The NSW Rural Fire Service says it has accelerated hazard reduction burns by 21 per cent since July last year as New South Wales heads into a season of elevated fire danger, with above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall expected.
Who Gets to Decide
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Trent Curtin said the agency had increased the amount of hazard reduction burning because weather conditions had improved. He said, "Over recent years, we've seen reduced windows for hazard reduction burning." He also said, "We've seen increased rain, that's increased the amount of fuel across our landscapes." That fuel load, built up by weather patterns and managed through state agencies, now sits as the backdrop to a summer officials themselves describe as dangerous.
Curtin said he was "pleased" that improved weather conditions had resulted in 124,000 hectares of hazard reduction burning across NSW in the last year, but he also said the elevated fire danger and forecast conditions were a cause for "concern." He said, "We recognise that this high-risk season involves sometimes storms as well as fires." The language is bureaucratic, but the stakes are blunt enough. The people who live in the path of the season don’t get to choose the weather, and they don’t get to choose the risk once the apparatus decides it’s time to move.
Minister for Emergency Services Jihad Dib said the agencies would seize every opportunity to continue hazard reduction burning before summer. He said, "We've been going hard." He also said, "We can't control the weather, but what we can do is ensure that we're as best prepared as possible." That’s the familiar state script: manage the crisis after the conditions have already been allowed to build, then call the scramble preparedness.
What People Are Told to Do
Residents are being urged to conduct mechanical hazard reduction on their properties, including cleaning out gutters, trimming trees and keeping grasses low. Curtin said, "We want to make sure that people are cleaning up their properties, that they're developing their bushfire survival plans." He also said people should prepare their properties for the upcoming fire season and create bushfire plans. In other words, ordinary people are told to shoulder the practical burden while agencies coordinate, confer and announce.
The bushfire danger period starts on October 1 for the majority of NSW, with some northern areas of the state expected to enter the danger period earlier. According to the Department of Primary Industries, about 37 per cent of NSW was in drought or was drought-affected at the end of July. That figure hangs over everything else. Dry land, more fuel, more danger. The costs land where they always do, on people who live with the consequences rather than the people who issue the warnings.
Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said her team was working with farmers to ensure they had materials on their properties to assist with firefighting, as well as plans to escape potential blazes. The wording matters. Materials on properties. Plans to escape. Survival gets reduced to a checklist, while the larger system keeps moving through its conference schedule.
The Roundtable Machine
Representatives from more than 15 organisations attended a bushfire roundtable conference, including the NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire & Rescue NSW, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Forestry Corporation. Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the collaboration between agencies was crucial ahead of a "long, hot summer." She said, "As we see the fires that are raging across the northern hemisphere, we know that this could be us in the coming months," and added, "We are alert, we're not alarmed, but we are prepared."
That roundtable is the shape of official response: agencies, corporations and ministers gathered under one roof, each speaking the language of coordination while the public is told to trim trees, clear gutters and make plans. The Australasian Fire Authorities Council is expected to publish its spring bushfire outlook later this month, another layer of forecasting stacked on top of the warnings already in place.
Dib said people living in urban areas should not be complacent. He said, "Sometimes people who live in urban areas make the mistake of thinking that bushfire won't come to them because they're living a long way away." He added, "There's a history of embers just jumping ahead of the fire, in some cases up to 1 kilometre." He said, "We'd urge people, wherever they may be, to take their precautions." The message is plain enough: distance doesn’t buy safety, and official reassurance doesn’t stop embers.
The agencies have burned 124,000 hectares, the state says 37 per cent of NSW was drought-affected or in drought at the end of July, and the danger period begins on October 1 for most of the state. The machinery is already in motion. So is the fire season.