Both Fire and Road Safety !

 At the end of the 2020 disastrous bushfire summer this blog carried pictures for the first and only time.  They illustrated a safety initiative that had taken place in Victoria to insulate public highways from future fire risk and drew comparison with the unchanged situation in New South Wales.

That difference was compelling.   In Victoria, all trees had been cut back forty metres from the roadway on both sides of the road, increasing the line of sight for motorists and adding light on cloudy, gloomy days.  It also totally eliminates the risk of bushfires closing the road because of burning trees blocking the escape of people evacuating fire areas.

In New South Wales those same trees are allowed to grow within a metre of the road surface.  Reports of road deaths often carry news that for a given reason the vehicle left the road - and hit a tree.  It stands to reason if there was forty metres of clear space beside the road many such incidents would be less fatal.

Now we hear the amazing news that this initiative was also planned for New South Wales and was ordered by our Transport Minister. Application of that order was the responsibility of the Transport for New South Wales Secretary - who has now been sacked.

This issue has been raised in the New South Wales parliament, with a written reply from the Transport Secretary claiming that only high risk fire affected trees had been removed because of the " limited powers " in existence to clear a forty metre zone under the Roads Act 1993.

Australia always has had a bushfire risk and our leading scientists claim the fire season will be more extreme and last longer because of global warming.   Our highways are the prime evacuation routes when fires cause residents to seek shelter, and yet are first casualties when fire causes trees to fall and block these escape routes.

It is important that this initiative be actioned before the next fire season, and it could resolve a problem for the sawmill industry. Most of the trees requiring removal are big, healthy specimens and this clearing should be undertaken in conjunction with the sawmill industry.  There is every reason this resource should be milled to provide the raw material required by the building industry.

The difference is that loggers generally cut trees leaving a stump a metre high for regrowth.  As the Victorian example clearly shows, clearing beside roads requires the trees to be cut at ground level to remove a collision hazard.

If it is necessary to amend the Roads Act to allow this to be implemented, that is a task the state parliament should attend to with urgency.  Many of our main roads were constructed in the horse and cart days when road speeds were minimal.  It is almost suicidal to contemplate cars driving at a hundred kph with massive trees just a metre from the road edge.

This is a necessary initiative, from both a fire safety and a driver safety point of view.   Its implementation is long overdue in this state !