The recent wet weather means bushfire season is the furthest thing from people’s minds but NSW Rural Fire Service Orana team leader Lyndon Wieland is urging people to start preparing.
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A report released by the Bushfire and National Hazard Cooperative Research Centre has predicted an above normal bushfire danger for most of western NSW, including Dubbo.
Superintendent Wieland said while it was impossible to fully predict what the weather would do, he believes a hot, dry and dangerous summer is a real possibility.
“We have received 12 months of rain in just over six months so if things start to dry up, there is this enormous growth of vegetation, more than normal, coming out of spring and into summer,” he said.
“Once we then start to get those hot, dry northerly winds, it takes less than a week to turn nice lush grass into grass that will burn.”
Superintendent Wieland said other dangers would include strong spring growth leading to longer harvesting periods in the warm weather and paddocks full of stubble that would only take a spark to ignite.
He urged landholders to develop plans to reduce the danger to themselves, their property and their stock.
Reducing vegetation around buildings on the property and maintaining that in the lead up to summer was a good starting point, he said.
“It’s not good enough for somebody to say in December that it’s time to start slashing. By that stage it is too late,” Superintendent Wieland.
“Not only could a fire rip through, but running a slasher in dry grass in December is a fire risk too.
“Farmers can plough a paddock where they can run stock so that if a bushfire does sweep through, they can put those stock somewhere safer.”
The wet weather has stopped the Orana RFS from performing all of the hazard reduction they would have liked.
It may not be possible to get them completed before summer, Superintendent Wieland said, and they may have to be completed next year.
“We did a bit at the end of the previous fire season but there are currently about five planned operations on the backburner,” Superintendent Wieland said.
“The problem is that even if the rain stops, it will still be nearly impossible to get a vehicle into some areas without getting bogged.”
