RUSSELL Island residents have raised serious issues with Redland City Council concerning the validity of the local authority’s hazard reduction burns and whether sufficient access and emergency infrastructure is in place.
There can hardly be more important issues than these because of the danger to lives and property from bushfires.
Islanders raised these matters after fire burnt perilously close to their homes in December. While no houses or lives were lost, the blaze scared many, especially those relatively new to the islands.
Groups like farmers generally have sound knowledge of fires but these conflagrations can be terrifying for suburban residents seeing them at first hand for the first time.
Council has brought in an independent arbiter in the form of the state government’s Queensland Fire and Emergency Services to look at its planning.
While residents’ questions need to be answered promptly, the issue highlights broader matters relevant to all who live in or adjoining bushland.
The most important relates to whether residents have a fire plan in place and whether they know what to do in such an emergency. It is already evident that many islanders – for whatever reason – were not aware of such needs.
The blaze also threw a light on matters like who owns which land, the number of absentee land owners, level of communication with them, if adjoining land zonings are compatible with each other and who is responsible for reducing vegetation loads.
It also has presented council – and perhaps QFES investigators – with a conundrum: to what extent should conservation reserves be burnt off?
Reserves are blocks put aside for their conservation value. Moreover, they are homes for valuable flora and fauna and have great aesthetic and environmental value for humans. They are not meant to be some sort of golf course-like parkland.
While residents have the right to expect good hazard management, this does not mean these places are to be routinely razed.
Council must protect residents and their property as best it can but it also must protect the natural environment which, after all, is one of the reasons people move to these islands.
While islanders call for vegetation reduction, mainland residents want more trees left, which illustrates how difficult it is in finding the middle ground. It’s a tricky issue.
