Prescribed Burns

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:13): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation questions about DEWNR's prescribed burns program.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: During the minister's appearance at estimates this year, he stated that DEWNR had a strategic risk-based three-year rolling prescribed burning program in which burns that are not completed in the program time are moved to another season or year. My questions to the minister are:

1. Does the minister have concerns that the three-year rolling program creates a greater vulnerability due to backlogs being created when burns are delayed?

2. Will the minister outline exactly what efforts DEWNR undertakes to properly manage high-risk burn areas that do not get their prescribed burn?

3. When were prescribed burn-offs last completed in the Belair National Park? What percentage of the park was completed?

4. What consultation has the minister had with the Sturt CFS group in relation to fuel loads within the Belair National Park?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:14): I thank the honourable member for his most important question and for the opportunity to again explain to the chamber how the prescribed burning program has been put in place, what we are doing this season and, of course, to note that in fact there was no prescribed burning program before this government came into office.

It is a matter of great pride for us that we have put together such a substantial firefighting force in the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, to the extent that they form the largest CFS brigade and are used by the CFS in some major roles in controlling fires, in particular, but in terms of other natural disasters as well. I am thinking there about flooding, for example.

The prescribed burning capabilities of the agency are, as I said, incredibly great. They have a program, which the honourable member referred to, in terms of our prescribed burning three-year rolling program. It is carried out by our highly trained professionals, with great management and expertise which is often utilised, as I said, by the CFS but also, indeed, other fire agencies around the country and sometimes across the world.

The DEWNR group is a registered group of the South Australian CFS with 531 brigade members, including 363 firefighters who can be called on at any time to attend bushfire incidents both on and off public land, as well as delivering a prescribed burn program. The remaining 168 brigade members are available for operational support roles.

The budget for 2017-18 is about $13.7 million; this includes an additional $4.2 million that the government made available as part of our increased funding of $16.2 million over four years to increase DEWNR’s bushfire mitigation capabilities. An additional $4.2 million will continue to go towards an increased program of prescribed burning to include private lands as well as increase mapping support capabilities, an emergency services map book review, and an additional seasonal firefighter crew that will improve DEWNR’s capacity to support the CFS in bushfire suppression activities.

I am advised that the 2017-18 budget employs 140 specialist fire management staff, including 71 seasonal project firefighters who are employed for nine months of the year over the fire danger season, to assist with prescribed burning and bushfire response activities. DEWNR also manages a fleet of fire management vehicles, including 59 quick response four-wheel drive vehicles with a 400 to 600-litre capacity, 30 large trucks with 1,000 to 3,500-litre capacity, 13 bulk water carriers, and 40 support vehicles—for example, command cars.

Under the state government’s interagency agreements with SA Water, DEWNR plays a lead role in supporting and delivering fire management activities on SA Water lands, including prescribed burning and bushfire response. This arrangement has been in place since 2005. As part of its memorandum of understanding, an additional budget of approximately $1 million is allocated from SA Water to DEWNR to employ a further 22 seasonal firefighters and provide six additional firefighting appliances.

The collaborative and cooperative spirit that has been embraced by these agencies demonstrates the state’s commitment to meeting the challenges of an increasing bushfire threat through the effective and efficient use of resources. DEWNR’s prescribed burn program is meticulously planned and always includes a thorough assessment of the environment and any associated risk factors, such as proximity of assets, wind, temperature, dryness of vegetation and, of course, the typography and geography of the site.

DEWNR has developed and employs the latest technology and science available for the design and implementation of the program. For example, DEWNR has developed a burn risk assessment tool to assess the various risk elements and provide an overall risk rating for each burn being conducted. They have adapted a fire spread modelling tool called Phoenix Rapid Fire to the South Australian environment to predict fire behaviour and rates of spread to ensure that appropriate resources are allocated and that warnings can be delivered to communities.

They have also developed aerial ignition capabilities which enables them to burn larger areas in a safer and more cost-effective manner, as well as access areas where terrain is inaccessible to ground crews. It is clear that we take every precaution to not only ensure that prescribed burns are carried out with the utmost care, but only when it is safe to do so, because that is the best way to ensure the safety of residents and firefighters.

Alongside these technological developments, I suppose, DEWNR has also committed to engaging with local communities throughout the planning and implementation of prescribed burns. DEWNR has increased its community engagement capacity in relation to fire management, on parks and reserves in particular, and DEWNR has developed and planned an engagement strategy and a schedule of engagement activities which target relevant stakeholders and groups in South Australia.

As I have said many times, prescribed burns can only take place when weather conditions are deemed suitable for the planned activity being conducted safely and effectively. This means that whilst burning is mostly conducted during the spring and autumn seasons, and we have a different range of areas that we burn at different times when conditions are likely to be favourable, the number of burns actually completed is dependent on the seasonal conditions.

I think I have said in this place before that our spring burns are usually our more targeted smaller burns in high-risk areas, and our autumn burns are much more the landscape scale of burning, but we mix it up according to the weather conditions and what we can burn in different parts of the state, again depending on fuel load, the dryness of the fuel, and approaching fronts and weather conditions. If it is too hot or too windy then we won't go ahead with a prescribed burn planned for a particular site, but we might move that to another part of the state where the conditions are more amenable to a prescribed burn at that time.

The spring burn program generally commences in late September to early October—more often than not these days it is October—when the fuel is dried so that it will burn and weather conditions are not yet hot enough to produce dangerous fire behaviour. Until the fuels in each region are dry enough or are cured, conducting successful prescribed burns can't really occur.

DEWNR has a three-year rolling burn program, as the honourable member said in his explanation, which allows us the flexibility to move our burns to another season or year or, indeed, to another site in the state, ensuring the burns are appropriately managed and have met their objective. The 2017-18 prescribed burn program has been finalised for spring. There are 49 burns across about 2,600 hectares, and another 49 proposed for autumn across about 9,000 hectares.

Across the state for the 2017-18 season, 98 burns are proposed, in total treating approximately just under 12,000 hectares of land. This includes six burns on behalf of SA Water, seven burns on behalf of ForestrySA, and 12 burns as part of the burning on private lands program, which honourable members will recall we initiated last year and has met with quite a deal of success and is being embraced by members of the community.

With wetter conditions now subsiding, fuel is starting to dry out and DEWNR has now commenced its spring burning program—it did so a couple of weeks ago. I am advised that, as at Monday 16 October, DEWNR has successfully completed six prescribed burns, treating approximately six to seven hectares of land across the state.

In terms of the specific questions about, I think it was Belair, I remember having correspondence from a local MP about Belair in the last few weeks, so it won't be very difficult for me to get out that correspondence and prepare a response for the honourable member and bring back more detail about Belair.