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Victorian Fires

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Bureaucratic madness: Council thwarts Eildon caravan park owner’s attempt to protect park against bushfires

An Eildon man’s attempt to make his caravan park safer throughout the bushfire season has been thwarted by council bureaucracy.

Craig Dawson wants to clear tea tree from neighbouring properties to create a fire break and make Boulevard Caravan Park, which has a capacity of 150 people, safer.

His neighbours have agreed to the clearing, but to remove the trees Murrindindi Shire Council requires permits, site inspections and expert consultants to survey the area.

The council also wants Mr Dawson to spend more than $100,000 on new trees to offset those he wants to remove.

“We just want to remove 1.2 hectares of tea tree abutting the park on two neighbours land, to create a greater fire buffer,” he told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.

“We’re happy to pay for it!”

Mr Dawson, who has experience as a voluntary firefighter, says he’s done all he can within the park to reduce the fire risk, but he’s worried it’s not enough.

“We want to try and make it a bit safer and create a bit more of a fire break around the park,” he said.

But it doesn’t look likely the trees will be removed any time soon.

If Mr Dawson removes the hundreds of tea trees which are making his caravan park unsafe without the necessary permits he could be fined $1600 per tree.

“Common sense in Australia has now been replaced by bureaucracy!,” he said.

“I’ve written to the CEO again yesterday, pointing out that there are clauses in the legislation that says there are exemptions to have a permit in certain circumstances, and I’ve articulated the circumstances are that NSW and Queensland are giving Victorians a heads up that we potentially face an extreme fire season this year.

“On that basis I’m seeking an exemption to get the work done ASAP.”

3AW Mornings contacted Murrindindi Council, who declined to appear on the program.

https://www.3aw.com.au/eildon-carav...om-bushfires-thwarted-by-murrindindi-council/
 
But you need to see headlines in the news.. global warming at it again. Scomo is burning us etc
Australia has a serious problem, it is too urbanised and ignorant /uneducated to have even a grasp of what land living is about, cycles, real ecology, and ecosystem balances etc
Acres bulldozed fir new development but you can not cut a tree where it would make sense or even ecological value
 
Tea trees are often shrub size..so the name can be a bit misleading.Without seeing the situation it would be hard to make a judgement.
 
chiff said:
Tea trees are often shrub size..so the name can be a bit misleading.Without seeing the situation it would be hard to make a judgement.
Click to expand...

Hi Chiff,

Yes they do vary in size, they usually manage about 2.5 metres but they have masses of really fine twiglets (not really sure what I should call them) but they burn like flammable liquid.

We had them in the area I grew up in and when the flames hit them they virtually explode as they are full of oil, I can understand why the bloke wants to remove them.
 
Yes ,point taken..thankyou.He should also be worried about ember attack for his shade trees in the caravan park.For his tea trees maybe he needs a decent tin fence is he is really worried?
 
chiff said:
Yes ,point taken..thankyou.He should also be worried about ember attack for his shade trees in the caravan park.For his tea trees maybe he needs a decent tin fence is he is really worried?
Click to expand...

I guess with his shade trees it would depend on what type of tree they are but also what he does with the waste water from the park.

Here at home, we are not connected to the town sewer so we have our own water treatment plant instead of a septic tank.

This water is sprayed out onto the grass, the green patches are exceedingly obvious at present and if he did the same then his trees could be green enough not to ignite under an ember attack.

As for trying to protect from exploding ti trees a fence would slow it down but all the paint would be gone and the panels warped by the heat, any caravans or cabins would be at risk if within 20 metres of a fire.

The heat is beyond imagining, truly, you can feel it sucking the moisture from your skin and that can be from 20 metres away.

If the ti trees were 3 metres high then the flames could be 10 metres high, the first time I fought a fire I was 11 and I still think of it as terrifying.
 
A small thanks to all the rfb around Australia risking their life for the community, with hardly any recognition on the global scale and depressingly low level of equipment
Today especially in Victoria it seems
 
qldfrog said:
A small thanks to all the rfb around Australia risking their life for the community, with hardly any recognition on the global scale and depressingly low level of equipment
Today especially in Victoria it seems
Click to expand...
Maybe the States should get together and purchase some fire bombers, as this apparently, is only going to get worse.
 
sptrawler said:
Maybe the States should get together and purchase some fire bombers, as this apparently, is only going to get worse.
Click to expand...
France is not often a role model but they have a fleet of canadairs scooping serious amount of water from lake and sea and dumping it on fires
They often butt these at the start irrespective of the terrain and there are no fire there burning for months on end waiting to the next wind to kill and destroy
What would be the cost shared between the states? Less than the stupid submarines, and probably less than the costs of these fires left running for ages.
Does not mean we should not do the prevention first with burnoff but at least we should have a proper response force, avoiding this morning disaster near Mallacoota..
And believe me, Corsican bush is as bad as Australia in term of fire risk and inaccessible terrain
 

I've seen something similar in the US.

A fire started and it was a full on aerial attack on it. No idea how many planes and helicopters but I'm talking about 20 not 2 etc and that was just a smallish fire on a hill near LA. They used the proverbial sledgehammer and smashed the nut beyond recognition.
 
Obviously we all feel sickened when we read of the deaths of humans but I am just so pissed off that all this was forecast to happen by the old hands when all the stupid new rules were introduced about 15-20 years ago

A friend sent a link showing an estimated 500 million creatures have also been burnt in this debacle.

If you create a bloody great big bonfire what the hell do you think will happen ?

We can argue the "cause" later but for now, as I have said before, we have only two options, we can cold burn in winter when it suits us or Mother Nature will burn it off when it suits her.
 
Good article in the Age today about collecting charity money for fire service.

Articles state Governments should be paying for this though. Stated NSW government cut budget by heaps.
This means less burning off and less equipment for volunteers who instead have to rely on charity.

Sucks.

It is good that the Fed's under Scomo are now providing some support to the volunteers many who run or work for small businesses. Took the embarrassment of an ill advised Hawaiian holiday to cause movement though.
 
Another interesting article in the Age, feet on the ground suggest the armed forces would probably be more trouble than they were worth, which is understandable the last thing you want is untrained people in the fire area.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...ady-for-bushfire-rescues-20191231-p53nxy.html
From the article:
Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James warned against calls to deploy more troops and said it would be better to deploy more purpose-built aerial water bombers than use RAAF aircraft.
Mr James, who served in the ADF for 45 years and has volunteered with the NSW Rural Fire Service for seven years, said troops could be used in a flood to lay sandbags but did not have the training for front-line firefighting.

"This is one area where social media and commentators have not only got it wrong but are making it worse," he said.


Mr James said land-clearing operations were best done by local councils with staff who knew the area rather than troops flown in for the job.

He also said Australian fires, with oil and vapour from eucalypts creating intense heat and flame, were best fought with the jets already used by fire authorities rather than RAAF aircraft such as the Hercules .

A lot of information and tactics will be learned, from the current unprecedented amount of simultaneous fires, logistics must be a nightmare.
 
I've been out of the loop for a while, but what happened to back burning during winter?

When l was growing up, back burning used to happen all the time. Not so much now?
 
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