Victoria's bushfire risk management report 2023-2024

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.

Bushfire risk management is everyone’s responsibility.

The bushfire management sector – including land managers and fire and emergency management agencies, have a key role to play in reducing bushfire risk across public and private land.

Whether through ignition prevention activities, the reduction of bushfire fuels on public land, private property or roadsides, maintenance of strategic fuel breaks and access roads, delivery of community education programs, suppression of bushfires or issuing of community warning and advice – a wide range of government agencies and councils make important contributions to the reduction of bushfire risk.

This year’s VBRM Report includes information on bushfire risk reduction activities and outcomes delivered by FFMVic, CFA, the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) and councils. Importantly, individuals, households, and communities also play a part in reducing their bushfire risk. By preparing and practicing a fire-ready plan, reducing bushfire fuels on their property, participating in bushfire management planning processes, and listening out for community warnings – every Victorian can take active steps to further reduce the risk of bushfires to themselves, their families, and their communities.

Overview of the 2023-24 bushfire season and suppression effectiveness

Bushfires are a natural part of the Victorian environment and although land managers and fire agencies take active steps to prevent and prepare for bushfires and respond rapidly to suppress bushfires with aggressive first attack, it is not always possible to control every bushfire at a small size.

In 2023-24, FFMVic attended 1,179 fires impacting 50,890 hectare of State forests, national parks and other protected public land. FFMVic contained 96% of fires on first attack and 92% within 5 hectares, exceeding its bushfire suppression targets. Response information of FFMVic during the 2023-24 period is shown in Table 2.

CFA bushfire suppression performance information is published in the CFA Annual Report 2023-24.

Table 2: FFMVic response information

Fire Danger Periods and Total Fire Ban days

A Fire Danger Period is when the CFA restricts the use of fire during hotter times of the year. The rules help prevent fires from starting by limiting the types of fires that can be lit and restrict or impose conditions on some high-risk activities. The CFA declares the Fire Danger Period for each municipality (shire or council) at different times in the lead up to the fire season – depending on the amount of rain, grassland curing rate and other local conditions. The Fire Danger Period may be declared as early as September in some municipalities, and typically remains in place until the fire danger lessens, which could be as late as May. Within the Fire Danger Period, Authorised Officers issue permits for igniting fires for specific purposes. The permits stipulate the appropriate conditions under which fire can be ignited.

A Total Fire Ban (TFB) is a period when all fires are banned, and people working outside (such as farmers harvesting) are asked to reconsider their activities. A TFB is called for one or more days when the fire risk is Extreme, and the CFA Chief Officer considers there to be a considerable risk that if fires start, they would be difficult to control or would have a significant impact on communities.

During the 2023–24 reporting period, 11 Total Fire Ban (TFB) days were declared across Victoria, an increase from 4 TFB days declared in the two preceding years (Table 3). TFB declarations are made at a district level, so a TFB day may apply to some districts while not affecting others. While there were 11 TFB days at the state level in total between October 2023 and March 2024, on some of these days multiple districts had a TFB in place. The cumulative number of TFBs across all districts in 2023–24 totalled 34, compared with 6 in 2021-22 and 11 in 2022-23.

These figures illustrate the overall pressure on resources when multiple districts experience TFBs on the same day. The details on the restrictions for both the Fire Danger Period and a TFB are available on the CFA’s website Can I or Can't I?.

Table 3: Total Fire Bans declared in 2023–24, 2022-23 and 2021–22. Data aligns to the financial year.

* Victoria is divided into 9 Fire Weather Districts based on council boundaries.

Mitigation and prevention – key highlights

The bushfire management sector mitigated bushfire risk through a wide range of prevention and preparedness activities including ignition controls, community engagement, planned burning, non-burn fuel treatment, and maintenance of strategic fuel breaks and the strategic fire access network.

Campfire safety

Compliance activities carried out by the Conservation Regulator relating to campfires is important for reducing the risk of accidental bushfire ignition. The risk posed by campfires is reduced by:

• providing clear information about campfire regulations and campfire safety
• raising awareness of campfire regulations at customer centres, during patrols and through media campaigns
• analysing intelligence from reports of unsafe behaviours and high-risk times and locations
• conducting surveillance and patrols in high-risk locations, during fire hazard days, and targeting high-risk behaviours, and
• initiating (and publicising) enforcement actions.

The Conservation Regulator received reports of 669 fire-related offences in the public land component of the fire protected area during the 2023-24 reporting period. Fire related offences include unattended campfires, and include other offences such as fires within the fire danger period, fires on total fire ban days and fires in fire protected areas.

Victoria Police enforce the Country Fire Authority Act 1958 (CFA Act) and Summary Offences Act 1966 provisions regarding fire prevention. In these Acts, it is an offence to leave a campfire unattended, or to have a campfire if the fire causes damage or endangers life or property. Additionally, during fire danger periods, it is an offense to leave a fire unless it is fully extinguished or left under the control of someone capable of managing it safely.

FFMVic staff conduct patrols or make incidental observations of unattended campfires during day-to-day forest and fire management. Some of these incidents will result in a fire related offence (included in statistics above). FFMVic attended 581 unattended campfires in 2023–24. This is close to half (49%) of all fires attended by FFMVic (1,179).

The number of unattended campfires represented an increase of 31% from the 444 unattended campfires recorded in 2022-23.

The Hume region had the highest number of unattended campfires (213) and Port Phillip region the lowest number of unattended campfires (11). Table 4 provides an overview of the total number and percentage of unattended campfires attended by FFMVic per region in 2023-24.

Table 4: Total number and percentage of unattended campfires attended by FFMVic per region in 2023-24.

*Note: The line items in this table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Community education, awareness and engagement

Community-based bushfire management is a community-led approach that supports communities and agencies to connect and make better-informed decisions to manage bushfire risk. It includes working with communities to identify local priorities, develop mutual goals and solutions, build relationships and use locally tailored processes before, during and after bushfires.

CFA plays a valuable role in helping communities to plan and prepare for bushfire. Information about CFA community engagement activities delivered is published in the CFA Annual Report 2023-24.

FFMVic held 13 stakeholder and community forums on bushfire management and planned burning during 2023–24. This exceeded the target to hold 12 stakeholder and community forums.

Fuel managament

In 2023-24, FFMVic completed 316 planned burns across 122,291 hectares and carried out 1,610 non-burn fuel treatments over an additional 16,163 hectares. FFMVic also constructed 37 km of strategic fuel breaks and improved 2,082 km of strategic fire access roads (note that these planned burning figures exclude cultural burns delivered by Traditional Owners with FFMVic support, which also reduce fuels and bushfire risk).

Statewide fuel-driven bushfire risk was 64% on 30 June 2024, which achieves FFMVic’s target to maintain fuel-driven bushfire risk at or below 70% of maximum levels. While four FFMVic regions and 11 Districts maintained fuel-driven bushfire risk within long-term planning target levels, two regions (Grampians and Port Phillip) and five districts (Midlands, Metro, Yarra, Latrobe and Ovens) exceeded their targets.

Further information on the statewide, regional and district fuel-driven bushfire risk levels, reasons why some regions and districts are above long-term planning targets and specific actions being taken by FFMVic to respond to elevated fuel-driven bushfire risk in these areas is provided in Section 5 and Section 6.

During the same period, CFA completed 236 planned burns over 5,499 hectares, including 912 km along road and rail corridors, and conducted 51 non-burn fuel treatments across an additional 732 hectares (note that these planned burning figures exclude cultural burns delivered by Traditional Owners with CFA support, which also reduce fuels and bushfire risk).

Relative contribution to risk reduction made by planned burning and bushfires

Modelling can be used to determine the relative contribution of planned burning and bushfires to risk reduction realised through the reduction of bushfire fuels. Presenting the contribution to risk reduction from planned burns and previous bushfires as a 10-year rolling average is a more meaningful and accurate way to view this data compared to doing it as a year-to-year contribution. The reason for this is the significant year-to-year variability in risk reduction contribution. For example, in years with very large bushfires, such as the 2019-20 fire season, the majority of risk reduction would be attributable to bushfires, whilst in years with minimal bushfire activity, almost 100% risk reduction is attributable to planned burning.

