Introduction

Welcome to Victoria’s Bushfire Risk Management Report 2023–24 (VBRM). Delivered by the Office of Bushfire Risk Management (OBRM) with input from bushfire management sector partner agencies, the VBRM provides an overview of key activities delivered by land managers and fire agencies to reduce bushfire risk and progress outcomes of Victoria’s Bushfire Management Strategy (the Strategy) over the past 12 months and the key outcomes of those activities.

Bushfires are a natural part of the Victorian environment and managing bushfire risk is everyone’s responsibility. Victoria is one of the most bushfire-prone areas in the world and the last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the number, size, extent, and severity of bushfires. The Victorian Government recognises that bushfire risk cannot be eliminated. It also acknowledges the significant threat that climate change poses to communities, the economy and the environment through more frequent and severe bushfire emergencies and acts to manage this threat accordingly.

Contents of the report

This report provides information on bushfire risk management delivery and outcomes across public and private land in Victoria for the 2023-24 financial year. It covers state, regional, and more localised (district / municipal) levels where appropriate.

As in previous years, the report includes comprehensive fuel management activity information from DEECA and the Country Fire Authority (CFA).

This year’s report also includes information about:

• a broader range of bushfire risk reduction activities beyond fuel management delivered by DEECA to reduce bushfire risk
• activities undertaken by the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) to reduce bushfire risk, and
• activities undertaken by councils to reduce bushfire risk, including case studies of select council initiatives.

This expanded scope reflects the shared responsibility of bushfire risk reduction. As detailed in section 1.3 below, the report aims to progressively include information from a wider range of agencies involved in bushfire risk management across public and private land, and a broader suite of activities delivered to reduce bushfire risk and progress other outcomes of the Strategy, over time.

The best available evidence-based models and data are used to calculate the results presented in this report each year. Models for metrics, such as fuel-driven bushfire risk or reported costs, are updated regularly when technology improves, better data becomes available, the research program provides new knowledge or mapping accuracy improves or datasets are reviewed. Modelling and data improvements can cause information reported in previous years reports to change.

Victoria’s Bushfire Management Strategy and Victorias Bushfire Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Framework

Released in May 2024, Victoria’s Bushfire Management Strategy (the Strategy) establishes the vision and long-term outcomes for bushfire management in Victoria that defines where the state wants to be in 10 years’ time, and how the bushfire management sector (the sector) will work together to get there. It brings together the extensive work already being performed by the sector, with what the sector plans to do over the next 10 years to lay the foundations for a safer and more resilient Victoria.

The Strategy aims to include all Victorians (including State government, councils, communities, industry and Traditional Owners), all of Victoria (including public and private land), and all phases of emergency management (including mitigation, prevention, preparedness, response and recovery).

The vision of the Strategy is that Victorians work together to manage bushfire risk for safer communities and healthy ecosystems in a changing climate. It identifies seven domains and outcomes that Victoria will work towards over the next 10 years, as seen in Table 1.

Table 1: Domains and Outcomes of Victoria's Bushfire Risk Management Strategy.

The Strategy is supported by the Victorian Bushfire Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Framework (VBMERF). The VBMERF enables effective delivery of the Strategy through high-level guidance to support monitoring, evaluation and reporting (MER) against the Strategy outcomes.

The VBMERF is designed to provide consistent MER guidance over the life of the Strategy (2024-2034) and will be supported by a more detailed MER plan - Victoria’s Bushfire MER Plan (VBMER Plan). The VBMER Plan is currently under development and will provide specific activity detail for delivering the VBMERF and will be regularly reviewed to ensure it remains relevant and fit for purpose.

To guide action, Victoria’s Bushfire Management Strategy Implementation Plan (2024-27) has been developed. This rolling three-year plan identifies the sector's priorities for implementing the Strategy’s outcomes over the next three years, ensuring a clear and actionable pathway for delivering long-term objectives. The future of the VBRM report

This report will progressively evolve to become a key reporting tool for tracking progress towards the outcomes of the Strategy and as such be a key part of the implementation of the VBMERF.

Future versions will align with the Strategy's outcomes, incorporating new data and insights when they become available, and will over time continue providing a more comprehensive overview of bushfire management activities across Victoria. This will involve identifying meaningful indicators and measures to evaluate progress against the Strategy outcomes and working closely with the sector to develop new ways to collect, analyse, and interpret information.

This evolving report will ultimately inform a mid-point evaluation and then a review of the Strategy, scheduled for 2028 and 2029 respectively, allowing for continuous improvement and supporting Victoria’s evidence-based approach to the management of bushfire risk for safer communities and healthy ecosystems in a changing climate.

