COMMUNITY input will help determine how bushfire risks are managed in the Grampians region.
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The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning is reviewing bushfire management strategies across Victoria as part of the state government's Safer Together framework, which adopts a multi-agency approach to bushfire planning.
Consultation with residents during the three-phase Grampians review will help inform where risk reduction work such as planned burns will happen, and what level of public land is burned.
Phase one last year involved consultation about regional objectives, which led to the department developing four fuel management strategies. Phase two over the past month has allowed the community to provide feedback on these options.
The department, Parks Victoria, the Country Fire Authority, council representatives, HVP Plantations and Emergency Management Victoria are now developing final strategies before another community review stage - phase three - in August.
The work comes as the region commemorates the anniversaries of two of the most significant bushfires in its history - the Northern Grampians Complex fire five years ago, and the Remlaw fire on Black Saturday 10 years ago.
Grampians regional assistant chief fire officer Tony English said the review's goal was to design a long-term plan that reflected what communities valued and wanted to protect in their towns and favourite places.
"The main aim of this review in the Grampians region is to evaluate what the community prefer, as this will be used as a key indicator when selecting the preferred strategy," he said.
"The process of developing a plan brings together land and fire managers, communities and other key stakeholders to develop a common understanding of bushfire risk across the landscape, and determine appropriate management actions to reduce that risk.
"Each regional approach reflects the values, priorities, environment and the unique risk profile of that place. This means that each region has different priorities, objectives and, ultimately, different strategies.
"The aim is for all communities to have the opportunity to contribute to finalised bushfire management strategies."
Mr English said community consultations - which focused on public land - found caring for people and dependability were residents' core values.
"In phase one of the consultation process, the Grampians community told us to focus on protecting people's lives from bushfire," he said.
"They also told us that they valued major infrastructure, plants and animals and water supply facilities. We have used this to develop the four alternative fuel management strategies."
Mr English said these strategies detailed varying levels of planned burning, with each approach resulting in different outcomes across a number of indicators. These include the level of risk reduction offered to high-risk towns; how much burning targets reducing risks to infrastructure and economic assets; the number of towns involved; ecological values; and implementation costs.
Mr English said along with community feedback, the planning team considered risk analysis, ecological values, agency knowledge, and past decisions when developing the strategies.
He said the team would develop final strategies over the next few months, with the aim of releasing the final bushfire management strategy in October.
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