Although there is considerable variation from year to year, planned burning accounts for more fuel-driven bushfire risk reduction than bushfires. This is despite bushfires impacting a substantially greater area than planned burns over the last 10-year period.

Over the past decade, despite planned burning accounting for only 37% of the total area burnt (compared to 63% burnt by bushfires), planned burning accounted for 62% of the total modelled fuel-driven bushfire risk reduction across Victoria compared to 38% from bushfires. This is because FFMVic use the best-available science and data to identify and target areas for planned burning in strategic locations (such as close to high-value assets) to reduce the risk to life and property, whereas bushfires are indiscriminate and may occur anywhere in the landscape.

For more information on statewide, regional and district fuel-driven bushfire risk levels, refer to Section 5 and Section 6.

Ecosystem resilience – key highlights

Fire is a natural and vital process for many of Victoria’s ecosystems. Many plants rely on fire to reproduce. However, inappropriate fire regimes and particularly multiple severe fires in close succession can have detrimental impacts on the resilience of natural ecosystems.

In the context of bushfire management, ecosystem resilience is an ecosystem’s capacity to absorb natural and management-imposed disturbance but still retain its basic structure – in terms of species abundance and composition – function and identity over space and time.

Victoria currently monitors ecosystem resilience using two key metrics:

• Tolerable Fire Interval (TFI) – which measures how well vegetation is likely to regenerate after fire, with regard its reproductive maturity, and
• Growth Stage Structure (GSS) - which provides information on the diversity of ages of forests and other vegetation types, which are important for providing habitats for different plants and animals.

It is desirable to minimise the total area burnt (by bushfires and/or planned burning) while vegetation is below reproductive maturity or in early growth stages. Sometimes planned burning in areas below minimum TFI is undertaken where there is an important need to reduce bushfire risk. Planned burning may also be applied is areas below minimum TFI and/or in early growth stages where there is a need to reintroduce fire back into a bushfire affected area to create a diversity of growth stages (e.g. a large bushfire scar such as those in Gippsland following the 2019-20 Black Summer fires) and/or there is a net benefit to ecological resilience by using low-intensity planned fire to seek to reduce the impact of large high-severity bushfires.

In 2023-24, the area of public land vegetation within its TFI increased to 30% (up from 28% in 2022-23). Approximately 47% of vegetation on public land in Victoria remains below its minimum TFI, showing an improvement in this category (down from 49% in 2022–23).

The proportion of vegetation on public land in the mature (35%) and adolescent (27%) growth stages increased while the proportion in the juvenile stage (13%) decreased. The area of vegetation in the oldest growth stage (4%) remained the same.

Although ecosystem resilience measures are demonstrating improvement, the area of vegetation below minimum TFI and in the earlier growth stages is still too high due to the impacts of the 2019–20 bushfires.

In 2023-24, FFMVic conducted 37 planned burns across 3,846 hectares for the primary purpose of improving environmental outcomes.

FFMVic also partnered with universities and other academic institutions to conduct research that improves how ecosystem resilience is represented and measured.

For more detailed reporting, refer to Section 5 and Section 6.

Cultural fire strategy

The importance of cultural fire, and the vision of Traditional Owners for the use of fire on Country to bring health to the land and people, is set out in the Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Strategy¹.

In recognition of the wide range of land and fire management objectives that can be achieved through cultural burning (including the reduction of fuels and bushfire risk), FFMVic and CFA support Traditional Owners to plan and deliver cultural burns nominated and approved for inclusion on the JFMP.

There are a diversity of ways Traditional Owner groups want to use cultural fire and undertake land management. DEECA, continues to build partnerships with Traditional Owner groups to deliver cultural burning on public land, build capacity through the Cultural Fire Grants Program, and provide operational support for implementation of The Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Strategy.

The CFA is working with Traditional Owner groups and First Nations communities to enable more cultural fire, linking in with The Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Strategy with the CFA Koori Inclusion Action Plan.

Cultural burning activity

In 2023-24, FFMVic and CFA supported cultural burns led by a range of Traditional Owner groups:

• Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation
• Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation
• Duduroa Dhargal Aboriginal Corporation
• Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation
• Eastern Maar
• First People of the Millewa Mallee
• Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation
• Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation
• Tati Tati Corporation
• Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation
• Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.

Cultural burns nominated by Traditional Owners or other parties for inclusion on the JFMP undergo a review process where each proposed burn is evaluated and potentially adjusted, in consultation with the nominator, to ensure feasibility. This review results in the list of 'burns approved', which enables further work between fire agencies and Traditional Owners to progress burns towards a deliverable stage.

‘Burns delivered’ reflects the number of approved burns that have been completed within the financial year. However, not all approved burns are delivered immediately. Factors such as unsuitable weather conditions, capacity, and resourcing may delay implementation. Burns that are not completed remain on the JFMP as ‘ready to be delivered’ and are prioritised when conditions and resources allow.

The ‘operations completed’ metric, while similar to ‘burns delivered,’ provides a more detailed account of the support FFMVic and CFA offer to Traditional Owner groups in delivering cultural burns. Each burn may involve multiple operational days, each counted as a separate operation, providing a clearer metric of the investment made by the fire agencies in supporting these culturally significant burns.

In 2023-24, Traditional Owners nominated 126 cultural burns for inclusion in the JFMP, 95 on public land and 31 on private land. This was a 21% increase from the 104 cultural burns nominated in 2022-23.

Of these, 69 were approved and 36 delivered (FFMVic – 29; CFA – 7). This represents a 56% increase in the number of cultural burns FFMVic and CFA supported the delivery of compared to 2022-23.

The other 33 approved cultural burns remain on the JFMP and FFMVic and CFA will support their delivery as conditions and resourcing permit.

Table 5 provides an overview of the number of Traditional Owner led cultural burns nominated, approved and delivered with the support of FFMVic and the CFA from 2021-22 to 2023-24.

Table 5: Number of Traditional Owner led burns nominated, approved and delivered with the support of Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic) and the Country Fire Authority (CFA), 2021-22 to 2023-24.

The Country Fire Authority Act 1958 authorises the CFA to conduct fuel management activities in the country area of Victoria. The CFAs fuel management activities are undertaken on private land and public land that is not managed by DEECA (for example, roadsides and rail corridors), on the request of the landowner or land manager.

This section describes CFA fuel management activities and programs on public and private land, across planned-burn and non-burn fuel treatments. It includes three tables. Table 6 outlines CFA fuel treatment activities by treatment type. Table 7 outlines CFA fuel treatment activities by region. Table 8 provides a detailed breakdown of regional treatments.

CFA field management activities

The CFA conducts fuel management activities at the request of the landowner or land manager. It does not manage land itself but works closely with landowners and land managers, such as councils, and road and rail authorities, to conduct planned burning or non-burn fuel treatments, such as slashing, mowing, spraying, ploughing and grazing.

CFA’s fuel management program reduces risk by providing critical access for fire fighters to suppress bushfires, facilitating safe egress routes for communities, and protecting assets by reducing fuels next to residential areas and critical infrastructure. It helps deliver on joint bushfire management strategy approaches, including more effective fire suppression, reduced bushfire spread and severity, and reduced impacts of bushfires on people and property.

The CFA fuel management program is often driven by local communities and, as a result, has positive flow-on effects for communities in understanding their own bushfire risk and the role fire can play in reducing risks and maintaining ecosystems. However, due to the smaller size and linear characteristics of CFA’s planned burns, they are less represented in the calculations used to monitor fuel-driven bushfire risk due to current modelling limitations.

