Arthur Gorrie
Previously unreleased state government documents prove that official complacency fueled the fires which devastated most of Fraser Island over six weeks of uncontrolled destruction last year.
The documents, obtained by ABC News under Right to Information laws provide detailed information proving that senior Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service staff did not care enough to protect island ecosystems, including rainforest and animal species believed to have been decimated by the blaze.
As first reported in Gympie Today, the fires burned for six weeks, with no serious action taken to control them during most of this time.
The state government said at the time that its response, or lack of it, was based on “expert advice.”
Now, the newly-released emails reveal a senior official ridiculed calls for action, saying the fires were “not that bad” and that people wanting to take action, including the use of water-bombing aircraft were “wishing to indulge their profession.”
Even after water bombing began, another official described as a “senior QPWS bureaucrat” wrote “we are probably burning more $$$ than anything else.”
The report of Inspector General Emergency Management Alistair Dawson also confirmed Gympie Today’s report that much of the damage occurred “despite the availability of a water bombing aircraft based in Bundaberg.”
The national broadcaster has now independently established that the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service had offered to waterbomb the blaze, “but QPWS declined the offer for several reasons.”
Even after a senior ranger told superiors of QFES concerns about the safety of the Orchid Beach township, the emails revealed QPWS reluctance to pay for water bombing.
An email from QPWS executive Damien Head expressed a view that the fire “isn’t that bad” and people advocating waer bombing were likely to be “indulging their profession. Aka ‘do something.
“There is only another 36 hours of northerly before the southerly kicks in again and pushes the fire back on itself,” Mr Head wrote.
The fire began on October 14, but waterbombing did not begun until November 9.
By that stage, it was not enough on its own to extinguish the fires, which were eventually put out by the sudden arrival of heavy rain weeks later.
Then followed “confusion” about who would pay for it.
General manager of the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation Veronica Bird said it was “absolutely devastating” for traditional owners that so much (85 per cent) of the island had burned.
Rural Fire Brigade sector commander Winston Williams, whose responsibility covered the seriously endangered township of Happy Valley, said hazard reduction burning might have eliminated the need for air operations.
“But if fires become uncontrollable then aerial support should be be requested immediately to support ground crew for containment.
“I would belt everything at it ASAP,” he said.
The blaze burnt an estimated 85,000 hectares, more than half of the island, until it was eventually extinguished by a rain event in early December.
The fires ultimately threatened four townships – Orchid Beach, Happy Valley, Yidney Rocks and The Oaks – and came threateningly close on the island’s western side to the Kingfisher Bay resort and the Cathedrals campgoround.
They also threatened the QPWS base at Dundubara and Butchulla cultural sites.
In shutting down island visitation, ostensibly for safety reasons, the QPWS continued to allow access to people already on the island property owners and business operators, but specifically banned the media.
Gympie Today responded with a helicopter inspection of the fires, resulting in award winning exclusive photographs which were recognised at the Queensland Country Press Association’s annual awards for 2021.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told Brisbane television audiences the fire had been brought under control by th3e time QPWS passed incident control over to the QFES, but the Gympie Today photographs, taken two days later and showing hugely destructive and widespread burning, proved the premier had been misadvised.
The broadcaster quotes a spokesman for the QPWS parent department, Environment and Science, saying the fire was challenging and that “plans changed as information came to hand on weather conditions, vegetation type and the effectiveness of ground control efforts… throughout the two months of the firre.”
It quoted a QFES spokesperson saying it would be “inappropriate to comment on another agency’s operations or management of the incident.”
Rainbow Beach dingo conservationist and president of the National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program, Jennifer Parkhurst, said it was unlikely animals would have been able to outrun the flames and suffocating smoke from the fires.
Butchulla elder Lillian Burke said she had spoken to other elders to confirm their support for a call to shut the island down to give it time to recover.
“It’s not about the money, it’s about the land,” she said.
“Close the island down so it can recover,” she said, adding that it was about time Aboriginal people were given real land management authority instead of tokenism.
It was a call echoed in the IGEM report which called for greater decision making and management authority to be exercised by First Nations people.
Aunty Lillian said she had discussed the issue with other elders and they were agreed on a call to close the island for a year, or indefinitely, so it could recover.
“It’s disgraceful,” she said, claiming uncontrolled fires on the island had become too common.
“I’m sorry people’s houses are threatened, but I’m also concerned about the animals, especially our dingoes.
“Our people, the Aboriginal people, did burning off for years. It goes back before time.
“”Our story is the land was created by fire and we used fire to manage it.”
“There should be co-management between the Butchulla people and the QPWS and we should have a say in what’s happening on the island.
“There have been agreements but they’re tokenistic,” she said.
The IGEM report, made public in June, blasted slow and uncoordinated disaster responses by government agencies and a failure to make early use of water bombing aircraft.
The state government response acknowledged that the fires were much more dangerous than initially thought, posing a significant risk to property.
