2011-12 Budget Estimates Hearings - Department of Environment and Conservation

Date:

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Hearing commenced at 4.17 pm

-------

Hon ALISON XAMON: I have quite a few questions, actually, but the ninth dot point on page 819 refers to the active fire management program. How much burning is planned for the urban bushland areas on the Swan coastal plain, and which bushland areas on the Swan coastal plain are slated for burning in 2011-12?

Hon HELEN MORTON: Director general.

Mr McNamara: The prescribed burning program is of course the cornerstone of our efforts to protect both the community and the environment against the effects of wildfire.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I am referring to urban bushland in this instance.

Mr McNamara: I appreciate that. The program across the south west aims to achieve about 200 000 hectares annually. There is increased focus in current and recent circumstances along the Darling scarp in particular in respect of that. We have been concerned in recent years that some of the urban bushland areas, some of the Bush Forever areas and some of the regional parks on the Swan coastal plain, which are obviously significantly surrounded by housing, do pose a threat in terms of fire, and indeed some of the areas in Rockingham Lakes Regional Park and the Beeliar Regional Park, for example, are suffering extensive wildfire damage very regularly and sometimes annually—places like Anstey Swamp and Paganoni and some of the others. So rather than have those burnt out 100 per cent in wildfires and doing a lot of damage, we are starting to introduce prescribed fire into those areas more actively to break them up so that they are not burnt entirely in one go. We publish a six-season, three-year forward master burn plan every six months, and the areas that are proposed are published in that plan.

Hon ALISON XAMON: Are you able to provide which sites are slated for burning in 2011-12?

Mr McNamara: I cannot name those sites now but we can, by reference to the plan, list the candidate sites, and then we have to make judgements on a daily basis as to suitable weather conditions and so on as to which ones we do burn.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I will put that on notice to get those.

Hon HELEN MORTON: Can I just be clear? Are you looking for the candidate sites?

Hon ALISON XAMON: Sorry?

The DEPUTY CHAIR: For the candidate sites.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I am specifically looking for the sites that are down to be burnt for 2011-12 on the Swan coastal plain, the urban bushland sites; it is very narrow.

[Supplementary Information No B3.]

Hon ALISON XAMON: In relation to that same issue, because you have rightly identified that a lot of these sites are already subject to quite regular, effectively, arson attacks, what considerations are being given to sites that have already been subject to unplanned burns in that fire regime?

Mr McNamara: Fire history, be it past prescribed burn or past wildfire or bushfire, is taken into account every time we update, and that is every six months—the forward master burn plan for prescribed burns—so we always take that into account. Clearly, we try to protect areas against fire that have suffered extensive or very hot bushfire in recent times. But the issue on the Swan coastal plain is often, because of arson, that the entire reserves have been burnt out, and what we are seriously doing, or thinking about and doing, is trying to break up those areas so that, unfortunately, in the inevitable instance of arson or accidental fire, the whole reserve is not burnt. We really want parts of them burnt in a mosaic so that if we do get a fire, we do not lose the whole lot in one go.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I understand the thinking behind that, but even if you are undertaking mosaic burns, what is considered to be the best practice time frame in terms of an interim burn between planned burns and the burns that actually occur between? For example, would it be five years or seven years? Would it be three months? What sort of time frame? What are you looking at as a best practice time frame between burns, whether it be planned or mosaic or other?

Hon HELEN MORTON: Peter Dans might like to pick up on this one.

Mr Dans: Going back to the first part of your question, certainly the fuel age, be it from a prescribed burn or a bushfire, is the primary determinant that goes into our master burn planning process. The fuel age that we aim for in the south west forest, where we are generally looking to burn about eight per cent of that a year, is roughly a fuel age of about 12 years in the south west forest vegetation units.

Hon ALISON XAMON: And for the Swan coastal plain?

Mr Dans: It is quite variable because of the prevalence of some annual weeds and the like on the Swan coastal plain. I could not be precise because it varies quite significantly from vegetation type to vegetation type there.

Hon ALISON XAMON: Do you have a minimum level that you would consider to be best practice even across all vegetation types?

[5.00 pm]

Mr Dans: For some of the small reserves that we do manage within the urban area we have not historically had an active fire management program because of the prevalence of arson and fuel loads have been at such low levels. We have not got to a stage where we have had to determine a burn interval, if you like, because of the frequency of arson events and bushfires from other causes.

Hon ALISON XAMON: That is disappointing. Mr Deputy Chair, I have more questions.

The DEPUTY CHAIR: One more go; yes, that is okay.

Hon ALISON XAMON: One more? Okay, I will try to come back. In that case, I refer to page 817. Under “Delivery of Services”, in the absence of being able to identify a specified line item, can I just confirm whether DEC is still taking primary responsibility for water quality monitoring of, in particular, DOW bores across the Gnangara and Jandakot mounds?

Hon HELEN MORTON: The answer is no, and we are trying to work out why you would have anticipated that to be the case.

Hon ALISON XAMON: That is fine; you have answered my question.