Fuel management delivery

In 2023-24, CFA delivered its largest fuel management program on record. This can be attributed to several factors such as:

• A longer season suitable for planned burning
• Staffing arrangements with regions that assisted in planning and delivery
• Relationships with landowners/managers and stakeholders, and
• Availability of volunteers through the CFA Planned Burn Taskforce (PBTF).

Increased planned-burn resourcing through the CFA Planned Burn Taskforce (PBTF)

The PBTF has grown significantly over the 2023-24 financial year and has assisted greatly in the delivery of CFA's program, with it estimated that the Taskforce assisted with delivery of a third of the CFA planned burn program.

The PBTF has enabled Volunteer CFA members with an interest in planned burn delivery with the opportunity to attend planned burns led by both CFA and FFMVic. The PBTF increases both CFA and FFMVic capacity to deliver planned burning operations, as well as increasing CFA members firefighting skills efficiently through joint agency participation in planned burn events.

Since its commencement in 2019, the PBTF has on average seen 112 CFA member deployments per season to planned burns. In 2023-24, the PBTF actioned 327 member deployments; an approximate 300% increase in the number of member deployments compared with the 5-year average.

The PBTF has seen an increase in deployments without a net increase in expenditure through improved efficiencies in deployment procedures and increased CFA volunteer engagement. The Taskforce is anticipated to increase capacity to deliver treatments through streamlining request processes and ongoing recruitment of CFA members registering with the Taskforce.

Key fuel treatment delivery highlights

The CFAs fuel treatments for the year 2023–24 is presented and compared to the previously reported year.

In 2023-24, CFA completed 287 operations to treat a total area of wide hectares with fuel management. This included 236 planned burns treating 5,499 hectares, and 51 non-burn fuel treatments covering 732 hectares. The planned burning delivered included 912 km of roadsides and rail corridors. Non-burn fuel treatments included various mechanical treatments, such as spraying, slashing, ploughing and mulching.

The total area of fuel treatment delivered by the CFA in 2023-24, 6,231 hectares is an 83% increase from the 3,406 hectares delivered in 2022-23. More roadsides were also treated, with 912 roadsides treated by CFA in 2023-24 a 60% increase compared to the 570km treated in 2022-23.

Of the 236 burns CFA delivered, 11 were for ecological purposes (5%) which is an increase from previous years. CFA advises they are working closely with land managers, stakeholders, community members and Landcare to deliver planned burns for ecological objectives. The other 225 burns were for the primary purpose of bushfire risk reduction.

Table 6 provides an overview of the CFAs fuel treatment activities by treatment type.

Table 6: Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) fuel treatment activities by treatment type in 2023–24, and previously reported in 2022–23.

*Note the hectares and number of activities for the cross-tenure burns, rail corridors and roads are included in the total fuel reduction figures.

CFA fuel treatment activities by region

Table 7 shows CFA fuel treatment activities by region.

Regions with the largest areas treated in 2023-24 were the South West CFA region (3,624ha) and the West CFA region (1,895ha). This is consistent with delivery patterns in 2022-23.

The South West and West CFA regions delivered a larger program than the previous financial year, almost twofold. This can be attributed to good conditions for undertaking burning as well as the availability of volunteers to deliver the program.

The South East CFA region delivered one of the largest burns in the region to date, with a planned burn of 250 hectares delivered at Lake Tyers in partnership with the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust.

Case Study: Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust Fuel Management Program

The Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust (LTAT) and the CFA have partnered to manage bushfire risk across the Trust’s 1,541 hectare property, of which 1,296 hectares, or 86%, is native bush and scrub. This collaboration began in 2011 and includes the Bunjil Brigade, a community-based fire brigade that evolved from a satellite of the Toorloo Fire Brigade into an independent unit, playing a key role in fire preparedness and response within the LTAT community.

Under the JFMP, the CFA and LTAT worked together to plan and execute planned burns on select forest blocks surrounding the community. Seven blocks were identified, using existing tracks as boundaries, to reduce fuel loads while protecting culturally significant sites. The first planned burn, a 14.59 hectare area, took place in 2023, with LTAT community members guiding the protection of scar trees and sensitive areas.

The largest burn occurred in April 2024, covering nearly 250 hectares, and marked the CFA’s most extensive forest burn in District 11. This operation required collaboration among LTAT representatives, who identified She-oak trees (crucial for the Glossy Black Cockatoo) to be protected with mulched buffer zones. Multiple ignition methods were used over four days, achieving a 51% burn coverage within the target range of 50-80%.

The program demonstrates how the JFMP can integrate cultural knowledge into fire management, with LTAT community members actively shaping treatments to balance bushfire risk reduction with other land management objectives.

Further treatments are planned for 2025, reinforcing the ongoing, community-led approach to bushfire safety and land management.

Table 7: Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) fuel treatment activities by region.

Reporting is broken down into further detail, showing the treatment types delivered across a region, in Table 8.

The delivery of linear burns on roadsides and rail corridors was predominantly implemented in the South West and West regions through the large grassland and grassy woodland corridors. Managing for appropriate fire regimes is important to maintain ecological health and function within these grasslands, with burn planning and delivery undertaken in consultation with land managers and stakeholders.

Table 8: Detailed breakdown of the Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) regional treatments.

*Note that no hectare figure is reported against roadside and rail corridor treatments as these treatments are linear corridors better represented by kilometres.

**Note that number of total number of roadside and rail corridor treatments, and cross-tenure burns, is included in the number of bushfire risk reduction treatments.

Performance against key bushfire risk management targets

The government funds FFMVic through DEECA to reduce the impact of major bushfires on people, property and the environment. Performance is measured against the indicators captured in Table 9.

In 2023-24, FFMVic met or exceeded 12 of 13 of its key performance measures for bushfire risk management on public land

Table 9: Key FFMVic bushfire risk management performance measures 2023-24.

Note:

*Total does not include the 22.7km of strategic fuel breaks upgraded as “upgraded” is not included in the BP3 measure.

** Performance is below target due to above average rainfall during December 2023 and January 2024, and resource impacts from bushfire response and storm damage in February 2024, which led to a two-month delay in the preparation and planning of burns identified in the JFMP.

Fuel management performance

Planned burning and non-burn fuel treatment

Under the Forests Act 1958, DEECA is responsible for the planned prevention of fire in State forests, National Parks and other protected public land in Victoria. It does this through FFMVic, which is led by DEECA and draws on partnership arrangements with Parks Victoria and Melbourne Water.

The Code of Practice for Bushfire Management on Public Land 2012 specifies the objectives of fuel management and informs the planning and delivery of fuel management on public land. The program aims to meet the dual objectives of the impacts of major bushfires on communities and other assets and values, and maintaining or improving the resilience of natural ecosystems.

FFMVic’s fuel management target is to maintain statewide fuel-driven bushfire risk to human life and property at or below 70% of Victoria’s potential maximum level through fuel management in State forests, national parks and other protected public land. Statewide fuel-driven bushfire risk on 30 June 2024 was 64%, which achieves the target.

Figure 1 indicates that if the JFMP is implemented in full, and there is no bushfire activity, fuel-driven bushfire risk will remain below 70%. In the absence of fire (from planned burning or bushfires) the modelling indicates that fuel-driven bushfire risk would rise to 77% over the next three years.

An overview of FFMVic’s statewide outcomes and delivery for 2023–24 is shown in Table 10.

Changes to reported State risk calculations from 2022-23 are shown in Appendix 1.

Table 10: Snapshot of FFMVics statewide outcomes and delivery, 2023–24.

The 2023-24 FFMVic fuel management program delivered 1,926 fuel management operations treating a total of 138,454 hectares. This included 316 planned burns treating 122,291 hectares and 1,610 non-burn fuel treatments treating 16,163 hectares.

The majority of planned burns (244 burns) were undertaken for the primary purpose of bushfire risk reduction, and 37 planned burns were delivered with the primary objective of improving ecological resilience outcomes. Table 11 summarises FFMVic’s statewide fuel management program over the past two financial years.

