The following links will provide you with up to date media articles about VLA issues
A helicopter will fly at night over some of Victoria's most bushfire-prone country next year, strategically dropping incendiary devices to start fires in overgrown bush.
Read more...LINK to article
The Victorian Lands Alliance has praised the State Government's decision to scrap the Fire Services Levy.
Lands Alliance committee member Peter Newman is applauding the government's decision to adopt recommendation 64 of the Bushfires Royal Commission.
Read more... LINK to interview
A big increase in fuel reduction burning is a key part of the Victorian Government's $867 million response to the bushfire royal commission.
Read more...LINK to article
Recommendations handed down by the Bushfires Royal Commission for an increase in prescribed burning to a minimum of 5 per cent of public land reflect calls by the Victorian Lands Alliance and its member organisations for many years before and since the Black Saturday fires.
Read more...LINK to article
In a special debate of the bushfire royal commission's findings, Mr Baillieu accused the government of years of negligence and failures that put Victorians at risk.
Read more...LINK to article and video
Fuel reduction burning, powerline safety and the need for swift action before the upcoming fire season were discussed at last night's bushfire meeting at Beechworth.
Fuel reduction burning emerged as the key topic of discussion, with some residents calling for up to 10 per cent of forests to be burnt, while others expressed concern it could change the region's ecology.
Read more...LINK to article
THE Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission's final report last weekend is the whitewash nobody even noticed.
For a whitewash, that's as good as you can get.
But for a report meant to explain why so many Victorians died on Black Saturday - 173 of us - it is unforgivable.
Read more...LINK to article
The Royal Commission has been a useful step along the path to making Victoria once again safe for people, our water supplies and the environment.
The great usefulness has been in the collection of 1260 submissions and days of selected witness evidence which will be a goldmine for access to all shades of opinion, fact and fiction of the third most fatal bushfire disaster in the world's history.
Read more...LINK to article
Saturday’s release of the final report of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission has prompted a call for the State Government to act on increasing prescribed burning and improvements to land management.
Read more...LINK to article
The Victorian Government has been slammed for its "in principle" support of one of the Royal Bushfire Commission's recommendations.
It's recommending controlled burns on public land be conducted at a minimum five per cent, but the Victorian Lands Alliance says there's no certainty the government will commit.
The Victorian Lands Alliance says it's heard it all before.
Read more...LINK to article
Victoria's "minimalist" approach to controlled burning and reducing fuel loads contributed to the intensity of the Black Saturday fires.
Describing the current regime of land and fuel management in Victoria as "inadequate", the final report from the royal commission into last year's bushfires calls for a long-term program of prescribed burning in which at least 5 per cent of public land is burnt each year.
Read more...LINK to article
Premier John Brumby says the Victorian government will support in principle 59 of the 67 recommendations of the Black Saturday royal commission.
But Mr Brumby said he would need to get "further consultation" on eight of the "more complex, difficult or controversial" recommendations of the Commissioners, including the voluntary buyback of land in high risk areas and the undergrounding of powerlines.
"I intend to act swiftly and decisively in implementing the recommendations", Mr Brumby said
Read more...LINK to article
Rules making it ''overly complex'' for rural councils to remove bushfire fuels from roadsides should be softened, while VicRoads should implement a statewide bushfire risk assessment program of all roads it is responsible for, the royal commission final report has said.
Read more...LINK to article
The amount of public land burnt for fuel reduction each year should be tripled to at least 385,000 hectares, an amount equal to 5 per cent of Victoria's public land, the royal commission has said.
Read more...LINK to article
Recreational and commercial anglers would be banned from huge stretches of the coast under a proposal by the Victorian National Parks Association.
The parks group, seeking to deliver on international promises to protect more of the coastal environment, wants extra marine parks to be created.
Read more...LINK to article
East Gippsland’s recreational and commercial fishing and tourism sectors could be crippled under a proposal by the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) to declare more Gippsland waters as no-take marine parks.
Read more...LINK to article
The last of the four new Murray River red gum national parks was unveiled near Wangaratta yesterday.
But while environmentalists were hailing it a major tourist attraction, farmers who once grazed the land were calling it a potential seed bed for weeds.
Read more...LINK to article
DRIVE to Waubra, a half-hour idle north-west of Ballarat, and you will find 128 wind turbines spread across the horizon, covering an area roughly 100 times greater than the Melbourne CBD.
