No burn for you: Gold Coast forced to look elsewhere for bushfire protection
Queensland’s Fire and Emergency Service will no longer conducted the controlled hazard reduction burns around the Gold Coast that it has done for the past 15 years, leaving the city to outsource the backburning and bushfire preparation to a private contractor.
As state fire chiefs warned that La Nina weather patterns this summer did not mean the state was immune to bushfire risk, Gold Coast acting mayor Donna Gates today confirmed the city had locked in a private company to deliver the annual program previously completed by QFES.
Hazard reduction burns are currently underway across around 12,000 hectares of bushfire hazard risk areas surrounding the Gold Coast.
Gates said the new contractor, LRM Fire and Rescue, would ensure the continued delivery of the program for the tourist city that was among national hotspots scarred with the devastation of deaths and property destruction during the 2019 Black Summer bushfires.
“Because QFES would no longer be involved in council’s annual reduction burns, that’s required council to go out to a private contractor,” Gates said.
“We’re getting about with the normal program and QFES is helping LRM at the moment just identifying what they did, how they did it and where.
“We need to be on the front foot to protect life and property, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Floods and continued rain patterns have meant QFES has been unable to complete as much backburning as it planned this year.
Emergency Services Commissioner Greg Leach said this meant the risk of grassfires remained high across the state through spring and summer.
Hazard reduction burns are undertaken to protect properties generally by burning “ground fuels” such as leaf litter and grass.
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These types of fires are generally ‘cool’ and the fires burn slowly with small flames.
Gates said around 12,000 hectares of land around the Gold Coast was designated as potential bushfire hazard.
Under a contract that started in 2007, QFES has conducted more than 150 strategic hazard reduction burns around the Gold Coast.
In the wake of the 2019 bushfires, around three quarters of the city has been identified as exposed to some fire risk.
