Fire

As this final newsletter of the year demonstrates, rural health does not pause for the festive season. While many Australians take a well-earned break, rural, regional and remote communities continue to carry extraordinary responsibility—for food production, harvest, emergency response, service delivery and the steady functioning of our economy and society.

NSW councils looking for a quick fix to the ownership issues plaguing the Red Fleet have been left disappointed. The NSW government has released its Response to the Parliamentary Accounts Committee's Inquiry into Assets, premises and funding of the NSW RFS. Its response to the major recommendations that the assets be recognised as the property of the NSW RFS, has effectively been kicked down the road ...

The Americans had Apollo. The Soviets had Soyuz. The Chinese have Tiangong. And Australia? We now have the world’s first taxpayer-funded attempt to guide space exploration using songlines ... The real culprit here is modern academia, which now treats all “knowledge systems” as equal. They are not. Knowledge that is testable, repeatable, measurable and falsifiable is superior to knowledge that is not.

Family members and friends of some of the victims of the Koolewong fires have started gofundme appeals to help them get back on their feet ... Elyse, her boyfriend, her mother, her one-year-old son and their greyhound luckily escaped the flames but have lost their home and every belonging inside it.

The community is still reeling after a devastating bushfire destroyed 16 homes and damaged a further nine at Koolewong on Saturday, December 6 ... News of the fire first broke at around 1pm on Saturday at which time four homes had been lost, with reports of more homes destroyed surfacing during the afternoon and early evening...

Alex Nelson. When I moved to Pitchi Richi Sanctuary in October 2022, buffel grass smothered almost the entire site. Aside from a small area around the resident caretaker's cottage, I assessed that buffel grass comprised a minimum of 99.9 per cent of the groundcover across the entire property.

Carey Brennan. District farmers are resolute in their intention to deny access to Vicgrid and TCV employees trying to access their privately owned farm land along the VNI West 500 KV transmission line corridor. In the last two weeks, TCV badged employees have asked landowners for permission to enter farmland at Bungaluke, Glenloth, Teddywaddy, Wooroonook, Greens Creek, Wallaloo, Gre Gre and Normanville. All claim the right to access under Section 93 of the Essential Services Act but they are still required to have landowner permission to enter.

Farmers have warned the state’s national parks have become ticking time bombs for bushfires this summer. As authorities continued to confiscate large swathes of land to form national parks, NSW Farmers’ President Xavier Martin said vital resources to properly manage bushfire risks on public land had failed to follow.

Night time waterbombing was one of the recommendations from the NSW Bushfire Inquiry. Recently, the RFS owned CH47D Chinook helicopter was deployed to a major bushfire near Lithgow. The State Government has now responded to all 76 recommendations to transform the state’s ability to prepare, respond and recover...

For the first time, a contingent of Nepali fire and forest management professionals have visited Victoria to learn from our fire experience. The visitors were hosted in Victoria by the Australian Himalayan Foundation through the Australia Awards Fellowships program.

Mat Dalby. "if one person takes one lesson from any of this and adds to their own preparedness, then the effort is worth it." Shire of Denmark Bushfire Ready lead facilitator Murray Brooker asks everyone to 'be prepared and not regretful after the fact'.

Starting from ... 10 November 2025, the Shire of Ashburton’s Ranger Services will commence annual property inspections to ensure compliance under the Bush Fires Act 1954 and the Emergency Management Act 2005. These inspections are aimed at ensuring properties are prepared for the upcoming bushfire and cyclone seasons.

The National Aerial Firefighting Fleet is now in position and ready to respond when disasters hit, as Australia gears up for the 2025-26 Higher Risk Weather Season ... These aircraft are primarily used for firefighting, but can also contribute to supporting Australian communities across the country...

Aboriginal communities across NSW are working with Forestry Corporation to integrate cultural burning into government bushfire management frameworks. These local partnerships, under the Federal Government-funded program Fire, Country and People, aim to strengthen community resilience to major bushfire events and improve land management practices across traditional Aboriginal lands.  

Forest Fire Management Victoria’s (FFMVic) newest recruits are gearing up for the summer bushfire season, undertaking intensive training camps across the state.

This week's unseasonably hot weather and fast-moving fires in neighbouring council areas are a timely reminder to Scenic Rim residents to prepare their properties and develop a Bushfire Survival Plan. 

As part of efforts to prepare the Gannawarra for the fire season, Gannawarra Shire Council’s annual fire hazard property inspections have started. Council’s Local Laws team are travelling throughout the municipality, identifying properties which need to be cleared of fire risks and issuing Fire Prevention Notices to landowners, instructing them to carry out works to reduce fire risks.

A range of preparedness activities are underway as the Bureau of Meteorology releases its Higher Risk Weather Season Outlook ... Minister for Emergency Management Kristy McBain said the Albanese Government was working with states and territories to improve disaster management arrangements ...

The Upper Murray community gathered in solidarity at the Corryong Events Centre on Friday night to support one another and those who have suffered loss and hardships since the 2019-20 bushfires. The fourth Corryong Spirit event carried the message of 'Shining a Light into the Darkness' and the guest speakers reinforced that sentiment.

Check out the powerful exhibition Scars of Fire by photographer Liam Cuce, now showing at the Purple Starfish in Kaniva. With ancestral ties to Kaniva dating back to the 1800s, Liam returned not to retrace old footsteps but to document the impact of the present.