Table 11: Statewide fuel management delivery, 2022-23 to 2023-24.

*Total area includes storm debris treatments of 279ha.

Planned burn ignition opportunities

FFMVic considers when conditions are favourable to deliver planned burning safely and effectively and utilises appropriate burning windows to deliver the planned burning program. Most of the planned burning program continues to be delivered in autumn, when weather conditions are typically more stable, there is lower risk of extreme fire danger days, and the fuel conditions are appropriate to achieve the desired burn objective. Under these conditions, fire behaviour is generally more manageable and predictable.

In 2023–24, FFMVic planned 445 burns for delivery as a part of Year 1 of the JFMP and ignited 316 (71%) of these burns. This compares with the 2022–23 year when 381 burns were planned to be delivered in Year 1 of the JFMP and 234 (61%) were ignited.

215 of the 445 planned burns listed on Year 1 of the JFMP for 2023–24 were identified by FFMVic as priority planned burns for reducing bushfire risk. This prioritisation focusses FFMVic’s efforts on the burns that deliver the greatest risk reduction when conditions are suited for broad program delivery. In 2023–24, 138 (64%) of the identified 215 priority burns were ignited, this is higher compared to the 76 (46%) of the identified 166 priority burns that went ahead in 2022–23. It is however slightly lower than the overall proportion of the program delivered, FFMVic advise that it is reflective of the fact that priority burns are often closer to communities, infrastructure, and industry and are therefore more difficult to schedule while being mindful to community impacts.

During 2023-24 of the 445 burns planned to be delivered, 386 were scheduled for ignition at least once. There was no suitable scheduling opportunity identified for the remainder of the Year 1 program due to weather, fuel conditions, response to emergency activities and other program constraints. On average, each scheduled burn was rescheduled 5 times across the year; 17 burns were scheduled over 10 times, and one up to 27 times, demonstrating the amount of effort that is committed to finding the right opportunities to deliver burns safely and effectively. FFMVic worked closely with communities, stakeholders, and other government agencies – including the Environment Protection Authority and Department of Health – to minimise the smoke impacts of planned burns on communities. This included scheduling burns in weather conditions that minimised impact, or rescheduling burns to outside peak holiday times.

Table 12 provides a snapshot of FFMVic planned burn planning, scheduling and delivery, 2023–24.

Table 12: Snapshot of FFMVic planned burn planning, scheduling and delivery, 2022-23 to 2023-24.

Insights about the reasons why some burns were not ignited can be gained from the Burn Opportunity Reporting Tool (BORT).

In 2021, FFMVic released the prototype Burn Opportunity Reporting Tool (BORT) to track ignition opportunities on a day-by-day basis and assess whether weather conditions provided an opportunity to ignite each burn as originally planned. The tool is partly automated and requires some manual review for accuracy. Table 13 indicates the reasons why planned burns were not ignited as recorded in BORT.

Table 13: Factors influencing the delivery of planned burns in 2023–24 using the Burn Opportunity Reporting Tool (BORT).

*Note: Updates to the BORT reporting tool, including the addition of reasons for changes in factors influencing delivery, were implemented after the 2021-22 reporting period. As a result, the data on factors influencing delivery is not directly comparable with subsequent years.

The BORT tool indicates that in most cases, ignition opportunities were limited by:

• weather conditions being unsuitable (57.5%),
• planning or preparation of the burn not being completed in time (14.3%), or
• fuels (vegetation) not being suitable to meet the objectives of the burn (8.0%).

In 8.5% of cases, BORT recorded a possible missed opportunity for a burn ignition, where weather conditions were within prescription, and burns were listed as ‘Ready’ (planning and preparation complete). However, this figure is likely an overestimate due to the automated nature of the tool and limited manual interpretation. For example, some opportunities were flagged during winter months when fuels are typically too wet for burns to proceed.

BORT assesses every burn on Year 1 of the JFMP each day for suitable weather conditions for delivery. In many cases narrow opportunities are identified which may not be sufficient for the size of the operation. In others, whist there may be a weather window, fuel conditions on the ground may be too wet or too dry. The reporting system automatically considers this a potentially missed opportunity, requiring manual interpretation of whether in fact the weather conditions were suitable for a particular burn.

If the burn has not reached a standard where it’s considered Ready then the reason for the missed opportunity is recorded as ‘Weather prescription window occurred prior to completion of burn planning or preparation’ regardless of whether the weather conditions were suitable.

Automated reasons can be manually overwritten in BORT, but when staff are deployed to fires, floods or delivery of planned burns this data validation step can be missed. This is an area of improvement for future versions of the reporting tool.

While the prototype tool is not yet refined enough to consistently distinguish all underlying constraints, it has the potential to provide valuable insights into the challenges faced in delivering FFMVic’s planned burning program. These might include the need to improve readiness, better account for fuel conditions, and refine prioritisation to maximise opportunities within operational constraints.

Cross-tenure burning

FFMVic’s fuel management program is strengthened by the Victorian Government’s Safer Together program, which ensures that DEECA, including FFMVic, works in partnership with the CFA, Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV), DTP, councils and other sector partners to support integrated, evidence-based bushfire risk management across all public and private land in Victoria.

In 2023–24, FFMVic led the delivery of 30 cross-tenure planned burns treating 19,767 hectares. Most of these burns were regionally critical due to them being aligned to regional Bushfire Management Strategies and providing high levels of risk reduction value.

The majority of FFMVic led cross-tenure burns in 2023-24 were delivered in the Gippsland region (11 cross-tenure burns across 13,875 hectares). Table 14 provides a regional overview of cross-tenure planned burns.

Table 14: Cross-tenure planned burns led by FFMVic, by region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

*Figures don’t tally due to rounding.

Strategic fuel breaks

DEECA’s Strategic Fuel Breaks program maintains and expands the network of strategic fuel breaks across Victoria to reduce the risk and impact of bushfires near high priority locations close to townships, key assets, water catchments and sensitive environments, and in parts of the landscape advantageous to support bushfire suppression and reduction in the size of fires.

Strategic fuel breaks are a strip of land where vegetation has been permanently modified to reduce the rate of spread and intensity of fire for the direct protection of assets and/or assist fire suppression.

In 2022-23, the Strategic Fuel Break Program completed its initial phase of creating new strategic fuel breaks. The focus has now shifted to maintaining these breaks, which is crucial for their long-term effectiveness.

In 2023–24, DEECA invested $2.2 million (Table 22) constructing 37 km of strategic fuel breaks across the state. Table 15 summarises the total kilometres of strategic fuel breaks built in each region over the past four financial years.

Table 15: Total kilometres of strategic fuel breaks built in each region from 2021-24.

*This figure has been altered from the 2022-23 report which contained a typing error. It was 106.7, it should have been 160.7. This table includes corrects figures and the column now adds up.

In addition, a total of 22.7 km of strategic fuel breaks were upgraded throughout the state, entirely within the Port Phillip Region. Table 16 summarises the total kilometres of strategic fuel breaks upgraded in each region between 2023-24 financial year.

Table 16: Total kilometres of strategic fuel break upgrade in each region.

A total of 941 km of strategic fuel breaks were maintained across the state in 2023-24. The Gippsland Region led the strategic fuel break maintenance efforts with 604 km, followed by the Hume Region (189 km), Barwon South West Region (106 km), Port Phillip Region (34 km), and Grampians Region (7.5 km). No strategic fuel break maintenance was performed in the Loddon Mallee Region. Table 17 summarises the total kilometres of strategic fuel breaks maintained in each region in the 2023-24 financial year.

Table 17: Total kilometres of strategic fuel break maintenance in each region, 2023-24.

Ecosystem resilience

A primary objective of FFMVic’s bushfire management program is to maintain or improve the resilience of natural ecosystems and their ability to deliver services such as biodiversity, water, carbon storage and forest products.

