Former CSIRO forestry chief Glen Kile calls for more preventive burns

A former chief of CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products has called for a preventive burns policy rethink. Here’s why.

More fuel reduction burns are needed across regional Victoria to ease the burden on rural firefighters, a former CSIRO division chief says.

Retired forestry bureaucrat Glen Kile says Victoria’s ‘detection and suppression’ approach to bushfire management had frustrated efforts to control large-scale fires, including the recent Grampians bushfire which scorched 22,000ha — double the size of Hong Kong.

Dr Kile has previously served as CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products chief and later as executive director of the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation.

Writing in the latest edition of The Weekly Times, Dr Kile said fuel reduction burning was “an essential tool in bushfire management”.

“Burning at mild intensity increases the opportunity for safer and more successful firefighting,” he said.

Glen Kile, former chief of CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products.

“When bushfires occur in fuel-reduced areas, they are reduced in severity, generate less embers, and release less emissions of smoke and carbon.

“As an essential land management practice in Victoria’s fire-prone environment, we need more mild fire in the landscape, not less.”

Dr Kile, who is a member of the Order of Australia for service to forest science, said the recent Los Angeles wildfires were a cautionary lesson for Victoria.

“Advocates of a response-only strategy over-estimate the effectiveness of aerial water and fire retardant dropping as means of fire suppression,” he said.

“The reality is that aircraft cannot operate in high winds, during electrical storms at night or in heavy smoke, as was evident during the peak of the recent Los Angeles fires.”

Victorian Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos was contacted by The Weekly Times for comment. His office deferred to the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

A DECCA spokeswoman said: “Forest Fire Management Victoria and our emergency sector partners work hard to reduce bushfire risk all year round.

“Our approach is underpinned by evidence, local knowledge and continuous improvement – ensuring our efforts are directed where they will have the greatest impact.

“At the end of each season, assessments are done to make sure that lessons learnt can be incorporated into our bushfire management system.”

Opposition land management spokeswoman Melina Bath said the Victorian Government had “allowed fuel loads to build up to record levels.”

“The state’s current targets on risk reduction are not enough to keep us safe, they are woefully inadequate,” the state National Party MP said.

“Bushfire intensity is influenced by a range of factors, but the one government can directly influence is forest fuel load.”

Originally published as Former CSIRO forestry chief Glen Kile calls for more preventive burns