What is the bushfire risk

In Victoria, vegetation, climate, and dispersed communities means that there will always be a need to live with the risk of bushfires. This means that it is necessary to understand what creates bushfire risk, where it exists in the landscape and what the government, communities and individuals can do to reduce the likelihood and impact of bushfires on people and the things they care about and depend upon.

Bushfire risk refers to the likelihood and consequence of something being impacted by a bushfire. It includes the likelihood of a bushfire starting, growing and spreading across a landscape, and the likelihood of things being in the path of the fire (such as people, houses, farms, critical infrastructure, and wildlife habitat). Victoria is particularly susceptible to large and intense bushfires that can spread rapidly across vast distances in the landscape due to the state’s naturally flammable vegetation, and frequent exposure to hot, dry and windy weather. Bushfire risk is affected by many factors including the weather, the type and condition of bushfire fuels, the topography, the exposure and vulnerability of people and assets, and the ability to prevent fires from igniting and suppressing them once they ignite.

Reducing the impacts of bushfires is challenging because we don't know exactly when and where they will occur. However, we can model how bushfires spread in the landscape with simulation software, Phoenix RapidFire, developed specifically for Victoria.

Phoenix RapidFire uses information about weather, topography, vegetation and fire history, to simulate and predict the spread and impact of bushfires and help us understand bushfire behaviour – including flame height, ember density, spotting distance, convection column strength and intensity.

Using these simulations, we can understand how bushfires are likely to behave, and how assets and values might be impacted by bushfires.

Who manages bushfire risk in Victoria?

Victoria’s approach to bushfire risk management is underpinned by shared responsibility and brings together land and fire agencies, councils, Traditional Owners, landholders, and the community to deliver tailored bushfire risk reduction approaches that draw on our collective knowledge and capabilities and reflect local needs.

The State Emergency Management Plan (SEMP) Bushfire Sub-Plan outlines the current arrangements for the management of bushfires by government agencies in Victoria.

Private landowners and owner occupiers play an important role in managing bushfire risk in Victoria. They are responsible for reducing fire hazards on their properties to protect lives and property. They can achieve this through actions like fuel reduction, creating firebreaks, maintaining vegetation, and making homes more resilient to bushfires. By working with councils and fire agencies, their efforts contribute to a more resilient, community-wide approach to bushfire risk management.

How is bushfire risk managed?

Victoria takes a risk-based approach to bushfire management, meaning that resources are invested in bushfire management activities where they will have the greatest impact in reducing risk to human life, property and the environment. This approach has been repeatedly reviewed by experts and inquiries, and consistently found to be leading practice both nationally and internationally. However, a level of risk will always remain.

No single strategy or action alone can manage bushfire risk. Victoria has a multifaceted approach, using all the activities available to us. Fuel management is just one strategy for reducing bushfire risk.

Bushfire risk is managed through a wide range of interventions, including land use planning and building standards, fire ignition controls, community education, planned burning and non-burn fuel treatment, construction and maintenance of strategic fuel breaks and fire access roads, maintaining infrastructure like remote water points, early detection and aggressive first attack to bring bushfires rapidly under control while they are still small, and issuing community warnings and advice.

Land and fire agencies work in partnership with Traditional Owners and local communities to best reduce risk in a particular region.

Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic), the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and other land and fire management agencies are subject to various Commonwealth and State regulatory frameworks that ensure protection of biodiversity and cultural values in delivering on their bushfire management responsibilities. Theses agencies have extensive systems and processes in place to ensure compliance with legislative requirements.

The role of fuel management in reducing bushfire risk

Fuel-driven bushfire risk is the component of bushfire risk that is attributable to bushfire fuels, that is, vegetation that influences fire behaviour, such as the intensity and rate of spread of a bushfire.

Fuel builds up at different rates in different areas depending on how fast the vegetation grows compared to how fast it decomposes. It is a key element of fire behaviour, and therefore is a major component of overall bushfire risk.

Fuel management makes bushfire suppression easier and safer for firefighters and helps to reduce the impact of bushfires on communities and the environment. It includes:

• planned burning – lighting and managing planned fires in the landscape, including along roadsides and rail corridors
• mechanical treatments – mowing, slashing and mulching
• other non-burn treatments like spraying for weed management
• construction and maintenance of the strategic fuel breaks, and
• removal or management of storm debris.

However, fuel is not the only factor that affects fire behaviour, or the likelihood and consequence of bushfires impacting people and the things we care about. Topography and weather, particularly wind and temperature, are two other key elements of fire behaviour. As weather conditions become more severe, the influence of fuel on fire behaviour decreases. That’s why it’s important to manage bushfire risk using a wide range of interventions.

