NSW Independent Bushfire Inquiry

Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) welcomes the opportunity to submit to the NSW Independent Bushfire Inquiry.

Recommendations

1. The Inquiry Report should clearly acknowledge and explain that the 2019/20 bushfires were the worst in NSW history, that they were driven by unprecedented extreme weather and fire danger indices on multiple days, by cascading events including drought, heatwaves, dry thunderstorms, and an unprecedented number of pyroconvective events. The Report should clearly acknowledge and explain for the historical record that it is irrefutable that climate change was the main driver of the unprecedented 2019/20 bushfire season.
   
2. The Inquiry Report should explain how climate change has resulted in the NSW bushfire season lengthening, and overlapping with other states and territories, limiting the ability of Australian firefighting agencies to assist each other. Increasing overlap of fire seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres is limiting the availability of large firefighting aircraft, particularly between August and November each year.
   
3. The NSW Government should, in recognition of the now established pattern of longer bushfire seasons, amend S.81 of the Rural Fires Act 1997 to change commencement of the annual Statutory Bushfire Danger Period to 1 August each year, concluding on 30 April in the following year, replacing the current Bushfire Danger Period from 1 October to 31 March, in order to help prevent fires and increase the need for fire permits. Alternatively, change the Act and adopt the Tasmania Fire Service approach whereby the Commissioner makes a determination each year of the commencement and conclusion of the bushfire danger period, based on current assessed fire risk.
   
4. Strong climate mitigation and adaptation policies are required from all levels of government including the New South Wales State Government, to start to address the escalating bushfire and natural disaster risks driven by climate change, the root cause of worsening extreme weather. NSW must accelerate and increase measures to tackle climate change. More substantial action is required to reduce Australia’s emissions, including accelerating the transition to renewables and storage technologies, non-polluting transport, infrastructure, food production and the phase out of fossil fuel projects. The NSW Government must continue to step up to strengthen its climate policies and local government must continue to meet and beat emission reduction goals and renewable energy targets. Some of these climate impacts are already locked in, and all levels of government will play a critical role in building community preparedness and resilience.
   
5. The NSW Government should demand that the Federal Government maintain funding and support for an ongoing research capability given the imminent cessation of funding in 2021 for the Bushfire & Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre. Research is crucial to understanding and tracking escalating natural disaster risks, and enabling fire and emergency services to plan and prepare for worsening conditions. An evidence-based ability to track and predict escalating risks driven by climate change must underpin the development of national and state resilience, adaptation and mitigation strategies, funding needs for community education and engagement, and enhanced resourcing of emergency services.
   
6. The NSW Government should demand that the Federal Government ensure critical government research agencies have funding restored. This includes agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and ABC Local Radio as the national emergency broadcaster. These agencies must be sufficiently resourced to improve predictive capabilities, understand effects of climate change on natural disasters now and into the future, and be able to warn and alert communities and emergency services in a timely, comprehensive manner.
   
7. That the NSW RFS place greater emphasis on the appointment of hazard management officers in accordance with S.65A of the Rural Fires Act 1997 in order to better manage fuel loads on private land. In the 2 months preceding the onset of each bushfire season, concentrate on identifying and requiring management of hazardous fuel loads on private land, where necessary issuing bush fire hazard reduction notices under S.66 of the Act, then carrying out works and recouping costs from owners under S.70 of the Act. Each RFS District should be required to submit a pre-season plan identifying localities of particular focus and provide fortnightly returns of the number of notices issued, and number of works carried out under S.70.
   
8. Amend the Rural Fires Act 1997 so as to require the Bush Fire Coordinating Committee to develop a 10 year state-wide strategic bushfire risk management plan which incorporates a holistic and cross tenure approach to bushfire risk management acknowledging climate change impacts on future fire frequency and intensity. This focus on intensifying fire seasons should guide the development of district bush fire risk management plans, NSW fire authority strategic bushfire plans, research priorities, hazard reduction programs, bushfire zones, and performance measures.
   
9. Enhance those programs which focus bushfire risk reduction effort on asset protection and strategic fire management zones including the FRNSW Community Fire Unit Program, the RFS AIDER program, the RFS / NCC Hotspots Program, and examine further opportunities for engaging Aboriginal Corporations in cultural burning and firefighting, pest management and restoration programs on Country.
   
10. Research is needed to help develop new policies that recognise the need for better asset protection, shrinking windows available for controlled burning due to a warming climate, the need to fund and research cultural burning practices, and the need to avoid perverse outcomes, such as burning large tracts of land remote from assets in order to meet arbitrary percentage or hectare targets. There needs to be recognition that hazard reduction will be less effective during extreme weather events that result in long distance spotting, intense and sustained ember attack, and pyroconvective fires. As a result, fuel reduction strategies will need to better integrate with fire suppression, community education, hardening of infrastructure, and other measures. Fuel reduction is one of the only ways to reduce fire intensity and therefore must be a major part of any mitigation strategy.
    
11. Australia’s National Security Strategy must embrace wider and deeper concepts of security, including a consideration of climate change, natural disasters driven by extreme weather, and their impacts. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has comprehensive logistics and engineering capabilities that can be applied to assist emergency services in the response phase, and communities in the recovery phase. Key Defence policy papers, such as the next Defence White Paper must incorporate a clear forward plan for how the ADF will support emergency services and recovery agencies in the future, as climate change drives an increased number of extreme fire danger days and other natural disasters in NSW and Australia.
    
12. The NSW Government should request that the Federal Government conduct a fundamental review of longstanding Defence Assistance to the Civil Community (DACC) arrangements. The arrangements can be cumbersome and slow, and levels of understanding between the ADF and emergency services about respective capabilities, needs, and arrangements must be improved. The ADF should focus on utilisation of existing capabilities for civil defence roles rather than developing new capabilities that may simply duplicate state and territory capabilities, ultimately causing confusion and inefficiencies.
    
