FIRE REHABILITATION PLAN EASTERN VICTORIAN FIRES 2003 Fire 36 Bogong South Complex Fire 39 Bogong North Complex Fire 55 Eldorado Fire 56 Stanley December 2003 Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you but the State of Victoria and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. This plan is prepared without prejudice to any negotiations or litigated outcome of any native title determination applications covering land within the plan’s area. It is acknowledged that any future outcomes of native title determination applications may necessitate amendment of this plan; and the implementation of this plan may require further notifications under the procedures in Division 3 of Part 2 of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth). The plan is also prepared without prejudice to any future negotiated outcomes between the Government/s and Victorian Aboriginal communities. It is acknowledged that such negotiated outcomes may necessitate amendment of this plan. i Eastern Victorian Fires 2003 Rehabilitation Plan FOREWORD South-eastern Australia is acknowledged to be one of the most fire-prone environments in the world. The widespread fires in the summer of 2002 and 2003 in the Mallee and in particular the Alpine area ranks - with Black Friday in 1939, Ash Wednesday in 1983, Big Desert in 1959 and Gippsland in 1965 and 1983 – among the largest and most significant fires experienced in Victoria. Over a period of nearly 60 days, the Alpine bushfires burnt through over 1 million hectares of land, including public land (92%) - National Parks, State forests, Wilderness Parks, and other parks and reserves - and farmland (8%). Significant ecological impacts occurred, particularly in those parts of the public land that were burnt by high intensity fire. There are also long-term impacts on water supply, water quality and stream biota, particularly in the headwaters of relatively pristine streams as a result of overland flow and erosion. There were significant impacts on timber resources, heritage assets, visitor and tourism facilities, agricultural land, and public access to the fire-affected areas. This Rehabilitation Plan has been prepared in accordance with the Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land. It addresses the four fires that comprise the ‘Eastern Victorian Fires’. These are Bogong North Complex (Ovens 39), Bogong South Complex (Upper Murray 36), Eldorado (Ovens 55) and Stanley (Ovens 56). The Plan describes the management issues, and the actions and priorities that are necessary to assist the recovery of the issues listed above. It identifies the immediate measures and priority areas for the rehabilitation of disturbance resulting from firefighting operations, and the immediate and longer-term measures to address the impacts of the fires. Much of the immediate works have been implemented. In February and April, the Government announced a rehabilitation funding package totalling $70.6m to address the fire impacts on public land and adjacent private land. This package forms the fund source for the rehabilitation actions outlined in this Plan. This Plan represents the efforts of many teams and individuals in the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), Parks Victoria (PV) and the Department of Primary Industries (DPI). The Plan draws heavily from a report detailing the ecological and cultural recovery rehabilitation requirements following the fires (Parks Victoria 2003). The rehabilitation and recovery actions and priorities in this Plan are endorsed for implementation. Kevin Love Deputy Secretary – Public Land Stewardship and Biodiversity, Department of Sustainability and Environment Convenor, Bushfire Recovery Steering Committee Eastern Victorian Fires 2003 Rehabilitation Plan ii CONTENTS Foreword ii 1. Fire Description 1 Fire Location, land status and area burnt 1 Context 2 Suppression Activities 2 2. Purpose and Scope of the Rehabilitation Plan 4 Objectives 5 Scope 5 Planning Process 6 General Principles 7 3. Rehabilitation Strategies 10 3.1 Threatened Flora, Fauna and Vegetation Communities 10 3.2 Pest Plant and Animal Threats 12 3.3 Catchment and Waterways 15 3.4 Ecological Fire Management 19 3.5 Licensed Grazing 20 3.6 Indigenous Cultural Heritage 21 3.7 Cultural Heritage 22 3.8 Landscape, Wilderness and Other Values 24 3.9 Pathogens 25 3.10 Recreation, Tourism and Infrastructure Assets 25 3.11 Commercial Forest Resources 29 3.12 Agriculture 30 4. Implementation 33 Roles and responsibilities 33 Evaluation and Reporting 33 Research and Monitoring 34 5. References 35 Tables 1. Land status and areas burnt in the Victorian Alpine Fires 2003 1 iii Eastern Victorian Fires 2003 Rehabilitation Plan 2. Major Plant species to be addressed in the Alpine Fire area 12 3. River Basin condition in Victoria and the Alpine Fire area 15 4. Fire