Bushfire Preparedness

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:23): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Recent heavy rainfalls delayed the start of the prescribed burning season throughout some parts of the state. Given the extended wet spring season, the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources has put in place a number of alternative prevention strategies to help mitigate the risk of bushfire on public land this coming summer. Strategies like slashing and fire track maintenance will continue to be carried out whilst seasonal conditions, hopefully, improve.

The benefits of this five-year rolling burns program that we have is that burns that cannot take place this spring will be moved to autumn or to later years when the weather is more favourable. Prescribed burning is an important part of the work that DEWNR does to help eliminate the threat of bushfire on public land, and allows us to be proactive and implement a program of prevention and preparedness across the landscape. This reduces dangerous fire behaviours and provides our firefighters with a tactical advantage when fighting fires.

Prescribed burns can only take place, of course, when weather conditions are suitable for the planned activity to be conducted safely and effectively. This means that whilst the burning is mostly carried out during the spring and autumn seasons when conditions are likely to be favourable, the number of burns actually completed is dependent on seasonal conditions. In 2016-17, the prescribed burn program may change throughout the year as some burns are postponed and others brought forward, according to the seasonal outlook and other conditions like short-term weather, local weather and fuel dryness.

To respond to the significant challenges that South Australia faces in managing the state's risk of catastrophic bushfire due to a warming climate, the government is committed to implementing strategically located fuel reduction burns in high-risk areas. This is why we have recently committed an additional $16.2 million over the next four years to increase the state's capacity to prepare for bushfire and to carry out a tenure-blind, risk-based fire management planning approach to bushfire preparedness. The additional firefighters employed with this funding can undertake burning, along with bushfire prevention work such as slashing, fire track and trail maintenance, and preparatory works for planned burns.