Read more...LINK to article
A contributor to the original Forest Agreement has called for an informed debate on harvesting in the Central Highlands and said environmental groups had misrepresented the logging industry.
Read more...LINK to article
The final day of hearings was the worst possible outcome for Premier John Brumby because it shredded his government's pretence that the state's leaders did their best against impossible odds on Black Saturday. The critique by counsel assisting the commission Jack Rush QC offers compelling evidence that there was a chronic failure of leadership during the most crucial hours in Victoria's history.
Read more...LINK to article
Groups have expressed their disappointment at the bill, with industry groups wanting to continue land management practices and timber harvesting indefinitely, and green groups wanting all river red gum forests locked up as national parks immediately.
Read more...LINK to article
The head of Victoria's Country Fire Authority (CFA) Russell Rees has announced his resignation, after coming under mounting criticism for the CFA's handling of the Black Saturday bushfires that killed 173 people.
Read more and listen to interview
PUBLIC pressure has helped spark a series of planned Grampians burns aiming to reduce the threat of a horror bushfire.
Read more...LINK to article
Jane Cowan from ABC TV analyses recent submissions by counsel assisting and counsel for the State of Victoria at the royal commission.
VICTORIA'S fuel-reduction programs are inadequate and the state should burn off between 5 and 10 per cent of public land each year, senior counsel assisting told the Bushfires Royal Commission yesterday.
Read more...Link to article
Yesterday, lawyers for the Bushfires Royal Commission proposed the commissioners recommend burning up to five times more public land every year.
Read more...Link to article
Victoria faces more devastating losses of human life and huge bushfire recovery bills unless “radical changes” are made to the way forests and parks are managed, the East Gippsland Wildfire Taskforce has warned.
Read more...LINK to article
AT last! A premier backs my long campaign for a new dam for this thirsty city.
Hear the brave man speak, after wringing last week's torrential rain from his soaked Hawthorn scarf.
"Most of the water that has fallen in the last week will run off into the sea," he notes sadly.
Read more...LINK to article
THE Victorian Association of Forest Industries has spoken at the Bushfires Royal Commission, providing an industry account of the impact on its members and the forest environment.
VAFI deputy CEO Lisa Marty gave evidence at the commission last week on a number of topics, including fuel reduction and land management.
Speaking on what has become one of the most controversial discussions in recent weeks, Ms Marty told the commissioners that prescribed burning was one of the most cost and risk effective methods for mitigating potential bushfire risks.
Read more...LINK to article
NEW state government figures show exactly how much back-burning has been done in two of the Yarra Ranges largest patches of public land this past decade.
Read more...LINK to article
A United States fire expert has told the Royal Commission into Black Saturday that Victoria needs to manage its land differently in order to prevent further loss of life through bushfires.
Read more...LINK to article
Victoria should substantially increase its fuel reduction burning program to reduce the risk of bushfires - possibly by almost 500 per cent - and there is no need to wait for more research. To delay increasing the amount of forest burnt is ''an invitation for further trouble'', the Bushfires Royal Commission has been told.
Read more...LINK to article
The Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission has heard fuel reduction burns should at least double in size to better protect against catastrophic bushfire.
DSE assistant chief officer Liam Fogarty told the commission there was "no solid basis" for the current figure of 133 000 ha, which represents only 1.7 per cent of Victoria's public land.
Read more...LINK to article
The Royal Commission into the Black Saturday disaster has heard Victoria remains dangerously unprepared to tackle major bushfires and there are not enough firefighters to meet fuel reduction targets.
The Australian Workers Union (AWU) told the commission that the Victorian Government had broken a 2004 promise to boost the number of firefighters protecting public land.
Read more...LINK to article
A year after the Black Saturday inferno, which killed 173 people, Victoria's bushfire royal commission is at last reaching the pointy end of its inquiry - the politically charged topic of prescribed burning and the effect of massive, unmanaged fuel loads on the fire's ferocity.
Read more...LINK to article
The Bushfires Royal Commission has heard an impassioned plea from a former forest fire chief to drastically increase the amount of planned burning done in Victoria.
Read more...LINK to article
Victorians continue to face devastating loss of lives because the state is not employing enough people to fight bushfires, the Australia Workers' Union Victorian State Secretary, Cesar Melhem, told the Bushfires Royal Commission on Friday.