severity areas (hectares) according to land category 18 5. Number and type of Indigenous sites in rehabilitation areas 21 6. Number and type of heritage places in rehabilitation areas 22 7. Extent of ‘overlay categories in the fire area 24 8. Assets damaged in parks 26 9. Agricultural loss assessment – 2002-03 fires 31 Appendices 1 Public land and overlaying areas with additional management requirements in the fire area 36 2 Key legislative obligations for rehabilitation of public land after fire 39 3 Australian threatened flora and fauna species in Rehabilitation Areas 41 4 Priority flora and fauna species and communities in Rehabilitation Areas 44 5 Fire Rehabilitation Projects 48 Figures 1 Fire Recovery Coordination arrangements 9 Maps 1 Eastern Victorian Fires - Fire Area and public land End of plan Eastern Victorian Fires 2003 Rehabilitation Plan iv 1. FIRE DESCRIPTION Fire location, land status and area burnt On 7 and 8 January 2003, lightning caused over 80 fires across eastern Victoria and 40 in NSW and ACT. By 13 January, all but nine of the Victorian fires were contained despite often erratic and intense fire behaviour. These nine fires subsequently merged on 29 January to become the largest fire in Victoria in more than 60 years – termed the Victorian Alpine Fires (DSE 2003). The Bogong North Complex (Ovens No. 38) fires, which started on 8 January 2003, moved further into the Alpine area, subsequently merging with fires in NSW and ACT. The Bogong South Complex (Upper Murray No. 36) fires, which also started on 8 January 2003, moved progressively into East Gippsland (DSE 2003). The Bogong North fires were first contained on 6 March 2003 only to be declared going again on 14 March and were not finally safe until 30 April 2003. The Bogong South fire was contained on 7 March but not considered safe until 30 April 2003. By the time these fires were finally declared contained, they had extended over approximately 1 million hectares of public land and private land, from Mount Buffalo in the west to near Bonang in the east and south to Swifts Creek. On 21 January 2003, the Eldorado (Ovens No. 55) and Stanley (Ovens No. 56) fires both started from unknown causes, 5 km NW of Beechworth in the Chiltern-Mt Pilot National Park and 2 km SW of Beechworth in the Beechworth Historic Park respectively. The fires burnt over 11 000 ha, most of this in the first six days. Both fires were declared contained on 27 January but required ongoing surveillance until 15 March when they were declared safe. The fires were contained by a sustained effort involving the Department of Sustainability and Environment as lead agency, supported by thousands of personnel from Parks Victoria and other government agencies, the Country Fire Authority, Shires, community organisations, private companies, and interstate and overseas land management agencies. The total area burnt in the eastern Victorian fire was 1 078 809 hectares, including parks, forest and freehold land (refer Map 1 and Table 1). The area of public land burnt was approximately 14% of Victoria’s 7.8 million hectares of public land. Table 1 Land status and areas burnt in the Eastern Victorian Fires 2003 Fire area Parks and State Forest Freehold (ha) Total Area Reserves (ha) (ha) burnt (ha) Victorian Alpine 470,200 507,300 90,000 1,067,500 Fire Eldorado Stanley 8,903 2,406 - 11,309 Total 479,103 509,706 90,000 1,078,809 % of total area 44.4% 47.2% 8.3% Source: Victorian Alpine Fires 2003 Maps – CD produced by the Department of Sustainability and Environment August 2003. 1 Eastern Victorian Fires 2003 Rehabilitation Plan The fires burnt 81% of Mt Buffalo National Park, 68% of Wabba Wilderness Park, 62 % of Mount Mitta Mitta Regional Park, 60 % of the Alpine National Park, 27% of the Snowy River National Park, 33% of Chiltern-Mt Pilot National Park, all of 12 conservation reserves including Mount Wills and Mount Murphy Historic Areas, and 22% of State forest within the North East, Gippsland and East Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement areas. Appendix 1 provides greater detail of the land categories and areas burnt. There are also categories or zones of public land that ‘overlay’ the burnt park and forest areas that have additional management objectives and rehabilitation requirements. These overlay categories are summarised in Table 7. Context In the summer of 2002-3 Victoria was in the grip of a severe and prolonged drought. To compound the effects of the drought, Victoria had experienced an extremely dry summer. Much of the state had received below average rainfall since 1996. The fires in Victoria in the summer of 2003-03 were the largest experienced in the State since the 1939 fires that burnt more than 1.5 million hectares. Firefighters had attended 470 fires before the outbreak of the Victorian Alpine fires on 8 January 2003.