It's time to put the misinformation about hazard reduction burns to bed. This is a false narrative that's being propagated by the interests of the fossil fuel lobby. It's a political tool, but more importantly it's a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from the scientifically proven link between the climate crisis and the intensity and frequency of fires.
- Fire ecologists and fire-fighters have repeatedly made it clear that lack of fuel-reduction burns aren't a significant factor in these fires.
- A recent Australian Council of Emergency Services inquiry into major fire events last summer concluded the same.
- Fuel reduction burns are tightly regulated by necessity and with extensive consultation with fire services, because they have caused and continue to cause so many damaging fires.
- For example, prior to the introduction of regulations, the 1967 fires in Tasmania, which claimed 69 lives and over 2000 homes, were a conflagration of escaped fuel-reduction burns by industry and private land-owners.
- Where reducing fuel loads is required, climate change is shortening safe burning periods
- Major funding cuts to National Parks and Firefighting services have limited resources for completing fuel reduction burns.
- Hazard reduction burn regimes are devised by fire-fighters, not by politicians.