Read more...LINK to statement
Only now is this royal commission getting close to the true scandal behind the devastating Black Saturday fires.
It's this: why did this Labor Government ignore so many warnings that it was burning too little of our forests?
FEW fuel reduction burns had taken place in the areas where the two deadliest blazes took hold on Black Saturday, Victoria's bushfire royal commission has heard.
Read more...LINK to article
Victoria should more than double the amount of vegetation it burns each year under its bushfire fuel reduction strategy, the man charged with overseeing the policy says.
Read more...LINK to article
ABC's Jane Cowan analyses the Victorian Government's attempts to spin the messages arising from the beast it created: the Bushfires Royal Commission. She examines tensions between the Commission and the Government, and the manoeuvring in the lead up to the anniversary of Black Saturday.
Read more...LINK to article
One of Victoria's chief fire officers has conceded that there is no real science behind the amount of land that is burned off each year to reduce fuel load, as the Black Saturday royal commission heard much less land is burned than was considered ideal.
Read more...LINK to article
Native vegetation on public land around Marysville could be removed to reduce the threat from bushfires, without significant ecological damage, the Bushfires Royal Commission has been told.
Read more...LINK to article
They say governments don't commission inquiries unless they already know what they'll find.
But it's hard to believe the Victorian Government realised what a morass would be uncovered when it launched the hulking beast that is the Royal Commission into Black Saturday.
Read more...LINK to article
Dilapidated bridges in forest areas are stopping fire trucks from reaching bushfires and could create a deathtrap for firefighters needing a quick escape.
Read more...LINK to article
THE Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission has heard fears that bushfire could roar through the heavily populated Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne, where the tree canopy in one township is three times as dense as the devastated town of Marysville before Black Saturday.
Read more...LINK to article
THE case for increased fuel reduction burning to help control bushfires was supported by a report released last week by the Victorian Lands Alliance.
The report showed reducing forest fuel would help control bushfires, thereby minimising risk to communities.
The Royal Commission into Black Saturday has heard that if authorities had properly mapped Victoria's bushfire risk, all of Marysville would probably have been recognised in planning schemes as being in danger.
Read more...LINK to article
LOCAL farmers are outraged by an admission by the State Government that it will draw on their emergency water reserve in the Thomson Dam to provide environmental flows for the river in the event of a drought.
The State Government now appears to be overriding the consultation processes it established with farmers.
Read more...LINK to article.
THE new national fire danger ratings system is a shambles which should be overhauled for the next fire season, some of Australia's top fire scientists have warned.
Read more...LINK to article
As it did after the 1939 Stretton inquiry into the Black Friday fires, the 1984 inquiry into the Ash Wednesday fires, the 1992 Auditor-General’s report on fire prevention, the 1994 CSIRO fire management paper, the Victorian and federal reports into the 2003 fires.
Each found that a single constant, the level of fuel available, was a principal factor contributing to the ferocity of the fires, not the spurious claims of global warming which environmentalists were quick to make last year.
Read more...LINK to article
Victoria will need to dramatically boost the number of firefighters in the state to cope with population growth and increasing fire risk according to new research
Read more...LINK to article
Increased fuel reduction burning can help control bushfires, according to the Victorian Lands Alliance.
In a report released on Wednesday, the alliance draws on research and 27 case studies from the Department of Sustainability and Environment and West Australian Conservation and Land Management Department, which it believes support increased fuel reduction.
Read more...LINK to article
The Australian printed an article by VLA secretary, Max Rheese discussing the level of fuel reduction burning currently in place in Victoria.
Read more...LINK to article
ABC Country Hour host Libby Price interviews VLA secretary, Max Rheese on the report released by the VLA showing the effectiveness of fuel reduction burning in helping to control bushfires.
ABC reporter Jane Cowan analyses proceedings at the Royal Commission into Australia's worst peacetime disaster.
Read more...LINK to a series of articles on the Royal Commission proceedings
A WEEKEND blaze tore through the Grampians National Park forcing residents to flee and missing homes by metres.
Emergency crews are still surveying damage left by the 1908-hectare fire, which was sparked by a lightning strike about 6.40pm Friday.
Read more...LINK to article
Gerard Callinan from ABC Gippsland explores the extent of fuel reduction burning with DSE Fire Managers. After criticism from the East Gippsland Wildfire Taskforce, the Department of Sustainability and Environment responds to criticism that not enough fuel reduction burning is being done in the East Gippsland area.