FFMVic’s bushfire risk management program supports this objective by reducing the impact of major bushfires on environmental assets and ecosystems and introducing planned fire into landscapes that require it for regeneration of fire-dependent species and other ecological objectives.

FFMVic’s bushfire management program delivered a net improvement in ecological resilience outcomes against the two key ecological resilience measures (Table 18 and Table 19).

In 2023-24, the area of public land vegetation within its TFI increased to 30% (up from 28% in 2022-23). Approximately 47% of vegetation on public land in Victoria remains below its minimum TFI, showing an improvement in this category (down from 49% in 2022–23).

Table 18: Tolerable Fire Interval - Statewide, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

The proportion of vegetation on public land in the mature (35%) and adolescent (27%) growth stages increased while the proportion in the juvenile stage (13%) decreased. The area of vegetation in the oldest growth stage (4%) remained the same.

Table 19: Growth Stage Structure - Statewide, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

Although ecosystem resilience measures are demonstrating improvement, the area of vegetation below minimum TFI and in the earlier growth stages is still too high due to the impacts of the 2019–20 bushfires.

In 2023-24, FFMVic conducted 37 planned burns across 3,846 hectares (Table 11) for the primary purpose of improving ecological outcomes.

FFMVic also partnered with universities and other academic institutions to conduct research that improves how ecosystem resilience is represented and measured.

Changes to reported ecosystem resilience calculations from previous years are shown in Appendix 2.

Victorian Bushfire Monitoring Program

In 2023–24, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Framework for Bushfire Management on Public Land continued to be delivered through the Victorian Bushfire Monitoring Program (VBMP). This included monitoring fuel levels, ecosystem resilience measures, research projects and location-specific activities to support improvement.

The data from monitoring enables DEECA, including FFMVic, to understand how effectively planned burning reduces bushfire fuels and evaluate performance in reducing fuel-driven bushfire risk.

Fuel hazard monitoring

Fuel hazard monitoring provides important information about:

• planned burns, including the severity and coverage of each burn
• how each planned burn has reduced fuel hazard
• the success of each planned burn in achieving ecological burn objectives where appropriate, and
• whether follow-up actions are required.

Burn objectives are set to achieve a balance between fuel reduction and preserving important values. For example, a burn objective may be to achieve 70% burn coverage within the footprint of a planned burn to ensure that sufficient refugia, habitat and food sources are left for flora and fauna.

When evaluating a planned burn, a series of plots are measured. In 2023–24 a total of 2,542 sites were monitored for pre- and post-burn treatment fuel hazard.

Funding for fuel management research totalled $2.1 million. Table 20 summaries the total number of fuel hazard sites monitored, pre and post burn, across the state.

Table 20: Fuel hazard sites monitored, by region, Victoria, 2023–24.

*This includes 200 permanent monitoring sites located in Asset Protection Zones in Gippsland. These sites are monitored whether they are burnt or not. Of these sites, 54 were in the Black Summer fire area.

Ecosystem resilience monitoring

To understand the effects of both bushfires and planned burning on the environment, FFMVic measures and monitors the timing and number of fires in different types of vegetation. FFMVic’s fuel management program considers how best to meet the two primary objectives of minimising the impact of major bushfires; and maintaining or improving the resilience of natural ecosystems.

FFMVic also partners with universities and other academic institutions to conduct research that improves how ecosystem resilience is represented and measured. In 2023–24, FFMVic continued to deliver the statewide ecosystem resilience monitoring program in partnership with Natural Hazards Research Australia, Museums Victoria and the University of Melbourne. To date, DEECA has invested more than $7 million in this monitoring program, which is collecting data on habitat structure, flora, birds and mammals in 11 priority ecological fire groups across the state. Victoria now has data for all 11 of the highest priority ecological fire groups, providing opportunities to replace expert datasets with empirically derived data in models and decision making. This monitoring program is providing scientific evidence and recommendations for fire management and planning, improving the ecological basis underpinning Victoria’s ecosystem resilience metrics and future monitoring and research.

Investment

FFMVic invested $159.5 million in fuel management in 2023–24, reflecting a 12% increase from $141.1 million invested in 2022–23. Direct fuel management investment totalled $36.6 million, while indirect investment amounted to $123 million. Table 21 provides a breakdown of fuel management investment by region and type.

Table 21: FFMVic fuel management investment, by region and group, Victoria, 2022–24.

*Totals include $1.5 million invested in research.

Note: that total values are calculated from raw data for accuracy and are rounded (using the Rounding Guidelines) from two decimal places. As an artefact of this rounding, the total values listed differ from the total of the individual line values.

In 2023-24, direct investment in FFMVic’s fuel management activities has increased significantly since the previous year. This was due to a significant increase in investment in planned burning ($31.7m) to take advantage of favourable weather conditions for delivering an expanded burning program. Investment in strategic fuel breaks ($2.2m) and non-burn fuel treatment ($2.7m) decreased from last financial year. Table 22 provides a detailed breakdown of direct investments by fuel management treatment for the past three financial years.

Table 22: Comparison of FFMVic direct investment in fuel management treatments from 2021-24.

Investment in strategic fuel breaks declined over the past three financial years, following the conclusion of the Strategic Fuel Break Program in 2022-23. In 2023-24, the focus shifted to maintaining existing strategic fuel breaks rather than establishing new ones. Table 23 outlines the investment in strategic fuel breaks over the last three financial years.

Table 23: Investment in strategic fuel breaks by region from 2021-22 to 2023-24.

Note: This table has been rounded as per the Rounding Guidelines for 2023-24, this is inconsistent with the approach used in previous years.

Investment in indirect costs increased by around 7% in 2023-24. A significant portion of indirect fuel management costs is attributed to resource management (40%) and equipment/infrastructure (19%). The rise in resource management expenses is primarily due to the extension of Project Fire Fighters (PFFs) required for the expanded planned burn program delivered. Additionally, funding for equipment and infrastructure increased, largely due to higher expenditures on Fit for Purpose Technology Systems ($4.3 million) and Fuel Management Roading Management ($2 million).

Table 24 provides a detailed breakdown of indirect investments by item for the past two financial years.

Table 24: Indirect fuel management investment, by items, Victoria 2022–2024.

*Current financial systems methods do not allow for separation between types of grants allocated for research or other purposes. Research expenditure is calculated and reported manually as a stand-alone figure.

Note: that total values are calculated from raw data for accuracy and are rounded (using the Rounding Guidelines) from two decimal places. As an artefact of this rounding, the total values listed differ from the total of the individual line values.

Barwon South West Region

Regional overview

In the Barwon South West (BSW) Region a wet start to summer prompted the region to plan for an early commencement to the autumn planned burning program. However, the dry tail-end to summer conditions led to a later than anticipated start to burning. Although the region was able to undertake some grass burns in mid-February, the remainder of the program was halted until late March, when more favourable conditions were present.

Some limited burning in the wetter parts of the Otway District was able to be undertaken in March whilst conditions remained dry. These dry conditions meant burns were more resource intensive with slower ignitions limiting the number and distribution of treatments.

Easter rain saw conditions change from too dry to too wet to burn across much of the region. The resulting weather cycles did not contain drying conditions or stable ignition weather, with the western part of the region experiencing constant drizzle for numerous weeks. Subsequently, the burn program shifted focus to the east of the region. Burning conditions improved in mid-April to allow the majority of burns to be completed.

Larger burns were the focus of the winter burning program from May, with budget constraints limiting winter operations during June. A number of landscape mosaic burns were conducted across the district with a continued focus on large-scale, patchy burning in the landscape.

Fuel management delivery

Weather conditions limited the areas across the region that were available to burn. A dry end to summer caused much of the landscape to be too dry to burn, followed by easter rain events that made the landscape too wet. Resource constraints affected burn delivery particularly in the Far South West (FSW) District.

