DSE is in the process of reviewing its Code of Practice for fire management on public land. The review is being done in the light of the Bushfire Royal Commission’s recommendation 59. This recommendation required that the Code ‘provide a clear statement of objectives’ in fire management, an explicit risk analysis model ‘for more objective and transparent resolution of competing objectives, where human life is the highest priority’, and the specific characteristics of fire management zones, including ‘burn size, percentage area burnt within the prescribed burn, and residual fuel loading.’
A draft Code has been produced, and is open for consultation. It can be found here
Members are strongly recommended to look it over and to make a response, which can easily be done by email to Fire_Code.review@dse.vic.gov.au Responses are due by December 9. Be prepared to grit your teeth, however: there’s rather too much bureaucratic language in it for our taste. An example: Strategy 91 is ‘implement interoperability improvements and partnership arrangements.’
FOBIF representatives went to a briefing on the draft Code in Bendigo on November 4. We will be making a detailed submission on it in due course. In the mean time it is worth recording three points: the fact that the Code tends to be a nice document no one observes; the inability of the Code’s procedures to prevent sloppy or out of control burns; and the fact that the government’s five per cent burn target contradicts one of the Code’s important rules. To elaborate:
Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
