Yarra Ranges Council recently announced the successful completion of its Place-Based Resilience Planning Project which was done in partnership with four local communities.
Healesville was one of the four communities involved in this project.
As part of this project, Healesville Community Emergency Group (HCEG) launched the final version of its Bushfire Impact Mitigation Plan last November.
The Bushfire Impact Mitigation Plan’s purpose was to develop a community-led and supported landscape management plan, based on the latest science on fire behaviour and ecosystem responses, to encourage individual and cooperative actions by land-owners and managers to reduce the severity of the impacts of bushfires on the communities of Healesville and its surrounds.
HCEG volunteer Graeme George said HCEG’s focus was different from other groups who worked on bushfire plans under the same project.
“The others were looking at fuel reduction as their priority,” he said.
“According to the latest science, the fuel loads in bushfire areas are only one of the factors that influence the severity of a fire and the risk of losing life or property.
“Our plan was focused on the sorts of things that landowners can do to mitigate the risks of fires starting in the first place, intensifying and spreading. And that’s things apart from fuel reduction.”
Mr George said some of the main features in the plan are about the fire shields which modify the wind speeds.
“Other things we want to address are things like modifying the wind speeds on open landscapes by planting trees to form shelter belts and windbreaks to slow the wind down and to plant green fire breaks of vegetation that’s not highly flammable, again, not ignite quickly and to slow down fires but also to trap embers,” he said.
“And that gets more important as you get closer to assets. Those green fire shields very close to assets reduce the radiant heat, trap embers and slow down the wind.”
It took two years for the HCEG to put everything together in the plan.
The plan is now available for the community on Yarra Ranges Council’s website, yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Our-services/Climate-and-environment/Emergencies/Resilient-Yarra-Ranges/Place-based-Resilience-Planning
Mr George thanked Yarra Ranges Council for the support.
“The council was very supportive of us going in that direction, even though it was a little bit different to what the other groups were doing,” he said.
“They were very helpful in providing resources, mapping for the council’s resources, accessing to other agencies, getting our final plan formatted and printed for us as well as facilitating our meetings.”
