NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service in bushfire hazard burning U-turn

The NSW government is seeking to significantly increase its hazard reduction targets to reduce fuel loads on forest floors.

NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean. Picture: AAP

After months spent defending its annual hazard reduction target of 135,000ha during the devastating summer bushfire season, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service has asked for more money to increase its burning operations on the state’s crown lands and ­national parks.

By submitting a budget request for additional funds to enable it to reduce fuel loads on forest floors, the service has, in effect, conceded its recent efforts to control the bushfires did not go far enough and more work will be required to prevent a repeat of the calamity this year. 

The Australian has been told the business case calls for a significant increase to the amount of hazard reduction the agency undertakes around homes, properties and environmental assets.

The revelations jar with accusations made by Deputy Premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro earlier this year that the agency was “ideologically opposed” to ­increasing controlled burning.

An official familiar with the matter said NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean instructed ­officials to nominate whatever figure they thought necessary to prevent a repeat this summer’s fire conditions.

The request is being assessed by Treasury officials.

“Our submission has been ­developed by experts and the best science,” the official said.

A spokesman for Mr Kean said all funding requests were part of the usual budget process, while a spokesman for NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the matter would be assessed on its merit.

“We are unable to comment on individual budget bids,” he said.

The state spends about $50m to reach its yearly hazard ­reduction target of 135,000ha. And according to Ross Bradstock, the director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong, that target is too low to materially improve safety.

In general, burning land doesn’t come cheap. It costs about $100 to burn a hectare in remote locations, but the costs can grow exponentially — up to $10,000 per hectare — when the land backs onto houses. In such circumstances, where the risk to properties is much higher, enormous outlays are required to pay for helicopters, ground personnel, road closures, smoke management, letterbox drops and other costs, such as planning approvals and weather forecasting.

Mr Bradstock said current mitigation strategies in NSW were less effective than those in Victoria, where hazard reduction efforts were pegged to a risk ­reduction target of 30 per cent.

In NSW, risk is not accounted for in the hazard reduction process, meaning controlled burns offer only a semblance of safety.

“In NSW, the sum total of hazard reduction reduces risk by a few per cent, and that costs you $50m. We need to have a conversation about what we’re achieving,” Mr Bradstock said.

According to its annual report figures, the NSW NPWS reached its hazard reduction target of 135,000ha in 2018-2019, but fell short during its previous two years, by 29 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.

But extra funding does not guarantee an increased schedule of burns. Hotter, dryer weather conditions are said to be shortening the available windows to conduct these operations safely.

“We struggled to spend the allocated funding last year due to difficulty in getting the right conditions to do the job,” said Brian McDonough, president of the Rural Fire Service Association, the representative body for volunteer firefighters.

For Mr Kean, any move to increase hazard reduction activities is likely to play well with his ­Nationals colleagues, some of whom have criticised his response to the fires and accused him of pushing a “green ideology” by linking the fires to climate change.

Nationals MP Michael Johnsen, who once called for Mr Kean to lose his portfolio, said he supported the effort to increase funding for hazard reduction. “Every cent needs to go into land management, not project managers reading over other project managers’ papers,” he said.