The January fires burnt out 10,500 hectares of ACT Forests’ commercial pine plantations. All 24 staff of ACT Forests – all trained in fire-fighting – helped fight the fires. Now they are working on the recovery.
ACT Forests estimates the loss of about seven million trees will cost $50 million. Damage to buildings was $10 million.
ACT Forests has been faced with the task of clearing and restoring the forests and trying to regain some of the recreation uses of its forests.
Only 5500 hectares of ACT Forests plantations were untouched – the plantations at Kowen, Fairbairn, Majura and Tuggeranong
The director of ACT Forests, Tony Bartlett, said that since the fires ACT Forests had managed to salvage 68,000 tonnes from the burnt plantations and produced 15,000 tonnes of chips produced for biofuel for sale to companies like Visy at Tumut. Revenue from the salvage has so far been $4 million.
ACT Forests has also cleared a buffer of at least 100 metres wide between the Stromlo plantation and the urban area in Duffy and Holder. This will help alleviate fears of residents in the lead up to the next fire season.
It has also heaped more than 400 hectares of burnt trees in the Uriarra and Pierces Creek plantations and done 750 hectares of serrated tussock control since the fires.
ACT Forests hopes to complete the heaping of burnt trees in Stromlo by Christmas. Stromlo is the subject of one of several inquiries announced in February into non-urban areas affected by the fires. The area bounded by Uriarra Road and Coppins Crossing Road is being looked at for possible residential use. The recommendations of this inquiry and any recommendations on the use of Kowen Forest, which was not affected by the fire, will be considered with the Spatial Plan which will look at the whole of Canberra’s land use and be completed by the end of the year.
Another inquiry headed by Sandy Hollway, chair of the Bushfire Recovery Taskforce, will look at choices for other non-urban areas such as pine and hardwood plantations, bushland, rural residential, farming, recreation land as so on.
Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said, “It will consider the social, environmental and economic roles of these areas including the future of pine plantations and the concerns of the rural sector.”
The inquiry would determine the long-term viability of softwood plantations in the affected areas.
However, Stanhope said time was critical, as the areas devastated by the fires are prone to erosion and it was imperative that decisions were made as soon as possible – particularly in the water-catchment areas.
ACT Forests aerially applied sterile grass seed and clover seed in April and May 2003 on its burnt areas to assist in soil stabilisation after the fires. Over 7000 hectares was covered with 60 tonnes of seed.
The inquiry is expected to report in October after consultation and the publication of an option paper.
Urban Services Minister Bill Wood said there were issues about replanting the area with trees other than pines, because there had been difficulty reinstating eucalypts in Boboyan Pines, at the south of Namadgi, which had been progressively removed during recent years.
ACT Forests has submitted a business case to the inquiries.
On the recreation side, there was the successful running of the Rally of Canberra in May.
Rally driver Simon Evans was shocked by the extent of the damage.
“It reminded me quite vividly of the aftermath of the ’83 Ash Wednesday fires down in Victoria,” he said. “My family lived in Beaconsfield and our house was one of very few which survived that huge bushfire.”
He said the burnt fingers of pine lining the forest roads made the stages used by the rally appear – at least from the driver’s seat – “a bit menacing”.
ACT Forests hopes to have Deeks Forest Park open this month and Blue Range and Woods Reserve recreational areas open next month.
It has planned a major environmental weed program, in particular blackberries, for the spring. It is building of a new land management depot in the Weston Creek area, the first stage of which should be completed by Christmas.
The fires also burnt out 27,000ha of farmland and rural housing, 110,000ha of nature reserves and national parks in addition to the 11,000ha of plantation forestry. In all about 70 per cent of the ACT was affected by the fires.
All of ACT Forests’ commercial plantations are pine. ACT Forests has a cork oak plantation and a Himalayan cedar plantation at Stromlo which were saved from the fires. It also has a eucalypt fuelwood plantation at Gungahlin and at Lyneham Ridge.
ACT Forests also manages some native forest areas for conservation in the Kowen, Pierces Creek and Uriarra plantations.