Hazard reduction burns are vital in keeping Australians safe. Photo: Gary Hooker.
The ACT has cleared backlogs for hazard reduction burns while NSW is also making headway this winter.
Fire services around the capital region have faced a complicated five years of difficult weather conditions slowing hazard reduction burns.
Conditions were too wet to conduct burns from 2021 to 2023, creating dense vegetation in many places in the south east. In 2024, fire services were again thwarted – this time by heat and wind.
But over the past year ACT Parks has managed to clear its backlog, getting through 17 fuel reduction burns. It has also carried out seven ecological burns and a cultural burn.
ACT Parks and Conservation Service director Nick Daines said it had been a complex few years, but it was pleasing to see the backlog come down.
“The fuel builds up when there’s a couple of wet years in a row. We can’t do burns and start getting nervous,” he said.
“We’re well on top of that now and our schedule is back on target.”
NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) is still behind on its targets but has been working hard to close the gap.
In 2023, a backlog of about a third existed. Today, 79 per cent of scheduled burns have been completed, dropping the backlog to 21 per cent.
The RFS told Region this number would likely come down further this year as figures from the current reporting period were filed at the end of this month.
Mr Daines said clearing the ACT backlog had allowed the service to support NSW crews.
“We’ve aided them with a few of their burns in areas like the Brindabellas, which really benefit Canberra.”
He said one of the capital’s most recent burns – a cultural burn by the Ngunnawal community at Ginninderry Nature Corridor in mid-July – was part of a new project to allow other forms of land maintenance.
Proponents say cultural or cold burning is less damaging to the environment, giving animals time to leave the area.
The ACT carried out its first cultural burn at the nature reserve last year.
Caring for Country ranger Tyson Powell said the burn helped protect the reserve which was being heavily impacted by weeds.
“It was covered in African love grass, a really bad invasive weed that had sort of taken over,” he said.
“The burn was more of a reset burn to try and get it back to more of a native grassland… what it should be. We had a good turnout and it went well.
“We’ve followed up with chemical to treat some of the St John’s wort. We’ve [since] had some other natives pop up that weren’t there before, so that was pretty exciting.”
Mr Powell said he would like to see cultural burning rolled out in more parks around the ACT.
“The goal is we would love to be doing lots more of these. To get a burn like that takes a lot of time and planning. I’ve got to get approvals through parks, which can take a long time. It would be better if it was in our own hands.”
Mr Daines said it was satisfying to support the Ginninderry cultural burn and see the community engagement.
“Our role is to provide a backstop in a bit of Canberra community assurance to have a fire truck on scene, where as we’re usually quite a distance away from the burn that’s being led by the community. We’re lucky at this burn we’re invited down to participate.
“It’s fun and enjoyable, and great to see kids and community engaging with it directly.”
He said ACT Parks was now looking to implement some of the techniques from cultural burns into its wider ecological burning program.
“Integrating more of the traditional custodian practices into our ecological burns is definitely something we’re going to be doing,” he said.
“Intellectual property is owned by the Ngunnawal people and we have to respect that. But insofar as they’re comfortable sharing that and working that in with our burning regimes, it’s something we’ll definitely be looking into.”
Prescribed burns are usually conducted in spring and autumn. No burns are currently planned.
The public is notified of prescribed burns on the ACT Parks website.