Victoria’s bushfire management sector models what impact fuel management activities have on reducing fuel-driven bushfire risk to inform fuel management planning, prioritisation and performance evaluation. This approach ensures that the fuel management program delivered across public and private land is focussed on delivering the greatest risk reduction benefits to local communities, rather than simply focussing on the scale of program delivery.

The drivers for fuel-driven bushfire risk differ across the state. Variables include the types of forests, the topography and the location of communities and weather (both surface and atmospheric). The methods that government and community can use to manage fuel-driven bushfire risk also vary. While fuel management on public land is the most effective broadscale management lever, in some areas fuel management on private land is equally, if not more important. In areas close to towns, planned burns are more frequent to protect people and the things they value. In other areas, planned burns can be used to reduce ignition probability and reduce the spread of intense bushfires across the landscape which have the potential to significantly impact communities, ecosystems and regional economies.

While effective fuel management is a critical part of how bushfire risk is managed in Victoria, as the climate changes opportunities to conduct planned burning safely and effectively are changing. Favourable conditions to deliver planned burning must continue to be taken, and other complementary fuel management and bushfire risk reduction activities pursued.

A more holistic view of bushfire risk management also allows for the development of comprehensive strategies that consider the optimal mix of activities to reduce risk, improve ecosystem resilience and minimise impacts such as the impacts of smoke on industry and public health.

For example, planned burning creates smoke, which can result in localised community and industry concerns about smoke impacts. Industries that may be affected include tourism, apiary and viticulture. These impacts must be weighed against the potentially catastrophic risks the community faces from bushfires, which typically release significantly higher smoke concentrations than planned burning. Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic), CFA, the Department of Health (DoH), and Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) now use leading weather science, smoke forecasting models and available air quality monitoring to actively schedule and / or modify planned burning to reduce or manage the impacts of smoke. FFMVic and CFA engages closely with stakeholders and communities about the timing of planned burns to understand and help manage potential impacts. Planned Burns Victoria allows Victorians to view and receive notifications for planned burns near them.

The impact on the environment is also considered by the fire agencies in delivering fuel management. Planned burning supports the ecological and biodiversity objectives of the Code of Practice for Bushfire Management on Public Land by promoting appropriate fire regimes to maximise biodiversity and promote ecosystem resilience. For example, this is done by reducing the size and intensity of bushfires that impact ecological assets, by avoiding or minimising the impact on sensitive areas and by using fire as a land management tool to promote regeneration for some plant species.

Land managers and fire agencies consider the risks to ecological, biodiversity and cultural values of both bushfires and fuel management activities, including planned burning, non-burn fuel treatments, strategic fuel breaks and storm debris works, through all levels of planning. All fuel treatments undertaken by FFMVic and CFA undergo values checks.

Available datasets are utilised to identify environmental and cultural values within an area planned for fuel management and fire managers work with biodiversity specialists and Traditional Owners as required to incorporate mitigation actions into the planning and delivery of the Joint Fuel Management Program (JFMP) to reduce potential adverse impacts arising from the fuel management activity. When fuel management is delivered, mitigation actions (such as protection of critical habitat features) and tactics (such as particular lighting patterns for planned burns) are implemented to minimise impacts to identified values.

Modelled fuel-driven bushfire risk

The primary determinants of fire behaviour are topography, weather and fuel. The sector models the impact that planned burning and bushfires have on reducing fuel-driven bushfire risk to human life and property by modelling fire behaviour as a function of:

1. topography as represented by a digital elevation model of Victoria,
2. weather as represented by a catastrophic fire weather scenario, and
3. fuel as represented by the varying fuel load across Victoria from year-to-year.

This impact is calculated and expressed as the percentage of fuel-driven bushfire risk ‘left over’ after fuels have been reduced, either through planned burning or bushfires. A key constraint is that this calculation cannot currently capture the risk reduction benefits of non-burn fuel treatments such as slashing and mowing or removal of storm debris.

Victoria has a statewide target to maintain modelled fuel-driven bushfire risk to human life at or below 70% of maximum levels through fuel management (i.e. to reduce modelled fuel-driven bushfire risk by at least 30%). This does not mean that the risk of Victorian communities being impacted by bushfire is 70%. Risk remaining after fuel management is conducted is reduced through a broad range of other interventions across prevention, preparedness and response including ignition controls, community education, prepositioning of aircraft and taskforces, early detection and aggressive first attack to bring new bushfires rapidly under control, and community warnings and advice.