During 2023–24, the BSW Region’s fuel management program focussed on planned burning, treating 9,035 hectares. Of the total hectares treated with planned burning, 7,026 hectares (78%) were delivered primarily for risk reduction and 2,009 hectares (22%) for ecological objectives FFMVic led the delivery of 10 cross-tenure burns with the CFA (Table 14).

The total cost of the BSW Region fuel management program in 2023–24 was $16.8 million (Table 21).

Table 25 summarises fuel management activities in the Barwon South West Region.

Table 25: Fuel management delivery, Barwon South West region, 2023–24.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk

Fuel-driven bushfire risk in BSW Region on 30 June 2024 was 57%, achieving the target to maintain risk at or below 60% of maximum levels.

Maintaining regional residual risk below target is determined largely by the outcomes in the Otway District. Residual risk should remain below target in the medium-term if seasonal conditions are favourable and the district is resourced to deliver the program.

The Otway District has an ongoing and complex challenge to stay at or below its fuel-driven bushfire risk target of 60% This year it was achieved through a strong focus on priority burns, development of techniques for burning to fuel moisture differentials year-round, high levels of preparedness and intent to burn, and the development and acquisition of innovative equipment.

Key to reducing risk in the Otway District is the establishment of an extensive network of Strategic Fuel Breaks which assist in protecting townships and key access and egress routes along the coast.

The FSW District prioritises high risk reducing burns and complementing this with a program of higher frequency burning along 'spines' or ridges through large continuous forested areas to break up and prevent the spread of large fires.

The Barwon South West Region has developed the ability to utilise and deploy up to 10 taskforces at a time, strong incident management team (IMT) capability, and have excellent support from both the FSW and Otway districts, combined with other districts from across Victoria. This is supported by relationships with key stakeholders including Traditional Owners and the broader community.

Table 26 provides an overview of the Barwon South West Region’s fuel-driven bushfire risk over the past five years.

Table 26: Fuel-driven bushfire risk, Barwon South West region and districts, 2019-20 to 2023-24.

*2023-24 risk data and improvements used to update previous years

Figure 2 indicates the BSW Region’s risk profile for 1980 to 2024 and projected changes in fuel-driven bushfire risk until 2027. It indicates fuel-driven bushfire risk in the BSW Region:

• is projected to increase to 70% by 2027 in the absence of any fuel management activity or bushfires, and
• implementing the entire JFMP would keep risk levels below the long-term regional planning target.

Ecosystem resilience

In the Barwon South West Region, the proportion of public land vegetation within the Tolerable Fire Interval (TFI) has remained stable at 41% over the last three years (Table 27). Vegetation below the minimum TFI remained consistent at 20% in 2023-24. The area above the maximum TFI increased marginally from 11% to 12%. The percentage of vegetation with no fire history stayed consistent at 27%.

Table 27: Tolerable Fire Interval – Barwon South West region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

*The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

The proportion of vegetation in the Barwon South West (BSW) region at the mature and old growth stages remained stable at 60% (Table 28). Juvenile growth stage has remained unchanged, while adolescent growth stage has shown a slight decline. The percentage of vegetation with no fire history also remained consistent across the three years at 26%.

Table 28: Growth Stage Structure – Barwon South West region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

* The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

Gippsland Region

Regional overview

The 2023-24 season saw the Gippsland Region deliver the most successful planned burn delivery season since 2018-19. Dry seasonal conditions in early spring saw opportunities to deliver small sections of several larger burns against private property boundaries, which assisted in improving burn security when conducting the larger operations in autumn. This unseasonal dryness compared to previous La Nina years saw burns delivered every month from July to December, with peaks in September and November.

Bushfires during dry conditions in September and October in the Snowy and Macalister Districts restricted resources available for planned burning. Resources were also deployed to respond to a damaging storm event near Mirboo North in the Latrobe District in late February and early March which further restricted resources available for planned burning. Mechanical debris removal is underway in the areas impacted by the storm. These actions are expected to yield immediate reductions in bushfire risk for nearby communities through the reduction of coarse woody debris from roadsides to enable timely, safe and effective access for suppression.

Autumn delivery began in late February and continued through to late May. March was the peak delivery season across the region with 21 separate operations conducted before a major rain event halted delivery in the Latrobe and Macalister districts. Both Tambo and Snowy Districts were able to continue delivery through April, with 9 and 4 operations respectively. A late season drying pattern through late April and early May meant that additional burns units were suitable, allowing a second peak in regional delivery in May, with a further 15 operations delivered.

In the Gippsland Region, 73 burns were delivered in a year where delivery opportunities were short and coincided with optimum conditions across the state, particularly a 10-day period in late March/early April. As critical resources were in high demand across the state, Gippsland region, following program prioritisation guidelines, was able to deliver 21 priority burns.

All four districts were able to deliver more than 40% of their planned burns identified in Year 1 of the JFMP. With the Tambo District having an extremely successful year delivering 73% of Year 1 burns. Of the 73 burns delivered, 6 were ecological burns, 18 were windrow/heap burns, with the remainder being bushfire risk reduction burns.

In addition to the planned burn program, Gippsland delivered 346 individual non-burn fuel treatments (NBFT) totalling 4,425 hectares. The NBFTs were a combination of mulching, slashing, spraying and strategic fuel break maintenance.

Fuel management delivery

During 2023–24, the Gippsland Region’s fuel management program treated a total of 43,858 hectares across a number of different treatment types. Of the total hectares treated with planned burning, 39,268 hectares (>99%) were risk reduction burns and 160 hectares (<1%) were ecological burns. Non burn treatments accounted for 4,425 hectares, with mechanical slashing and mowing the most common treatment method.

Table 29 summarises fuel management activities in the Gippsland Region.

Table 29: Fuel management delivery, Gippsland region, 2023–24.

Note: Discrepancies in reported total and the total of individual line items are artefacts of rounding using the Rounding Guidelines.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk

Fuel-driven bushfire risk in Gippsland Region on 30 June 2024 was 49%, achieving the target to maintain risk at or below 71% of maximum levels.

Districts also have long-term planning targets for the management of fuel-driven bushfire risk which assist FFMVic in meeting the statewide target and long-term regional planning targets.

While three out of four districts in the region remain below their long-term planning target, Latrobe District continues to face elevated fuel-driven bushfire risk, currently standing at 86%, which is above the long-term planning target of 80%.

Only a small proportion of Latrobe District’s fuel-driven bushfire risk can be reduced through fuel management delivered by FFMVic within the District. A large proportion of the fuel-driven bushfire risk originates from private land, plantations or bushfire fuels in neighbouring FFMVic districts including Yarra and Murrindindi which are dominated by forest types (e.g. Mountain Ash forest) that are challenging to treat with planned burning.

Short burning windows and unfavourable weather conditions have limited the extent and effectiveness of the planned burning program in the Latrobe District and neighbouring districts over recent years.

To complement the planned burning that was able to be delivered, Latrobe District completed non-burn fuel treatments and the removal of storm debris in Mirboo North. The risk reduction benefits of these fuel management activities are not reflected in performance against the risk target due to limitations in existing modelling techniques.

Latrobe District is working collaboratively with neighbouring districts and landholders to deliver targeted risk reduction burns to reduce the residual risk within the district wherever possible. There are 12 cross-tenure burns on the JFMP within the Latrobe District. An example of this is Labertouche - Robertson Creek burn, a cross boundary burn between Yarra and Latrobe Districts designed to reduce the risk of fire approaching from the north or west impacting community within the Labertouche area.

These targeted strategies are aligned with long-term goals and are expected to bring the district closer to its planning target, contributing to broader risk reduction efforts across the region.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk in Gippsland continues to trend upward from a relatively low level following extensive bushfires in 2019-20. Gippsland’s JFMP is designed to reduce the rate of this increase by over half through targeting areas that will most effectively reduce risk and increasing fuel management activities in Snowy and Tambo districts.

Table 30 provides an overview of the Gippsland Region’s fuel-driven bushfire risk, 2021-24.

