AS we approach the State Election, the recent disastrous floods are still fresh in our minds, even though Victoria’s Western District was relatively unscathed.

Many confronting images of inundated properties and towns have featured in the media.

Volunteers and relief organisations have worked feverishly, sandbagging and constructing levee banks.

Fly-in-fly-out politicians have visited, looking grave and promising assistance – as they must.

It is a similar story with fires, historically more of a problem than floods in this region.

But what about prevention and mitigation?

Why do we sit on our hands and wait for a fire or flood to reach our back fence before we take appropriate action?

Sadly, this is nothing new.

In a 1995 history of the CFA, “State of Fire”, the authors refer to the second colonial governor of NSW, John Hunter, who most likely produced the first official reports on Australian bushfires, following the prolonged drought of the 1790s.

They write “He set a lasting pattern: community concern, government action (especially if it cost little), and improvement in fire consciousness and knowledge – and then a return to complacency as the immediate danger passed”.

That cycle continues to this day – and is even worse, due to the instant and continuous availability of local and world news via modern media.

To quote an outdated saying: yesterday’s news is today’s fish and chip wrapper. 

Almost every Royal Commission or other Inquiry into bush and grass fires since 1939 has identified high fuel loads as a major factor in fire severity and its horrific effects.

In particular, Recommendation 56 from the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday fires in 2009 (which killed 173 people) urged “…a long-term program of prescribed burning based on an annual rolling target of five per cent minimum of public land”.

Incredibly, the State Government abandoned this major recommendation.

Instead of the “hectare target”, it chose a deliberately vague and opaque “risk reduction target”, promoted as the “Safer Together” program.

As a result, the fuel reduction burning program was shrunk to satisfy the green lobby.

This trend continues, even following the major 2019-20 Black Summer fires.

It beggars belief that, in a Senate Committee Report following those fires, fuel reduction burning was described as a “contested and divisive issue” and yet another review was recommended!

Meanwhile the fuel build-up continues apace in many areas. 

Currently, of course, few people are thinking about fire risk, given the recent heavy rains.

But now is exactly the time to start preparing for the inevitable next fire – whenever that may be – given that Victoria is one of the most fire-prone places on the planet.

And a similar strategy should be applied to mitigation works needed to deal with future floods.

The Howitt Society, a group of experienced land and fire managers and acknowledged bushmen, who are concerned for the health and safety of the Australian landscape, are calling on all candidates for the forthcoming election to declare their position on what should be done to prevent and mitigate the effects of future natural disasters, especially fires.

There are three factors that allow fires to burn – an ignition source, oxygen and fuel.

The only one that we are able to influence is the amount of fuel available when ignition does occur, whether due to lightning, an arsonist, a campfire or any other source.

It is a proven fact that as fuel availability doubles, fire burns four times more intensely.

This formula also works in reverse, so there are great benefits in reducing fuel loads.

This is not rocket science; fuel can be reduced over large areas, at the right time, using existing and familiar technologies.

All that is required is a change in government policy and appropriate funding – which would pale into insignificance compared to the vast sums spent on fire suppression, relief efforts and post-fire remediation following tragic events like Black Saturday.

Of course, fuel reduction will never prevent fires starting, but a careful and comprehensive fuel management program will most definitely reduce the intensity of a fire once it starts, thus allowing firefighters a much better chance to control it before it develops into a major conflagration.

Climate change is now frequently claimed to be the cause of serious fires, floods and other natural disasters around the world, but this is no reason to sit back and do nothing about the overriding problem of heavy fuel loads – or preventive action needed in flood-prone areas.

If anything, climate change increases the need even further to tackle these urgent issues – now.

The Howitt Society is calling on whichever party or parties form government in Victoria after November 26 to urgently implement better fuel management, by means of adopting the minimum annual target of five per cent of public land to be subject to prescribed burning.

A well-funded, well-led, state-wide, even nation-wide fuel mitigation campaign would be an effective first step in protecting Australian lives and property – and the landscape itself – from the inevitable threats of future fires.

It is time to break the cycle and get on with the job of prevention and mitigation.

Rick Cooper and Garry Squires are president and secretary respectively of the Howitt Society.  Peter Flinn is a committee member.