Concerns in relation to bushfire preparedness across SE Australia for the 2025/ 26 season and ongoing seasons

Every bushfire season, the South East (SE) Australia braces for the flames, and every year, the cycle of destruction, inquiry, and limited reform and learning repeat. Yet despite decades of royal commissions, policy papers, firefighter and community warnings, the fundamental question remains unanswered: is SE Australia truly prepared for the bushfires of 2025/26 and beyond?

This process of bushfire preparedness is critical considering the massive impacts of many recent and past bushfires on safety, economic impacts, social impacts and environmental impacts, including Australia, Palisades, Maui, Greece and elsewhere and many other recent bushfires.

The full review document is included here.

Many concern areas in relation to bushfire preparedness in SE Australia

Detail is provided in the review in relation to the concerns in relation to the extent of preparedness across SE Australia, including 11 preparedness concern areas. Key concern areas are outlined below.

Sound fuel mitigation and fuel loads, a big missing piece of the bushfire preparedness picture in SE Australia

Annual rates of prescribing burning of forest areas are less than 1 to 2 % of forest areas per year across SE Australian states, these rates of prescribed burning are not going to be effective in reducing bushfire extent, intensity, severity and long duration bushfires. Prescribed burning in NSW across forest areas has been around 0.6 % annually over the last 7 years.

In Victoria from a post titled "Disaster waiting to happen" in November 2025, despite warnings of one of the worst fire seasons in over a decade, the fuel reduction program in Victoria has been reduced from around 200,000 hectares to barely 100,000 hectares, around 1.5 %, leaving thousands of tonnes of dangerous fuel loads and debris untargeted in forests across regional Victoria. The 2009 Black Saturday Royal Commission recommended fuel reduction of 5% of treatable public land annually.

When the area of prescribed burning trends down, the area of uncontrolled bushfires trends up in a large number of cases/years.

High fuel loads are present across large contiguous areas of SE Australia and result in intense and severe large bushfires and in the right conditions, long bushfire runs.

There were very large contiguous areas of high fuel load forests for vegetation formations/ associations, fuelling a disaster that came about in 2019/ 20 from long fire intervals and large contiguous forested areas of same thresholds. An example was the long fire interval location mapping in NSW prior to the 2019/ 20 bushfires (Map 22.2a), NSW EPA (2021). There are very large contiguous areas that have not received any burning for up to 60 years, possibly longer, if this is what threshold data is highlighting.

Inadequate bushfire preparedness for community safety

Many communities in SE Australia have massive fuel loads on their doorstep, the author considers that we are not adequately prepared in this area. As well, the author believes that safer together bushfire risk policies that have minimal prescribed burning and resultant high fuel loads have preparedness risks in relation to a number of communities. With the very low prescribed burning rates underway in SE Australia, the author considers that large number of communities and WUI areas are heavily exposed to bushfires and also to firebrands and embers, they are not adequately prepared.

Inadequate bushfire preparedness for firefighter safety

It is the author's belief that many of the forested fire grounds across south eastern Australia are way too dangerous to fight bushfires and for firefighter safety due to past intense bushfires and dead trees with dense understories, minimal prescribed burning and long fire interval policies. To be frank, we as a society have learnt very little following the 2019/20 bushfires and bushfires before that, especially in regards to bushfire mitigation and fire fighter and community safety

Focus on bushfire suppression at the expense of bushfire mitigation

In South East Australia there is a focus on bushfire suppression at the expense of bushfire mitigation. programs across landscapes, including very large expenditure on large aircraft hire for suppression. In these days, most fire services focus on suppression with limited mitigation in forests, so bushfire attack effectiveness, opportunities and safety in forested areas are reduced. The author considers that bushfire management isn't inadequately addressing prevention, preparedness and damage mitigation and bushfire management has become focussed as an emergency event, rather than as part of good land management.