge Binna Burra, located on the “elevated rim of the Gold Coast hinterland”, was destroyed by wildfire.
It’s a sad read, commenting on such issues as the impotence of firefighting air tankers in extreme fire conditions; and that “an estimated one billion animals died”.
And, most interesting is the discourse of University of Queensland ecologist Rod Fensham on the vulnerability — or otherwise — of rainforest:
“At the time, there were people like me saying that this was a catastrophic event and we lost a lot of undisturbed rainforest as a result of the fires,” he tells Inquirer.
“In fact, that did not happen. Yes, we lost some rainforest. But not nearly as much as we first feared. It turns out the rainforest did its job … it is brilliant at putting out fire, even big, dangerous fires like the on that hit Binna Burra”.
Read the introductory story in the main paper “Rising from the Ashes and a Mountain of Woe” mentioned in the Inquirer story. Note the highlighted parts, particularly the final two highlighted paragraphs concerning wet sclerophyll forest:
“fires that may well have been happening for millennia”
Further information on the flammability of rainforest is provided in WET TROPICS Definition of a Rainforest. Note the highlighted paragraphs in the first two pages.
BINNA BURRA
What could we learn from the Binna Burra Fire? Certainly another failure to reduce the intensity of fire impacting structural and environmental assets — Mallacoota, a relatively recent example of another disastrous failure.
BUREAUCRATISING THE PERMIT APPLICATION PROCEDURE
In the indented first paragraph of this posting there is reference to having to “wrangle all the permits required to burn during the brief, safe window in late winter-early spring”.
Without commenting on the permit application procedure in Queensland it is a serious problem in Victoria when it comes to timely fuel reduction burning.
First, a little history, prior to Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) being merged into a newly created mega department in 1983 it operated as a separate statutory authority with its own Minister. Under this arrangement FCV structured itself to best-manage Victoria’s forests, including establishing offices at district level and staffed with appropriately qualified and experienced people. This expertise at district level enabled localised fuel to be managed as it reached a level of fuel moisture content conducive to manageable and low intensity fuel reduction burning.
Unfortunately, bureaucratising the permit application procedure takes it out of the hands of experts at the district level, adds delays and prevents taking advantage of limited windows of burning opportunity, virtually preventing achieving the fuel reduction recommendation of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission:
Recommendation 56
The State fund and commit to implementing a long-term program of prescribed burning based on an annual rolling target of 5 per cent minimum of public land.
And, what of Recommendation 56? Discoverable amongst several Victorian government online articles on managing bushfire risk is this Summary Infographic
Key question, do the activities covered in the summary meet the intent of Recommendation 56?
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