Resource information
Three mega-fires in Victoria over the period 2002–2009 burnt some 3million hectares, or 40% of the state’s public land. In the worst of these bushfires—Black Saturday, 7 February 2009–173 people lost their lives in Australia’s worst civilian tragedy. Each of these three fires was followed by intensive inquiries and investigations, the most prolonged and intensive being a Royal Commission inquiry (the most rigorous form of legal inquiry in Australia) into the Black Saturday fires. Continuous changes in the organization of public land management agencies and in policies of public land management over the past 30years have disrupted forest and fire management, and resulted in large increases in fuel loads in most forest types. The scientific evidence is that burning to reduce fuels must be increased for effective forest management, effective ecological management and for the protection of life and property. The greatest number of submissions to the Royal Commission concerned fuel-reduction burning. Despite specific recommendations coming from the Royal Commission (as well as from an earlier government inquiry) for a 3-fold increase in the fuel-reduction target, the State remains divided on the effectiveness, propriety and implementation of fuel-reduction burning—divided among ecologists, divided among the community, divided among and within the key land-management agencies. The recent fire history of the eucalypt forests of Victoria demonstrates that leaving fire-adapted forests unattended has long-term social, economic and environmental consequences. However, even that is not enough to counter those who argue the case that ‘nature knows best’.
