Fire review welcomed but queries remain

The highly-anticipated review, led by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty, was submitted to the state government in late June and released on Sunday.

The review was based off 576 submissions from across the state, overall leading to more than 70 key findings and 15 recommendations on topics such as hazard reduction, governance, equipment provision, and communication.

Mr Keelty said the report reiterated a number of recommendations made following previous bushfire reviews, that had not been followed up.

"Following the Wangary (2005) and Pinery (2015) fires, it was recommended that automatic vehicle locators be attached to fire vehicles, and that hadn't been acted upon," he said.

The review pointed out a need for a governance change in the SA Fire and Emergency Services Commission, with Mr Keelty saying the existing set-up of the chief executive officer chairing the board effectively meant SAFECOM was "marking their own homework". He said the appointment of an independent chair was vital.

The review also found that confusion clouded hazard reduction processes.

The Native Vegetation Council has mostly been removed from the process, with the Country Fire Service responsible for authorising hazard reductions.

But Mr Keelty said more support was required to "cut the red tape" to better allow the CFS to carry out the process.

Woodside Brigade captain Craig Paschke, who has been a CFS volunteer for more than 30 years, said volunteers were "bogged down with compliance" when looking to approve hazard reduction requests.

"By the time you do the paperwork and talk with all the associated groups, it's just not worth it. The process is so onerous for people who want to help," he said.

Mr Paschke said the ability of firetrucks to communicate between each other on fire days needed improvement, and he was pleased with the report's focus on AVL implementation.

In addition to the recommendations, the "outstanding volunteer effort" was also praised in the report.

Woodside cattle producer Ken Camens had 95 per cent of his 122-hectare property burnt in the Cudlee Creek fire in December, and he was extremely grateful for the help of Mr Paschke and the brigade.

"It was a massive job on the day," he said.

"This area burnt in record time, and while the CFS couldn't be everywhere at once, they did an amazing job."

On Kangaroo Island, KI Landscape Board presiding member Andrew Heinrich said farm firefighting units were extremely important to help combat blazes, and was disappointed the initial government response had not focused on them.

"The government could have put out a subsidy to encourage farmers to upgrade their FFUs, or perhaps even recommend that the CFS embrace farm units better in the future," he said.

Mr Heinrich agreed with the review finding surrounding the need for accurate delivery of up-to-date information to the public on bushfire days.

"Early on in the KI fire, the accuracy of information given out on radio was way off the mark, people's lives were at risk because the information was wrong," he said.

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He said while the KI fires were extreme, better preparation could lead to better control for future fires, which would hopefully not be of the same size or intensity.

"No matter how much we could have done in preparation for this last fire, in January, on the bad days, it wouldn't have mattered what we did, we wouldn't have stopped it, but there a lot of times we have fires that aren't as extreme as what they were over the summer, and we could potentially control them a lot better," he said.

"If we can be better equipped and put out a fire quicker, before it turns into a big red bull, that would be a good thing, but it is difficult when you live on an island, that is prone to lightning strikes on the plateau, and where we have so much native vegetation and tree plantations as well."

Mr Heinrich said KI was in a "unique situation" in that one-third of the island is usually covered by native vegetation, with 19,000ha of tree plantations also covering the island, and he believed tree plantations were not adequately addressed in the review.

"I'm a bit disappointed in that because those who had the biggest losses in this fire were on the wrong side of tree plantations," he said.

"Once the fire came out of the other side of the tree plantations, it was like an atomic bomb."

Turkey Lane sheep breeder John Symons almost lost his life in the KI bushfires, and while he agreed with most of the recommendations, he said improving national parks' management wasn't addressed in the review.

"(The report) says that regardless of cool burning the parks would have still burnt, I agree with that, but the fire should have never gotten the run that it did," he said.

"This was a fuel load issue, but the national parks just can't seem to get their heads around the fact that they need to put fire breaks in a large tract of scrub like that.

"So then if there is a fire, they can nominate a segment they can then backburn to reduce the severity.

"But national parks employees just don't like burning national parks, yet they let our parks totally burn out three times in my lifetime, twice in the past 15 years - that doesn't make good conservation sense.

"They either need to break the parks up or they need to make national parks much smaller.

"But it is a recommendation that just never gets accepted."

In response to the review, the state government has allocated $20.3 million towards an action plan to put the state in a better position to handle future bushfire seasons, while a further $16.7m in federal and state funding l be invested across five years for the SA Disaster Risk Reduction Grants Program.

The SA Metropolitan Fire Service will also receive $11.5m for new urban appliances - taking the total package for the SA emergency services to $48.5m.

Emergency Services Minister Corey Wingard said it was vital to ensure the action plan was put into place immediately.

"We're committed to addressing these critical recommendations because there's no point in requesting a report only to leave it sitting in a drawer gathering dust," he said.

Mr Keelty commended the government's quick action following the report release.

"When a crisis happens, governments tend to react by announcing a review, the review happens, and everyone forgets about it, but in this instance, the state government haven't wasted any time, and have immediately committed funding to an action plan," he said.

"All politics aside, they should be commended for that."

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