Table 30: Fuel-driven bushfire risk, Gippsland region and districts, 2019-20 to 2023-24.

*2023-24 risk data and improvements used to update previous years

Figure 3 indicates the Gippsland Region’s risk profile for 1980 to 2024 and projected changes in fuel-driven bushfire risk until 2027. It indicates fuel-driven bushfire risk in the Gippsland region:

• is projected to increase to 71% by 2027 in the absence of any fuel management activity or bushfires, and
• implementing the entire JFMP would keep risk levels below the Gippsland region long-term regional planning target.

Ecosystem resilience

In 2023-24, the area of public land vegetation in Gippsland Region within its TFI remained stable at 21% (Table 31). Approximately 70% of vegetation on public land in the Region remains below its minimum TFI due to the devasting impacts of the 2010-20 Black Summer bushfires which burnt over 1.5 million hectares of eastern Victoria.

Table 31: Tolerable Fire Interval – Gippsland region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

* The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

The proportion of vegetation on public land in the Gippsland region at the mature and old growth stages remained stable at 25% from 2021–22 to 2023–24 (Table 32). The juvenile growth stage declined from 47% in 2021–22 to 26% in 2023–24. The adolescent growth stage remained consistent at 41% in both 2022–23 and 2023–24. Mature growth remained stable at 24% during the same period, while old growth stayed at 1%. The percentage of vegetation with no fire history was unchanged at 7% across all three years.

Table 32: Growth Stage Structure – Gippsland region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

*Note: The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

Grampians Region

Regional Overview

Delivery of the 2023-24 Grampians Region fuel management program was influenced by weather conditions and the significant bushfires that impacted communities across the region in autumn 2024. Significant rainfall in spring and early summer limited the opportunities for planned burning. This was followed by two months of dry conditions which led to bushfires impacting communities and large areas of public land.

Major bushfires in February 2024 burnt around 29,000 hectares in the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, Mt Cole State Forest, Mt Lonarch State Forest, Mt Buangor State Park and Ross Creek State Forest. The extended period of suitable planned burning weather in autumn 2024 supported the Wimmera District to complete a good-sized planned burn program, despite the bushfires.

Resources across the region were involved in the fire suppression and subsequent rehabilitation works, which impacted on preparation and delivery of the entire fuel management program in the Midlands District.

Fuel management delivery

During 2023–24, the Grampians Region’s fuel management program treated a total of 10,593 hectares across a number of different treatment types. Of the total hectares treated with planned burning, 8,678 hectares (92%) were risk reduction burns, and 779 hectares (8%) were ecological burns. Non-burn fuel treatments accounted for 1,135 hectares.

FFMVic led the delivery of one cross-tenure burns with the CFA in the Grampians region (Table 14). Total investment in the Grampians region fuel management program was $11.7 million in 2023-24 (Table 21).

Table 33 summarises the Grampians region’s fuel management activities in 2023–24.

Table 33: Fuel management delivery, Grampians region, 2023–24.

Note: Discrepancies in reported total and the total of individual line items are artefacts of rounding using the Rounding Guidelines.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk

Fuel-driven bushfire risk in Grampians Region on 30 June 2024 was 74%, exceeding the regions long-term planning target to maintain fuel-driven bushfire risk at or below 70% of maximum levels.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk decreased slightly in 2023-24 due to bushfires and the Wimmera District’s planned burning program. Prior to 2023-24, fuel-driven bushfire risk in the region had been increasing over the past 10 years, due to limited planned burning activity, and for the past five years has not met the risk target.

Bushfire risk in Midlands District has been increasing due to the limited opportunities to carry out planned burning in the Wombat State Forest area due to weather patterns (consisting of long wet periods and a quick transition to dry weather) and the impacts of the 2021 windstorms. The 2021 storm debris has created access challenges for planned burning activities. A program to remove storm debris has continued in 2023-24 with the aim to improve access and reduce bushfire risk.

Large burns aimed at creating a mosaic of planned burning across the landscape are proposed as an alternative in the Wombat State Forest, to overcome restrictions posed by weather and to mitigate potential impacts on threatened species. It may take several years of treatment to reduce the bushfire risk.

Risk will continue to increase if current limitations on planned burning in the area persist. The Wombat State Forest area carries the largest proportion of the Region’s bushfire risk due to increasing residential areas in and around the forest.

Table 34 indicates the current level of fuel-driven bushfire risk in the region and its districts and how this has changed over the past 3 years.

Table 34: Fuel-driven bushfire risk, Grampians Region and districts, 2019-20 to 2023-24.

*2023-24 risk data and improvements used to update previous years

Figure 4 indicates the Grampians Region’s risk profile for 1980 to 2024 and projected changes in fuel-driven risk until 2027. It indicates fuel-driven bushfire risk in the Grampians region:

• is projected to increase to 81% by 2027 in the absence of any fuel management activity or bushfires, and
• implementing the entire JFMP would get risk levels below the long-term regional planning target.

Ecosystem resilience

Ecosystem resilience measures within the Grampians region are significantly influenced by the bushfire history of the Grampians National Park. The proportion of vegetation within the Grampians region that is within the TFI has been increasing, while vegetation below minimum TFI continues to decline. In 2023–24, the area of public land vegetation within its TFI increased by 1% to 31% (Table 35). Vegetation below minimum TFI decreased from 39% in 2021–22 to 37% in 2023–24, while vegetation above maximum TFI remained stable at 3% across 2022–23 and 2023–24. Approximately 37% of vegetation on public land in the region remains below its minimum TFI.

Table 35: Tolerable Fire Interval – Grampians region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

* The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

The proportion of vegetation on public land in the Grampians region in the mature and old growth stages increased to 49% in 2023–24 (Table 36). The juvenile growth stage showed a gradual increase, rising from 6% in 2021–22 to 7% in 2023–24. Conversely, the adolescent growth stage decreased from 20% in 2021–22 to 16% in 2023–24. The mature growth stage increased from 38% in 2021–22 to 42% in 2023–24, while the old growth stage remained relatively stable at 7%. The percentage of vegetation with no fire history remained consistent at 29% for both 2022–23 and 2023–24.

Table 36: Growth Stage Structure – Grampians region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

* The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

Hume Region

Regional overview

2023-24 was characterised by a mild and dry El-Nino event in the spring of 2023 following on from three consecutive wet La Nina events. The dry lead into summer was short lived with two significant rainfall events occurring, the first around Christmas 2023 and the second early in 2024. Then, as in the previous year, February was a relatively dry month, particularly in the western half of the region. This resulted in a gradual drying of fuels which allowed the program to get underway in the Murrindindi District in mid-February.

The return to more average conditions from March into May then provided the opportunity to deliver planned burns at scale across the region. Delivery of the program across the region was finally wrapped up in June with the last of the windrow/heap burns being completed.

Fuel management delivery

During 2023–24, the Hume Region’s fuel management program treated a total of 60,116 hectares. Of the total hectares treated with planned burning (55,657 hectares), 55,270 hectares (99%) were risk reduction burns, and 386 hectares (1%) were ecological burns. The region delivered four Landscape Mosaic Burns covering a total of 5,546 hectares. Non-burn fuel treatments were delivered across 4,459 hectares.

FFMVic led the delivery of two cross-tenure burns with the CFA in the Hume region (Table 14). Total investment in the Hume fuel management program in 2023-24 was $25.9 million (Table 21).

Table 37 summarises the region’s fuel management activities in 2023–24.

Table 37: Fuel management delivery, Hume region, 2023–24.

