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For immediate release
Reducing the costs and impacts of bushfires (Authored by the Independent Bushfire Group)
The Independent Bushfire Group is 12 non-aligned bushfire practitioners, fire managers, land managers, fire researchers and ecologists with over 400 years of collective experience in bushfires, land management and fire ecology across a range of fire landscapes. The group focuses on practical firefighting issues. A version of this report, authored by the Independent Bushfire Group (IBG), was submitted to the NSW Independent Bushfire Inquiry in June 2020.
The following is an excerpt from a report by the Independent Bushfire Group (IBG), ‘Reducing the costs and impacts of bushfires’. Read the full report here, or the summary here.
Climate change is causing more frequent and intense bushfires across much of eastern Australia. We must adapt to our increasingly dangerous fire climate. We must make fires smaller and improve community resilience.
We believe firefighters deserve to be supported with the best systems and strategies. We are putting forward comprehensive recommendations for improved operational performance, systems development and research priorities for bushfire management in NSW and beyond.
We recommend changes to fire management that will:
- Better protect communities
- Reduce costs
- Reduce overall risk and trauma to firefighters and,
- Conserve our natural heritage.
We suggest the greatest gains can be made from improvements to risk-based strategic thinking, research, initial attack, suppression strategies, critical skills and operational reviews.
Opportunities and Key Recommendations for improvement are summarised below.
FULL REPORT: Reducing the costs and impacts of bushfires [PDF 10.6MB]
SUMMARY REPORT: Reducing the costs and impacts of bushfires [PDF 4.5MB]
Preparation and planning
- A Risk-based Approach to Bushfires: Strengthen systems for a risk-based approach to bushfire suppression, to improve decisions and limit the scale and consequences of fires.
- Aspects of Bushland Management: Ensure that governments and agencies promote factual information to the public and develop evidence-based and multi-tenure mitigation programs for bushfire risk.
- Recognise environmental needs and balance them against fire management aimed at protecting human communities. Increase research into the best ways to reduce fire impacts.
- Community Fire Planning: Accelerate the rollout of Community Protection Plans based on the recent RFS guideline, through a committed and prioritised program supported by policy, targets, funding and resources.
- Critical Fire Incident Management Skills: Increase cross-agency investment to develop greater numbers of expert Fire Strategists, Aircraft Specialists and Divisional Commanders (DCs), so that fire suppression can be much more successful.
- Research: Increase investment in targeted bushfire research and expand the independence and scope of research to support more evidence-based and better bushfire management.
Response to fires
- Initial Attack for Remote Area Fires: Improve detection technology, place higher priority on putting out remote ignitions, train strategists and invest in enough people with the right skills and the right aircraft so that more fires can be put out when small.
- Fire Behaviour Modelling: Critically review the effectiveness of current fire modelling, expand research and develop improved modelling that accounts for all variables, to help make fire suppression and management more successful with less impact on people and environment.
- Suppression Strategies for Large Fires: Reduce bushfire costs and impacts by using different strategies for some remote and large fires. Minimise fire size and impacts through selection of optimal strategies, by applying more rigorous procedures for backburning and expanding research into the effectiveness of fire suppression methods. Upgrade the State Bush Fire Plan to include objectives and methods for bush fire suppression.
- Fire Incident Management Arrangements: Increase training and mentoring to produce a larger pool of very competent people for key IMT and fireground roles. Decentralise command, standardise IMT shift arrangements, improve continuity in IMT roles, ensure the best use of local knowledge in key roles and improve the management of heavy plant operations.
Recovery
- Post Fire Review of Operations: Re-build post-fire review processes from the ground up to be structured, compulsory, thorough, independent, honest, unflinching and blame-free. Remove obstacles that have inhibited this in the past. Undertake a major research program into suppression strategies. Make a culture of analysis and learning an integral part of fire management with commitment and funding from agencies. Consider enshrining review principles and processes in legislation. Energetically communicate and audit review outcomes through fire agencies to ensure that lessons learnt are understood and adopted.
- Environmental Recovery: Reduce the size of fires to minimise all impacts including on the environment and ecosystems. Greatly expand research on bushfire impacts, ecological baselines and fire recovery. Increase investment in ecological recovery programs.
- Community Education: Significantly expand community fire education in rural and regional NSW while the impacts of the 2020 fires are fresh in the community’s mind. This can build both community resilience to fire and informed support for fire management.
Attachments
FULL REPORT: Reducing the costs and impacts of bushfires [PDF 10.6MB]
SUMMARY REPORT: Reducing the costs and impacts of bushfires [PDF 4.5MB]
For media enquiries or interviews with ELCA members
Contact Media Manager, Jacqui Street
0498 188 528 / jacqui.street@climatecouncil.org.au