The Auditor-General has announced the release of a bushfire preparedness report which shows some chaos in the Governance of fire-related land management in the ACT, which in turn makes it hard to tell how well prepared we may actually be:
Regional Fire Management Plans need to be reviewed more frequently and revised ‘to reflect changes in land use in the ACT, operational considerations and any advances in the knowledge and understanding of bushfire risk’.
Clarity is needed on which land managers should be preparing ushfire operational plans. A National Land bushfire management framework is needed to guide bushfire management activities on National Land.
There has been a lack of governance and procedural documentation for the ACT Bushfire Council. In response to this a terms of reference was developed by the Council with the support of the Emergency Services Agency and endorsed at a Council meeting on 3 July 2013.