LINK to radio interview
BELGRAVE residents fear neighbouring parkland will become a fiery death trap this summer.
They say Violet Larsen Reserve is a haven for arsonists and last week called on Parks Victoria to clear the heavy forest fuel load.
Read more...LINK to article
Letter to the editor The Age
TWO letter writers (The Age, 13/1) ignore the facts in regard to controlled cattle grazing on public land for fuel reduction purposes, something the ACT Labor Government allows.
Victorian government agencies commissioned two studies into grazing in the Barmah Forest which supported controlled, seasonal cattle grazing; these were not made public in the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council report on the red gum forests of northern Victoria, which recommended that grazing be banned.
FOI documents obtained during this process show that departmental officers privately agreed that controlled grazing had fuel reduction and ecological benefits for the forests.
This advice was kept secret in the rush to ban cattle grazing. Cattlemen and fire ecologists have never said grazing stops bushfires - but it does reduce the fuel load and, therefore, the speed and intensity of fire.
Max Rheese, Victorian Lands Alliance, Benalla
The Benalla Ensign visited Lima East last week at the request of local residents who felt their perceived risks from bushfire were being "neglected" by council.
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Roads neglected 130110.pdf | 75.33 Kb |
CATTLE would again be allowed to graze across Victoria's heritage-listed Alpine National Park if the Coalition wins November's state election.
Read more...LINK to article
Bypassing rivers and farmers for city dwellers could backfire for the Government.
RARELY do Melburnians see the source of their water. Sure, you can see rain. But the rain that falls in the city is not the water that falls from our taps. That water, our drinking water, comes from the sort of place of which only five cities in the world can boast.
Read more...LINK to article
The Victorian government has ordered an investigation into why the state's Bushfire Information Line has been providing outdated information following a minor fire at Lake Mokoan, near Benalla
Read more...LINK to article
Five to 15 millimetres of rain late last Thursday assisted in preventing Cann River from suffering a major disaster. Fire came within two kilometres of the township.
Read more...LINK to article
TWENTY-six years after Ash Wednesday bushfires devastated the area, Cathy Brewer is back on Mount Macedon.
She still remembers, as if it were yesterday, the panic in the air that day, the fearful roar of the winds, and the bumper-to-bumper traffic along Mount Macedon Road as her mother packed the car and they pulled out into the one route on and off the mountain.
Read more...LINK to article
"Quite apart from the CFA's ability to protect the community, serious questions have been raised about the organisation's capacity to learn from its mistakes for the protection of its own firefighters. The debrief process as revealed at the Commission appears to have been far from thorough" says the ABC's Jane Cowan in this article on the final weeks of the Bushfires Royal Commission.
Read more...LINK to article
VICTORIA'S bushfire fighting strategy has been exposed as a shambles, with confusion among the state's authorities over who takes control at the outbreak of a catastrophic fire.
Read more...Link to article
Independent member of parliament for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram introduced an amendment to natonal parks legislation before the parliament calling for deer hunting to be allowed in the new additions to national parks and the Snowy River National Park to help control increasing numbers of deer.
Read more...LINK to article
Stateline asks some questions on the various fire issues to see if Victoria is ready for this fire season.
It is interesting to see those who say we are ready and those who say we are not.
LINK to video
THE fire outlook for this season is the worst in four years - even accounting for 2006 and 2007 when more than a million hectares burned in Victoria - analysis by the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre shows.
Read more...LINK to article
THE Black Saturday royal commission is investigating whether Victoria should have a single fire agency after its system of using competing bushfire services was branded as wasteful, counter-productive and a "massive duplication" of resources.
Senior counsel assisting the inquiry, Jack Rush QC, said evidence to be presented to the inquiry would explore the options of either merging the two bushfire services into one or combining both of them with Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Brigade to form one statewide agency. Under the present structure the Country Fire Authority is responsible for fighting bushfires on private property, while the government's Department of Sustainability and Environment deals with fires on public land, such as national parks and state forests.
Read more...LINK to article
Members of the East Gippsland Wildfire Taskforce have expressed their support for the views of MP Peter Hall in a recent edition of the Bairnsdale Advertiser (14/9).