The level of fuel-driven bushfire risk varies across the landscape, due to differences in vegetation, climate, topography and where houses are located. Each FFMVic region and district has a long-term planning target for reducing fuel-driven bushfire risk, which contribute to achievement of the statewide target. Regional and district fuel-driven bushfire risk targets vary across the State and are influenced by both the level of risk in an area (influenced by vegetation, topography and the location of houses) as well as the leverage that FFMVic has over reducing risk through fuel management on public land.

The Bushfire Management Strategy for each region, developed by FFMVic in partnership with the CFA, sets out the strategy for achieving these long-term planning targets as well as achieving a broader range of objectives defined in the Code of Practice for Bushfire Management on Public Land 2012. These strategies have been developed with communities to:

• identify values to be protected from bushfire
• assess bushfire risk to those values, and
• set out strategies to manage this risk.

Individual strategies for all Victoria regions are available on the Safer Together website:

• Barwon South West
• Gippsland
• Grampians
• Hume
• Loddon Mallee
• Port Phillip

Joint Fuel Management Program

The Joint Fuel Management Program (JFMP) is a statewide operational planning process for the management of bushfire fuels on public and private land over a 3-year rolling timeframe. The JFMP establishes an approach that the sector works within to share personnel, resources, vehicles and other equipment to maximise the delivery of priority fuel management activities across public and private land.

DEECA, through its delivery arm FFMVic, and the CFA, develop the JFMP in consultation with councils, the viticulture and tourism industries, beekeepers, flora and fauna specialists – drawing on knowledge from local communities, including Traditional Owners, key stakeholders, local community leaders, and other interested parties. Burns are nominated for a variety of reasons including:

• reducing bushfire risk
• enhancing ecological resilience and other land management objectives, and
• promoting regeneration.

Each activity delivered in the JFMP, with the exception of cultural burns, is led by either FFMVic or the CFA but is delivered with the support of both agencies and other partners including the Department of Transport (DTP), Emergency Management Victoria (EMV), and local businesses. Cultural burns are led by Traditional Owners, with the support of FFMVic and the CFA. FFMVic and the CFA welcome and encourage public involvement around the timing and scheduling of activities in local areas.

Individual JFMP reports and an interactive map for all Victoria regions are available on the JFMP website.

In 2023-24 under the JFMP, FFMVic and CFA treated a total area of 144,685 ha with fuel management across public and private land. Of this, FFMVic treated 138,454 ha (95.7%) and CFA treated 6,231 ha (4.3%).

Bushfire risk management reform

Following the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, the Victorian Government and key land and fire agencies committed to a major program of reform in response to recommendations of the Inspector-General for Emergency Management’s Phase 1 Inquiry into the 2019-20 Victorian fire season and the Victorian Auditor-General Office’s Reducing Bushfire Risks audit.

Key commitments including establishment of OBRM and its advisory panel, expanding the membership of the Safer Together program, and commencing the expansion of this report to include a broader range of agencies and activities involved in bushfire risk reduction have been acquitted.

In 2023–24, key improvements to Victoria’s end-to-end framework for bushfire risk management across public and private land included delivery of the Victoria's Bushfire Management Strategy, the Strategy Implementation Plan, and Victoria’s Bushfire Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Framework, as detailed earlier in this document.

Data and model output improvements

The best available evidence-based models and data are used to calculate the results presented in this report each year. Models for metrics, such as fuel-driven bushfire risk or reported costs, are updated regularly when technology improves, better data becomes available, the research program provides new knowledge or mapping accuracy improves. Modelling and data improvements can cause information reported in previous years reports to change. For example, improved fire history and severity mapping may result in a recalculation of fuel-driven bushfire risk in a particular region. The Appendix explains these specific changes.

Despite the data and model improvements described above, limitations to the modelling remain. For example, the current method for calculating fuel-driven bushfire risk can only consider fuel reductions that occur due to planned burning or bushfire. This means that the method cannot account for the risk reduction benefits of the broader fuel management program, such as mechanical fuel reduction and smaller treatments like roadside vegetation management.

The calculation doesn’t account for the risk reduction benefits of bushfire risk management activities beyond fuel management, such as the risk reduction benefits of ignition prevention activities, strategic fuel breaks, or advances in early detection and first attack capabilities.

Further, the calculation is limited to the risk reduction benefits of fuel management to human life, using address points of residential property as a proxy. It does not account for risk reduction benefits to other assets and values, such as critical infrastructure, industry assets, environmental or cultural assets.

Improving the data and science behind decisions happens continuously and is reflected through updates to reporting. Consequently, direct comparisons between this report and past or future reports cannot necessarily be made. For the most accurate view of current and historic figures, always consult the most recent report.