Mega-department not the answer to Queensland bushfire risk: RRBAQ

In its submission to the state government's 2018 Queensland Bushfires Review, it has made a number of telling recommendations on what needs to happen to enable landholders meet their obligations to manage their land for fire.

The state is the owner of 30 per cent of Queensland's land, an asset worth $67b, but RFBAQ general manager, Justin Choveaux, said that for a number of years governments haven't been meeting their legal obligations or appropriately funding their various landholding departments.

"Many brigades also believe that Rural Fire and QFES are also being used as a source of free labour by some departments to manage their fire risk," he said in the submission.

It recommends first up that either frontline land management staff and firefighting capacity be adequately resourced, or that state land be disposed of down to what current capabilities can support.

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However, Mr Choveaux said their greatest fear was that a mega-fire department, costing a fortune, would be the response to managing future fires.

"Fire is like a horse getting out of the stable on a regular basis: we say, go to Mitre 10 and buy a latch; they say, is the latch fire rated, could we solar power it and so on.

"It's a simple concept - the Inspector-General Emergency Management already exists and understands land management and dealing with different agencies - but achieving it is something no-one has been able to do.

"Everyone has good intentions but they grow organically."

Further extending the analogy of the many different agendas at work, as seen by RFBAQ, Mr Choveaux said the end product of the vehicle needed to get to the shop in the first place was a bicycle with one square wheel built for three.

"We say, let the volunteers run the incident - not only do they know the landscape and the way the fire will run, but they have to live in the community afterwards."

A consistency in the permit to burn process across Queensland, by removing the exemption for the issuing of permits from state forests, national parks and reserves so that government agencies in charge of land will need a permit to light a fire, like all other Queensland landholders, was another recommendation.

A month earlier, Mr Choveaux said the state review into the 2018 bushfires didn't "cut it" with them, because of its narrow focus.

Despite the submission straying from the terms of reference, Mr Choveaux expected it would be accepted and considered in its entirety.

The agency stated strongly in its submission that the current Vegetation Management Act needed to be changed to help people defend themselves.

Currently, landholders are able to clear around their property up to 1.5 times the measurement of the tallest tree, or 20 metres.

Mr Choveaux said that was workable in a lot of Queensland but not in low-standing coastal lignum that burns "spectacularly well", and that it also didn't take slope into account.

"For every 10 degrees of slope, fire doubles its rate of spread," he said. "There's no capacity in the Vegetation Management Act for a bad day."

The submission noted that much of the expansion of housing in south east Queensland was taking place in or near these vegetation types.

Mr Choveaux said rural brigades knew they didn't have enough trucks and would always rely on volunteer landholders to defend themselves.

"We have to give them the tools to have half a chance and we don't think the VMA lets you do that."

As to why that was unlikely to change, Mr Choveaux said if the Act was amended for bushfire fighters, it would show that it was possible to do the same for other causes.

Submissions to the review close on February 28, despite the RFBAQ's urging to keep it open longer, given that volunteers were being sent to NSW as of last week to assist with fire emergencies there.

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