Tawonga planned burn April 2016

Transcript

[Opening text on screen] Bonegilla Native Grassland ecological burn

Wednesday 8 March 2017

Aaron Kennedy, Burn Controller

[Aaron Kennedy] Here we are in Bonegilla Grasslands Reserve and undertaking the first burn for Hume Region for the autumn program.

Today we are doing an ecological burn. The burn today, this forms part of a larger burn program that we're doing in the Upper Murray.

We have 28 burns scheduled looking at treating approximately 12,000 hectares across the landscape.

Most of those burns are the vast majority of those burns are key asset protection burns.

Today we've got crews from Tallangatta, Minute Valley and our crew from Ovens as well assisting with the burn, or from Forest Fire Management Victoria.

[Text on screen] Glen Johnson, Senior Biodiversity Officer

[Glen Johnson] Yeah, well interestingly, this is part now of a regime of regular fire in this particular reserve that's been going on for about 27 years and it's an ecological burn.

It’s a community which is part of a EPBC (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation) listed, so federally listed box gum grassy woodland and the key attributes in this reserve are the native grassland and particularly the associated flora.

[Background voices talking]

[Glen Johnson] If we open up the reserve by doing this ecological burn and the regular burning it enables the orchids which are less competitive species, a threatened species. There is at least two threatened species of orchids and a number of other rare and endangered plants in this reserve.

They do well post burn and they are able to, in the open tussock spaces post burn, flower and seed and reproduce in that time.

[Machinery and flame sounds]

[Forest Fire Management Victoria logo]

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[Opening text on screen] DELWP

[Text on screen] Jarrod Hayse, DELWP District Manager, Ovens

[Jarrod Hayse] Well we’re here today at Tawonga South and Mt Beauty which is behind me conducting a planned burn on the Tawonga Gap Road.

The burn is 660 hectares in size and it’s bordered by another burn we intend to conduct tomorrow which is approximately 1000 hectares.

The burning here at Tawonga, Tawonga South and Mt Beauty is to ensure that we get appropriate fuel management to the west and to the north-west of these communities to provide bushfire protection in the case of future bushfires.

This area has experienced severe bushfires in 2006 with the Tawonga Gap fire and community really want to see active fuel management going forward to the west and to the north-west of their communities for further protection.

[Voices on a car CB radio, helocopter sounds]

[Text on screen] Harold Coad, Tawonga CFA Brigade member

[Harold Coad] We’ve been pushing for this burn for probably the last couple of years and we’re very happy to see it’s finally taken place. It relieves…makes the whole of this area a lot easier to protect in case we had a wildfire.

We’ve got a very good relationship with DELWP. We help them out whenever we can because whatever they do helps us along the way, and we try and help them as much as we can.

[Jarrod Hayse] Today the burn incorporates the Tawonga Gap Road, we’ve got a high voltage power lines with AusNet services, we’ve got local government with Tawonga residents and Tawonga South, Mt Beauty, so there’s a number of stakeholders that we’ve had to engage in the planning for this burn and in the preparation.

Assisting in delivering the burn today we have the CFA, Parks Victoria as well as Forest Fire Management firefighters.

Working through the fire operations planning process this burn was nominated approximately three years ago.

The neighbouring burn – Pub Spur burn – for Tawonga was nominated this year based on advice from local residents and the CFA members who wanted to see active fuel management to the west and north-west of their community.

So, we were able to do a late nomination and we’re able to deliver that burn in this financial year along with the Tawonga Gap – Ryders Spur burn.

So essentially the Tawonga, Tawonga South and Mt Beauty residents are going to see really good protection out of these two planned burns for the next three to five years from any bushfire.

[Harold Coad] In conjunction with the private landholders we’ve been able to burn…make the burn more accessible through private property and so in return, it makes the risk to the local area much less.

[Jarrod Hayse] So, delivering these two burns in the Upper Kiewa Valley, in conjunction with the CFA, is really a prime example of how DELWP, Parks Victoria and the CFA are working together to protect Victorian communities.

[Text on screen] Authorised by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, 8 Nicholson Street, East Melbourne. DELWP Logo, www.delwp.vic.gov.au