Dry, Dry, Dry

We're heading into another El Nino. The warnings from home are for a fire season worse than last year - at least for those areas that did not burn last February.

The Macedon Ranges (where we live) have to be at some considerable risk. The last big fire was in 1983 - and everything is bone dry. Our year to date rainfall is less than half the long term average - and this comes after a decade without an above average year!

Moora would usually be considered pretty safe. We have no long grass anywhere on the property really. We have relatively little native vegetation. Our farm house is made of non-combustible materials - and we keep it well cleared.

What concerns me is the potential for a sustained ember attack from native forests several kilometres away to our west. The media reporting from the current Royal Commission is not so great (does anyone know a good online source of discussion and analysis?), but it seems that an ember storm is one thing that is changing people's assessment of bushfire preparedness.

I'm also concerned about our tree farm at Grenville (south of Ballarat). Our tenant is about to harvest their wood chip plantation. That will mean part of the land is clear and provide some protection for our trees from our north. There are a number of houses on that side anyway - so I guess there would be a lot of effort concentrated there in the event of fire. We're vulnerable from the south and west. We will do our fire protection work - and make sure the insurance is in place and adequate.

We have another tree farm on Kangaroo Island. We had a fire burn right to our boundary in December 2007 - so I hope that gives us some protection for a few years at least.

The guy who helps us manage our forestry interests has been in plantation forestry for over 30 years - and the 2007 KI fires were the first time he saw losses of forests under his management. The cost level for insurance also suggests plantation loss is a very rare event. I trust it stays that way.