“FIRE makes a good servant, but a poor master.”
That was the message to come out of the Victorian Lands Alliance meeting at the Officer Hall last Wednesday night, with four speakers presenting the case for controlled burning.
Eastern Victorian MP Edward O’Donohue thanked the crowd of about 30 – some from as far as the Mallee District and Upper Yarra – and said the last three decades had seen vigorous public debate about the management of public land.
He said the issue was particularly important for people living on Melbourne’s interface, as demonstrated by the recent fires in Narre Warren.
He also read a warning from the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association, published in 1987, that predicted that the lack of controlled burning and grazing would result in fires of devastating magnitude.
“We need to send a message to the government that current fuel mitigation is not good enough,” he said.
“The Royal Commission will make findings, but not until the next fire season. The next fire season is only a few months away and the time for action is now.”
Dr Peter Attiwill, an Associate Professor at Melbourne University’s School of Botany, told the crowd fire was an important part of Australian ecology, but needed to be managed to prevent the ‘megafires’ recently seen in California, Greece and Victoria.
He said fuel increased fire intensity, and the ability to fight a fire depended on the time since the last burn.
Dr Attiwill said fire needed three elements: ignition, oxygen and fuel. Around half of fires were ignited by lightning, he said, and the easiest element to control was fuel.
“Extensive bushfires are unacceptable,” he concluded. “Prescribed fire makes suppression more efficient. Fire is not alien – a lack of fire is alien.”
Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) worker Geoff Scales said large-scale burning was a hard concept to sell to some people, but the direction within the DSE was heading towards larger, mosaic landscape burns.
VLA secretary Max Rheese concluded the night by saying fire experts had recommended that 700,000 hectares of public land should be burnt annually, but the VLA would settle for 385,000 hectares.
“We are ignoring lessons already learned, of fuel reduction through burning or controlled cattle grazing,” he said.
At the end of the meeting, Nar Nar Goon farmer Sunny Reeve called on the group to accept the government would be slow to implement prescribed burning.
“The next best thing is controlled grazing – that’s better than uncontrolled burning. Use a bit of common sense,” she said.
Two motions were then passed to send letters to Premier John Brumby requesting more prescribed burning and clearing of roadside vegetation in rural communities.
– Jade Lawton