Note: Discrepancies in reported total and the total of individual line items are artefacts of rounding using the Rounding Guidelines.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk

Hume Region’s fuel-driven bushfire risk on 30 June 2024 was 69%, achieving the Region’s target to maintain risk at or below 69% of maximum levels.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk was maintained within target levels in three of the region’s four districts. Burn delivery in the Goulburn and Murrindindi Districts has contributed to the maintenance of fuel-driven bushfire risk below their respective targets, while Upper Murray remains well below their fuel driven bushfire risk target due to the impact of the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20. This indicates that the planning and implementation of burns is in line with the intent of Hume’s Bushfire Management Strategy (BMS). The BMS and updated Fuel Management Zones (FMZ) focuses on forest fuel reduction on public land in areas near high-risk communities as focus areas for engagement and collaboration activities. Treatment of forest fuels in these areas complements risk reduction activities on public land.

The Ovens District’s large autumn delivery program successfully halted rising risk levels and maintained fuel-driven bushfire risk at 66%, the same level as 2023, though the district remains above its target to maintain fuel-driven bushfire risk at or below 55% of maximum levels. The fuel management work delivered in Ovens District in 2023-24 provides good leverage for further reducing the risk levels in the upcoming JFMP planning and delivery cycle.

The significant fire season of 2019-20, impacting the Upper Murray and Ovens districts, continues to contribute to reduced fuel-driven bushfire risk levels in the short term in the Upper Murray district, beyond planned burning activity alone. In the Ovens district, the fuel-driven bushfire risk has not been significantly reduced by the effects of bushfire in the same way, due to the remoteness of those fires. In Ovens district, unfavourable conditions for planned burning during 2022 and 2023 contributed to the rise in the district’s fuel-driven bushfire risk to 11% above target levels.

The region and districts will give priority to the fuel management program except when responding to emergencies. This includes prioritising the allocation of resources for delivery in the districts that are above or approaching their fuel-driven bushfire risk targets.

Table 38 indicates the current level of fuel-driven bushfire risk in the region and how it has changed over the past 3 years.

Table 38: Fuel-driven bushfire risk, Hume Region and Districts, 2019-20 to 2023–24.

*2023-24 risk data and improvements used to update previous years

Figure 5 indicates the Hume region’s risk profile for 1980 to 2024 and projected changes in fuel-driven bushfire risk until 2027. It indicates fuel-driven bushfire risk in the Hume region:

• is projected to increase to 81% by 2027 in the absence of any fuel management activity or bushfires, and
• implementing the entire JFMP would keep fuel-driven bushfire risk levels below the long-term regional planning target.

Ecosystem resilience

In 2023–24, the area of public land vegetation in the Hume region within its TFI remained stable at 32% (Table 39). Approximately 56% of vegetation on public land in the region remains below its minimum TFI, primarily due to the severe impacts of the 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires, which burned over 1.5 million hectares of eastern Victoria. Vegetation below minimum TFI decreased significantly from 67% in 2021–22 to 56% in both 2022–23 and 2023–24. Vegetation above. maximum TFI remained stable at 1% throughout the period, while the percentage of vegetation with no fire history held steady at 11% across all three years.

Table 39: Tolerable Fire Interval – Hume region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

*The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

The proportion of vegetation on public land in the Hume region in the mature and old growth stages remained stable at 40% from 2022-23 (Table 40). The juvenile growth stage decreased from 23% in 2021–22 to 11% in 2023–24. The adolescent growth stage increased from 27% in 2021–22 to 38% over the same period. Vegetation with no fire history was unchanged at 11% for all years presented.

Table 40: Growth Stage Structure – Hume region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

*The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

Loddon Mallee Region

Regional overview

The Loddon Mallee Region successfully delivered a comprehensive planned burning program across the Murray Goldfields and Mallee districts during autumn.

Despite challenging weather conditions, the Mallee District completed over 120 km of edge work using a variety of ignition techniques, including hand ignition, aerial drip torches, and the innovative Too Easy Firestick (vehicle-mounted drip torch). Much of this work was conducted directly adjacent to private property, reducing the risk to life, property, and economic production by mitigating the potential for exit fires during future harvests. Additionally, the Mallee District’s resources supported the burn program in the Murray Goldfields District and have been involved in re-accrediting mixing crews and aerial drip torch operators statewide.

The Murray Goldfields District prioritised burns in areas that would significantly reduce the risk of bushfires impacting local communities. Over 4,000 hectares were treated during the autumn burn season. In the Pyrenees area, favourable weather conditions allowed for the completion of five burns, timed to avoid the grape-growing season. The burn program focused on edge ignitions and some internal work using hand ignition and aerial drip torches. Resources from the Gippsland and Port Phillip regions were instrumental in the successful delivery of this large-scale program.

High-priority burns were conducted in the southern Castlemaine area to significantly reduce the risk to local communities in one of the region's most vulnerable areas in the Loddon Mallee region.

To enable the delivery of fuel management treatments in elevated risk districts, Mallee district resources were reallocated to other districts across the state. This supported the delivery of statewide priorities but impacted the district’s ability to deliver a large-scale burn program during the optimal post-summer/early autumn window.

Fuel management delivery

During 2023–24, the Loddon Mallee Region’s fuel management program treated a total of 11,115 hectares. Risk reduction burns attributed to 7,735 hectares of the total area treated and no ecological burns were conducted. Non-burn fuel treatments were delivered across 3,380 hectares.

Total investment in the Loddon Mallee fuel management program was $15.5 million in 2023-24 (Table 21). Table 44 summarises the regions fuel management delivery in 2023–24. Table 41 summarises the regions fuel management delivery in 2023–24.

Table 41: Fuel management delivery, Loddon Mallee region, 2023–24.

Note: Discrepancies in reported total and the total of individual line items are artefacts of rounding using the Rounding Guidelines.

Fuel-driven bushfire risk

Fuel-driven bushfire risk in Loddon Mallee Region on 30 June 2024 was 74%, achieving the region’s target to maintain fuel-driven bushfire risk at or below 75% of maximum levels.

Both Mallee and Murray Goldfields districts are within their respective targets. Fuel treatment implementation in the Mallee district reduced risk from 82% to 79%. Fuel treatment in Murray Goldfields district prevented risk from increasing, maintaining risk at 74%.

Table 42 indicates the current level of fuel-driven bushfire risk in the region and how it has changed over the past five years.

Table 42: Fuel driven bushfire risk, Loddon Mallee Region and Districts, 2021–24.

*2023-24 risk data and improvements used to update previous years

Figure 6 indicates the Loddon Mallee region’s risk profile for 1980 to 2024 and projected changes in fuel-driven bushfire risk until 2027. It indicates fuel-driven bushfire risk in the Loddon Mallee region:

• is projected to increase to 85% by 2027 in the absence of any fuel management activity or bushfires, and
• implementing the entire JFMP would keep risk levels below the long-term regional planning target.

Ecosystem resilience

For the first time in over two decades, the percentage of native vegetation in the minimum TFI status has fallen below 25% TFI (min), at 19%. This decline is primarily attributed to two factors: the aging of vegetation in older bushfire scars that no longer meet the minimum TFI status and the successful efforts of bushfire management and suppression teams in preventing large-scale bushfires. 35% of vegetation in the Loddon Mallee Region is now within TFI (Table 43).

Table 43: Tolerable Fire Interval – Loddon Mallee region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.

*The line items in this Table to not add up to 100% as an artefact of rounding each line item.

Note: Continual improvement in fire mapping may lead to small discrepancies in previously reported percentage values. All figures reported here, including comparison to the previous year, are calculated using the most accurate mapping available.

The proportion of vegetation on public land in the Loddon Mallee region in the mature and old growth stages increased by 1% to 43% in 2023–24 (). The juvenile growth stage decreased from 3% in 2021–22 to 2% in 2023–24. The adolescent growth stage also showed a decline, dropping from 8% in 2021–22 to 7% in 2023–24. The mature growth stage increased from 40% in 2021–22 to 43% in 2023–24, while the old growth stage remained stable at 5% across all three years. Vegetation with no fire history was consistent at 43% throughout the period.

Table 44: Growth Stage Structure – Loddon Mallee region, 2021-22 to 2023-24.