The office’s 2020 audit Reducing Bushfire Risks investigated whether the then Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, now DEECA, and the CFA were effectively working together to reduce Victoria’s bushfire risk.
Of the office’s recommendations about how DEECA and CFA measured, planned and delivered actions to reduce bushfire fuel, DEECA completed 21 of its 29 actions, partially completed seven and did not complete one. CFA completed 13 of its 16 actions and partially completed three.
The office concluded that both agencies had made improvements since the 2020 audit, including their risk-modelling tools, datasets and statewide bushfire-management planning, and helped keep statewide bushfire risk below a 70 per cent target.
But the office found that DEECA and CFA still needed to improve how they measured the effectiveness of different fuel-reduction methods, managed bushfire risk on private land and assessed fuel hazards.
The review found that neither agency fully knew how effectively their planning and actions protected people and property.
Before the 2024 Grampians bushfires, DEECA and CFA kept the Wimmera district’s risk level below the target through effective planning and reducing fuel loads.
But DEECA could not show how it prioritised strategic fuel breaks.
The review found that while it did not limit firefighters’ access during the 2024 bushfires, it could affect fires at other locations in the future.
A key finding of the review was that DEECA kept bushfire risk below the target but did not deliver all strategic fuel breaks in and around Grampians National Park.
DEECA and CFA have risk-based frameworks for planning and prioritising fuel management but only DEECA, not CFA, could show how it applied its process in and around Grampians National Park before the 2024 bushfires.
The department modelled fuel-hazard levels, identified high bushfire-risk areas, and selected treatment sites according to regional bushfire-management strategies and treatability, access and available resources.
It used fire-simulation model Phoenix RapidFire to test the impact and prioritise each planned burn by their potential to reduce the residual bushfire-risk level.
The review found that residual risk in the Wimmera district was well below target before the 2024 Grampians bushfires.
Despite not completing all planned fuel treatments, DEECA’s prioritisation kept the residual bushfire risk in the Wimmera district at about 40 per cent between 2020-21 and 2023-24, which was well below the 70 per cent target.
Staff in the Wimmera district nominated 16 fuel breaks for construction or renewal as part of the program, but of the five that DEECA selected, only two were from the nominations by Wimmera district staff.
DEECA could not show how it applied its prioritisation process across the nominations and whether all five selected had the highest potential benefit.
The department planned to have all five breaks completed by August, 2022, but it only constructed two, while another was already in place and in use.
The remaining two strategic fuel breaks – Ararat’s Main Divide Road and Smiths Road stage two – were never established.
The review found that although the two uncompleted strategic fuel breaks are outside the 2024 Grampians bushfires’ boundaries, more properties could be at risk in future bushfires if they are not established.
The review made a recommendation to DEECA about reassessing and establishing strategic fuel breaks with high operational value across the state, which was accepted in part.
Despite DEECA and CFA improving aspects of the way they plan and deliver fuel-management activities, the review found they have not consistently met risk-reduction targets in several districts.
In the Wimmera fuel-reduction targets were met between 2021-24.
The review found that although there is uncertainty around DEECA’s risk estimates because it does not know how accurate its fuel-accumulation curves are, it is well below the 70 per cent district target.
DEECA has not released residual bushfire risk data at a district level for 2024-25.
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