Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The bushfire season in the South West of Western Australia generally occurs between November and April each year. It is a time that represents increased risk to all, but especially to those who live in, around or near the bush. Bushfires can be devastating to entire communities, and the impact lives on for a long time.

In the South West we still remember the fires in Dwellingup in 1961, which left 800 people homeless. Fifty years later we saw the devastation in Margaret River, where fifty homes were lost. There have also been significant blazes in Nannup and Bridgetown. The risk is great, and so must be the effort to be prepared, especially given the late rains and the fuel loads. Bushfires will never be completely prevented. If we retain forests and the natural environment, we retain the risk of fire. And we will never be able to stop all ignitions—after all, who among us can control lightning?

We can reduce the risk, and indeed we should, by the use of controlled burns to reduce fuel loads, but we can never eliminate it. So it is essential that everybody at risk is prepared, and has a plan in the event of bushfire. Preparation and risk minimisation is essential. This involves some obvious actions, including cleaning gutters to remove fuel from the house itself. But it also includes strategic planning from the day we build.

Western Australia's Department of Fire and Emergency website 'Prepare Before the Season' asks if your local area has a bushfire history and if you have trees or shrubs within twenty metres of your house. Answering 'yes' to either indicates that bushfire is a real risk to you. This means that a lot of houses in the South West are at risk. We have some of the greatest environmental assets in the world. We are an internationally recognised biodiversity hotspot with unique flora and fauna, and many of us want to live as close to nature as possible.

However, if you build a wooden house in a forest and have trees and shrubs coming up to the walls, your fire risk is extreme. To stay and defend such a property, if that is your intention, you must have the right equipment including water and the means to spray it without mains electricity. Having an up-to-date bushfire plan is critical to the safety of you and your family from this time of year onwards into the summer.

I hope we have no major bushfires this upcoming fire season. But most of all, I hope we are all prepared if we do. I would like to acknowledge the 4,934 local bushfire service volunteers right across the South West along with the 294 SES volunteers, 570 volunteer fire and rescue personnel and 29 specific volunteer fire personnel. We certainly could not survive without these people. These are some of those who faced some of Western Australia's biggest challenges fighting the enormous and complex fires that threatened Northcliffe and Boddington as well as a number of other potentially serious fires through the South West last summer. The Northcliffe fire burnt out 98,000 hectares—the biggest bushfire in the South West since Dwellingup in 1961 and Boddington, some 52,000 hectares. South West volunteer and career firefighters worked more than 96,000 hours to contain and control those fires. Firefighters attended from right around my electorate and I want to acknowledge the work that they have done to date but also acknowledge the threat that exists in the summer ahead. I thank them in advance for the work that they will be doing over the summer in keeping our community safe right throughout the South West of Western Australia.

House adjourned at 20:00

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