The ACT is badly prepared for the imminent fire season, according to one of the most respected experts on the remote, fuel-rich bush around Canberra where fires often start.
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In May, Brett McNamara left the ACT Parks department after 30 years of service, much of it on the ground in the areas ravaged by fire in 2003 and 2020.
His strong view is that essential work repairing fire trails after the destruction of 2020 is yet to be done.
This means that fire trucks and dozers can't get to the areas likely to be struck by lightning as the forecast heat of a dry spring and summer builds up.
His view is that the work has not be done to give access, and that means that fires will not be able to be contained before they spread out of control.
"We don't have the capacity to get machinery into this area, to work with air support and ground crews," he said.
Fears shared within government
He voiced his "absolute frustration". He said he was speaking out now in the hope that work starts before it's too late. He said well-placed people currently employed by the ACT government had voiced the same fears.
He said that the key question was whether a fire truck could get to the Cotter Hut in the Bimberi Wilderness in Namadgi National Park. He says it can't.
That, he said, is where fires tend to start and, accordingly, where they need to be tackled before they spread out of control.
The Canberra Times asked the ACT government and the Emergency Services Agency: "Can a fire-truck get to the Cotter Hut in the Upper Cotter at the moment?" but got no response to that specific question.
In a more general response, the ESA said: "The ACT Rural Fire Service is prepared and ready to fight bush and grass fires in the ACT and its surrounds and do not foresee any circumstances where this would not be possible".
The ESA added that ACT fire appliances were four-wheel-drive "and built to navigate the rural roads and trails within the ACT".
Its statement continued: "During the bushfire season the ACTRFS also contracts three aerial firefighting helicopters that can be quickly mobilised to provide intelligence and firefighting capabilities where necessary. Two of the contracted aircraft are equipped with winches, allowing firefighting crews to be inserted into remote locations."
Crucial fire trail network
Mr McNamara started as a ranger and ended a distinguished career as a manager with ACT Parks and Recreation. He fought the 2020 Black Summer bushfires and the fires in 2003 (from which he still has a scar on the tip of his nose where his face mask caught fire as he tried - and failed - to save his home).
He said that three years after the 2020 fires, essential work on reinstating the fire-trail network within Namadgi National Park is still to be started.
"After 2003, we had brought back the fire trails after two years, but here we are, still talking about it," he said.
The wheels are spinning but there's no traction. There's nothing happening on the ground. The time for talk is over. It needs action.
- Brett McNamara
His great fear is that the inaccessible areas include the alpine sphagnum bogs which are the source of Canberra's water supply.
"It was burned in 2003. It was burned in 2020. It can't be burned again," Mr McNamara said.
"Fire there would threaten Canberra because of our water. The water catchment has to be protected from fire because without it, we have nothing."
"If they (the bogs) were to burn, it would be devastating. Without a functioning eco-system, we don't have an inland city."
There are two types of vehicles which need access to the Bimberi wilderness to fight a fire. They are dozers on the back of trucks to create fire-breaks and, secondly, fire trucks which, even though they are four-wheel drive, he said still can't get into the crucial area because fire and floods have washed trails and bridges away.
"We need to start pushing dirt urgently to rebuild the fire-trail network within the Bimberi Wilderness in the Namadgi National Park," he said. "That is critical to protect the ACT."
Mr McNamara said the problem was not a lack of money, Rather, he said, it was bureaucracy. "There's a lot of talk, a lot of good intentions, a lot of briefing notes. It all looks very good," he said.
But the reality was different: "The wheels are spinning but there's no traction. There's nothing happening on the ground. The time for talk is over. It needs action."
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