Taskforce chairman, John Mulligan, says that if present drought conditions continue into the summer then far East Gippsland “is a time bomb in bushfire terms”.
Read more...LINK to article
DSE North East land fire area manager Peter Farrell was forced to admit that urgent threat messages for Mudgegonga, Barwidgee Creek and Stanley at 10.30pm were time-stamped 7.50pm despite the imminent danger of the fire.
Under persistent questioning he also said there was no major incident control centre established for the day nor did they have staff to run it.
Read more...LINK to article
A LONG-serving CFA volunteer is calling for local brigades to have more power to conduct hazard reduction burns on roadsides in the lead-up to bushfire season.
Valencia Creek resident Maurie Killeen has been a volunteer with the CFA for 49 years, was a group captain for 20 years and the deputy group officer with the Maffra group of brigades for 20 years.
But as bushfire season approaches, Mr Killeen said he was increasingly worried about the build-up of vegetation on local roadsides.
He said not enough hazard reduction was occurring and there was too much of a focus on environmental protection to the detriment of preserving lives.
Read more...LINK to article
BEECHWORTH'S devastating fire on Black Saturday could have been catastrophic were it not for fuel reduction burning during the past five years.
Read more....LINK to article
The Victorian Lands Alliance has called for a huge increase to fuel reduction burning in the Otway Ranges.
The alliance held a public meeting in Colac last night to lobby for changes to fire management practices.
Read more...LINK to article
A KINGLAKE resident who fought an intense three-hour battle on Black Saturday to save his house, grandchildren and other family members has condemned government authorities for failing to do more fuel reduction in bushland around Kinglake and Toolangi.
Read more...LINK to article
The Sunday Age was not impressed with the government response to the Bushfires Royal Commission Interim Report
LINK to article
THE interim report for the Bushfires Royal Commission was released this week as Gippsland's government bodies continued to prepare for a ferocious fire season ahead.
Read more...LINK to article
THE State Government will have blood on its hands unless urgent fuel-reduction burns happen in the Otways, a public policy group warns.
Victorian Lands Alliance secretary Max Rheese said with about 70 days until the official fire season starts, residents in the Otways and Surf Coast were sitting ducks.
Read more LINK to article
Victoria's Emergency Services Commissioner, Bruce Esplin says he supports a recommendation by the Bushfire Royal Commission that emergency agencies facilitate voluntary evacuations from fire areas.
The commission, which was established after Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires which killed 173 people, has recommended significant changes to the state's fire warning system and its evacuations policies.
Read more LINK to article
THOUSANDS of residents from the fire-prone Gippsland region have signed a petition urging the State Government to triple its prescribed burning program.
Independent MP Craig Ingram presented the signatures to Parliament yesterday to encourage action on what he called the Government's failure to act on its own advice.
Read more LINK to article
THE Victorian Government is still not getting the message on fire prevention, says Max Rheese
The leaking of the Department of Sustainability and Environment's fire outlook report last week and the response from the State Government should be of real concern to all Victorians exposed to fire risk.
Read more LINK to article
Heaping fuel on an already hot topic, the Victorian Lands Alliance last night demanded answers from the Brumby Government.
"If they do not want to do burning to this level then they need to tell us why. " Said Max Rheese from the Victorian Lands Alliance.
Read more LINK to article
Dr Kevin Tolhurst is a senior lecturer in fire ecology and management and was the guest speaker at a Victorian Lands Alliance meeting in Traralgon last night [August 4th].
He told ABC Gippsland's Cath McAloon it was too early to be pessimistic about what the summer fire season will bring. He also expressed his views on the speculation this week that the State Government would consider changing laws enabling residents in fire prone areas to remove trees and vegetation near their homes.
LINK to interview audio
TWO volunteer fire captains hailed in the Bushfires Royal Commission for their ‘‘self-sacrifice and bravery’’ have made strong criticisms of the Country Fire Authority leadership and its chief officer, Russell Rees, calling for him to ‘‘take responsibility’’ for the failures of Black Saturday.
Read more...LINK to article
The Victorian Government has refused to confirm whether it will allow people in bushfire-prone areas to remove trees and native vegetation near their homes, in the effort to avoid another Black Saturday.
Read more...LINK to article
WITH only 90 days until the next bushfire season, few changes have been made to prevent another tragedy, according to the Victorian Lands Alliance.