13. The NSW Government should make representations to the Federal Government to ensure that future strategic assessments of the capability of the ADF to assist in natural disasters, including assessment of future acquisitions, should concentrate on interoperability and complementarity with states and territories, determined via a structured consultative arrangement.
    
14. The NSW Government should request that the Federal Government and ADF conduct a trial of the feasibility of fitting a number of RAAF C130 Hercules aircraft with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFSII) to provide the ADF with the capability to augment aerial firefighting capabilities during major disasters.
    
15. The NSW Government should conduct a trial, in consultation with AFAC and NAFC, of amphibious water-scooping aircraft in a first attack / direct attack firefighting role (CL415 and Be200). Australian fire services at present use small and large fixed wing water bombers, but not medium sized. Given the success of 3,200 litre single engine air tankers (SEAT), a twin engine purpose-built aircraft with significantly greater air speed, range, flexibility, and twice to four times the payload would be a logical addition to current arrangements. CL 415 aircraft are used extensively and successfully throughout the world in other fire-prone countries.
    
16. A range of new rapid fire detection technologies should be trialed. Together with rapid detection, new fast attack strategies for new outbreaks, particularly remote fires caused by lightning, need to be introduced with clear objectives, e.g. putting fires out within 24 hours and before they exceed ten hectares. Fast attack should involve rapid dispatch of a suitable number and type of fixed and rotary winged aircraft, including where suitable, medium sized air tankers which can scoop from suitable water sources or land at local air strips for manual filling, (as opposed to LAT and VLAT which are restricted to a few major airports) thereby establishing rapid turnaround and constant direct aerial attack on fire fronts. Aerial attack would then be complemented, as soon as possible, by aerial or ground insertion of fire crews and where necessary remote area fire teams, to complete extinguishment.
    
17. The NSW Government should re-commit to the soon-to-be completed National Parks and Wildlife Service Enhanced Bushfire Program and focus in particular on expansion and resourcing of remote area fire teams with suitable aerial platforms, including the possibility of using ex-military Blackhawk helicopters, or Bell 412 helicopters as recently procured for the RFS.
    
18. The NSW Government should declare the NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire & Rescue NSW, and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service as Essential Services for budgetary purposes, and immediately exempt them from the Labour Expense Cap and Productivity Dividends (i.e. constant budget cuts).
    
19. The NSW Government should restore capital funding to Fire & Rescue NSW to enable the average age of the fire engine fleet to be restored to ten years. This will also restore the ability of Fire & Rescue NSW to maintain a “reserve fleet” of decommissioned fire engines and tankers to provide surge capacity using off duty firefighters during serious bushfire seasons, a capability that was reduced as a result of capital budget reductions leading up to 2019/20.
    
20. The NSW Government should consider a capital funding grant to Fire & Rescue NSW to purchase a fleet of bushfire tankers that would replace decommissioned fire engines currently forming a reserve fleet, in order to enhance capabilities and ensure that firefighters have proper personal protection systems when fighting bushfires.
    
21. The concept of seasonal paid firefighters, used extensively in bushfire-prone parts of the USA and Canada, should be considered in relation to Fire & Rescue NSW and National Parks and Wildlife Service in order to augment existing ranks of volunteer and career firefighters in NSW during serious bushfire seasons. A similar concept could be extended to RFS State Mitigation Crews during serious bushfire seasons to provide a full time firefighting surge capacity within the RFS.
    
22. The Community Fire Unit concept should be modified by the RFS to make it suitable for regional NSW. A step change in community resilience and preparedness could be achieved by training and providing basic firefighting equipment to NSW residents in bushfire-prone areas. The Fire & Rescue NSW Community Fire Unit program has proven to be a success in urban / bushland interface areas, but not as well received or suitable in areas of a more rural nature.
    
23. In the wake of the devastating 2019/20 fires, and recognising that climate change continues to drive an increase in Australia’s bushfire threat, it is critical that building and planning regulations and standards be reviewed, particularly Australian Standard 3959. Bushfire Attack Levels (BAL) in NSW are based on historical fire weather, not on conditions experienced in 2019/20, and certainly not what is likely to occur in future as temperatures increase further. BAL must be reflective of climate change projections, not historical weather and fire behaviour. The Standard deals mainly with radiation levels that inform an engineering standard, but do not sufficiently take into account ember attack or the effects of convection.
    
24. NSW should update Planning for Bushfire Protection as a matter of urgency to reflect worsening conditions and include climate change as a key factor. Innovative solutions, such as community refuges, household fire bunkers and early evacuation as trade-offs for allowing lightweight “sacrificial” home construction, should be considered and researched.
    
25. Roof design and strength is a critical factor in future bushfire design of homes and other buildings. Requirements need to be increased to reflect increasing wind velocities fuelled by climate change, and fire storms and fire tornadoes caused by pyroconvective events that damage and remove roofs. If a roof is damaged or destroyed survivability of the structure and its ability to act as a refuge are greatly reduced.
    
26. Bushfire prone area mapping by local councils needs to be reviewed as there are large areas of NSW, particularly grasslands, unmapped. Current buffers are 100m, which is clearly inadequate when ember attack can impact structures 350 – 500m from a fire edge.
    
27. With varying legislation and building codes across states and territories a more integrated approach to planning for fire risk, which better connects planners with emergency management, will be critical. As fire danger indices and fire paths from 2019/20 are analysed, locations might be identified where rebuilding should not occur due to excessive levels of fire and life risk.
    
28. Consideration should be given in remote communities or communities deemed to be at extreme risk with limited egress, to providing dual-purpose community buildings capable of providing all community members with refuge in an extreme bushfire situation.