Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Bendigo region conservationists, including FOBIF, met with DSE officials last Wednesday April 18th,  to discuss current and future fire operations.

The meeting did not discuss State Government fire policy. It was solely concerned with the implementation of this policy, in the light of conservationists’ dissatisfaction with the way burns are being conducted.

The objectives listed below were put to DSE officers at the meeting. They would require managers to be very precise in their burn plans about how they will manage key risks and how they will take into account community submissions. They would also require the publication of clear assessments of each burn in the light of the plans:

Objective 1 – DSE to provide detailed mapping of each burn parcel, as listed in Appendix B of the Code of Practice, to identify a broad range of regionally specific ecological values.

Burned moss patch, Muckleford State Forest, March 2012. Moss is not flammable, and is sensitive to fire. It performs a valuable role in forming crusts which protect land from erosion and soil loss. Prescribed burns which destroy such patches do not reduce fuel, but they do damage the bush. Conservation groups in Bendigo want DSE to specify what its objectives are in burns--and to be open about what they really achieve.

Objective 2 – DSE to provide detailed fuel load mapping for each burn parcel and across each Fire Management Zone.

Objective 3 – To ensure the expectation for adaptive management in the Code of Practice is met, DSE to provide detailed responses to community Fire Operations Plan input, accurately describing how this has been incorporated within the approved burn plan.

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We have received a second reply from DSE’s Paul Bates on the subject of the Tarilta management burn [see below]. In addition Ewan Waller, DSE’s Chief Fire Officer, fielded questions on the subject on ABC radio on Friday March 30. On the same day, the Bendigo Advertiser carried an item on the matter featuring a statement by DSE North West Regional Manager John Rofe to the effect that ‘the aim was to reduce the threat of fuel sparking a bushfire’.

The gist of all of the above is clear.

1. The stated aim of the Tarilta exercise [in the DSE zoning system, the Bendigo fire plan and on the DSE website] was to achieve an ecological outcome [see our post]. The statement by John Rofe in the Advertiser, and the evasions of Ewan Waller, make it clear that ecology has nothing to do with it. The aim is to burn the bush, and it’s not too strong to say that this was done without the slightest consideration for ecological values.
2. It’s blindingly clear that no notice was taken by DSE of warnings that burning steep slopes before heavy rain will bring about an erosion event. Either this is because DSE, as a land manager, doesn’t think soil loss is important, or it is because the Department is so driven by its burning targets that it thinks only of burning hectares.

One of the less steep drainage lines in the Tarilta gorge area: this soil has been washed off the hilltops.

3. It’s clear that DSE has no control over what happens inside its control lines. In other    words, the idea of ‘cool burns’ is a very slippery one, as is that of ‘mosaic burns’, where patches of burned and unburned ground alternate.

4. It’s also clear that the objective to burn an area classified as a particular Ecological Vegetation Class is not based on any real knowledge of what might or should happen in the area in question. FOBIF urged DSE to consider carefully the effects of the adjacent 2010 Wewak track burn before proceeding with this one. It’s London to a brick that no such consideration was given.

Paul Bates letter is given below. We have interpolated our questions in italics:

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