Exclusive: Residents who fought the black summer bushfires are concerned access tracks are not being maintained
Residents of a Blue Mountains town who were forced to defend themselves against an out-of-control backburn during the black summer bushfires are concerned fire trails in the area are not being maintained ahead the fire season.
A spokesperson for the RFS said the responsibility for maintaining fire trails lay with the agency or party that owned the land on which they were located. One of the deputy captains of the Kurrajong Heights RFS, Brian Williams, who has served in the local brigade for more than 50 years, said it was an issue that multiple agencies were responsible for maintaining fire trails.
“To get the best environmental result and the result for the community you need to be burning on no less than the seven-eight year cycle … or the fire gets too hot,” he said.They said the service had spent more than $42m on fire trail upgrades and maintenance in the past financial year and all met the RFS standards.
The retired farmer has repeatedly raised concerns that the fire that devastated his community could return if a 76-hectare parcel of crown land on Bells Line of Road, which was engulfed by the escaped backburn in 2019, is not cleared.In April last year, the RFS assessed the block of land. The internal report, seen by Guardian Australia, said “only in extreme conditions would a fire be of major concern and possibly leave the land in question”.
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