Two public meetings in eastern Victoria last week heard that more people would die from bushfires in future because the lessons to reduce fuel loads had not been learned.
Read more...LINK to article
A dire bushfire forecast has been issued for Victoria, with this
summer's season expected to be even fiercer than the Black Saturday
bushfires that killed more than 170 people earlier this year.
A
leaked report from the state's Department of Sustainability and
Environment says a season with the "greatest potential loss to life and
property" is now in sight.
Read more...LINK to article
THE commitment and courage of those who fought the Black Saturday fires is in no doubt. As Premier John Brumby told The Age: ‘‘I think everybody in the CFA did their best to protect the state. In terms of effort and endeavour, I don’t think you can fault that.’’ Yet Country Fire Authority brigades, in submissions to the Bushfires Royal Commission, have found plenty to fault in those who landed them with inadequate systems and equipment.
Read more...LINK to article [scroll down]
Locals have expressed anger at a community meeting, over the lack of fuel reduction burns since Black Saturday.
The meeting was held by the Victorian Lands Alliance last night in Pakenham, to discuss fire management on public land.
Read more....LINK to article
Black Saturday showed us that much of what the CFA thought it knew was not just wrong, but dangerously so.
THE Bushfires Royal Commission is painful for those who have put much into the CFA. But its revealed shortcomings come as no surprise. Our communities relied on the CFA for their protection but many of us feel we let them down badly.
Read more...LINK to article
Mitchell Shire residents appear doomed to learn yet again the dangers of fuel build-up on roadsides.
It seems that roads in Mitchell Shire are not viewed as escape routes for local communities in case of bushfire, but extensions of forest reserves.
Is protection of habitat - a commendable notion - at the expense of apparently expendable human life on a piece of land set aside for the safe movement of private and emergency vehicles - good public policy?
Read more...LINK to article
Environment Minister Gavin Jennings announced targeted fuel reduction burns in Melbourne's outer suburbs with an apparent increase in funding for extra burns.
The Alliance has consistently called for a trebling of fuel reduction burning in Victoria - supporting the government's own parliamentary inquiry recommendations handed down last year, calling for the same target.
Realistic management of the bushfire threat in Victoria is unlikely to occur until that minimum target is achieved, but the announcement is acknowledgement a problem exists with fuel levels and VLA supports action to address that.
Read more here...LINK to article
The ABC's Jane Cowan posted this analysis of evidence given following the close of the first round of hearings at the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission.
Victorians are unlikely to have confidence in fire management on public land unless there is a change in attitude, not yet seen, by those responsible for directing land management and fire prevention policy.
Read more...LINK to article
The Victorian government copped criticism for acting prior to the release of the Bushfire Royal Commission recommendations. The VLA has been urging the government to act ahead of the next bushfire season so this must be a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.
The government must act on some measures ahead of next summer and there is almost universal agreement that more fuel reduction burning must take place if we are to take fire prevention and mitigation seriously.
To this end the VLA supports the increased funding for burning on the urban fringe with the only reservation being it does not seem to be extensive enough - but it is a start.
Read more...LINK to article
THE Victorian Land Alliance has backed calls by Briagolong resident Bill Taylor for better fire hazard reduction of roadside reserves.
The alliance recently held a meeting in Bairnsdale where more than 100 residents turned out to voice their concerns about local land management. Read more...LINK to article
An Open Letter to the Premier published in the Border Mail...
We believe that only through appropriate forest and native vegetation management, using such management tools as selective grazing, can we truly leave our public lands in a better state for future generations to enjoy.
In particular, can I draw your attention to the committee recommendation that focused on increasing the level of prescribed burning to an annual figure of 385,000 hectares as this can be undertaken with immediate effect ahead of the summer 2009-10 bushfire season.... Read more... LINK to article
AREAS of central Victoria are fire disasters waiting to happen unless systematic fuel reduction programs are put in place.
Mt Alexander Shire councillor and member of the Bush Users Group Robin Taylor said the recent bushfires highlighted the perilous state of fuel loads in national and state forests and on road sides. Read more.....LINK to article
AN INVERLEIGH community group has called on Premier John Brumby to order fire prevention works in the town.
The Inverleigh and District No Fuel No Fire Group has collected more than 1100 signed postcards addressed to the Premier calling for action on fire prevention. Read more...
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2009/04/22/64655_news.html
