Red tape, blackouts and recovery gaps: What went wrong during January’s bushfires?

Ten weeks after fires tore through parts of western Victoria, asbestos was still sitting in debris piles and fallen trees remained uncleared. It’s a delay Corangamite Shire councillors say shows the recovery system is not keeping up with disasters.

What happened? Corangamite councillors unanimously endorsed a formal submission to the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the January fires at Tuesday’s council meeting.

• Sustainable development director Justine Lindley told councillors the submission tracks the impact of the three major fires across the municipality - Skipton and Streatham, Larralea and the Otways. It warns that systemic gaps in communication, resourcing and recovery are unsolved.

Still healing: The impact of the fires is far from over, with more than 60 council staff still working on recovery operations. Communities across West Vic are also continuing to deal with fencing loss, livestock deaths, infrastructure damage and mental health pressures.

What are the main concerns? The council submission outlines a series of broader systemic issues identified during the fires, including under-resourced emergency management programs, fragile power and telecommunications infrastructure and the increasing costs of recovery for rural councils.

Councillors weigh in: Mayor Kate Makin said communications failures were one of the most serious issues identified, particularly once power and telecommunications went down.

• She said in some areas, residents had almost no way to receive emergency warnings once outages began, describing infrastructure resilience as a growing “life safety issue”.

Councillor Nick Cole gave a firsthand account of the night of the Skipton fire, describing arriving at the local fire station to find a newly delivered truck unable to be used because it had not yet been cleared through administrative processes.

• “I’m over red tape and bureaucracy, not happy with it,” he said, recounting how multiple lightning-strike fires ignited across the district while the truck sat unused.

A devastating January: The fires themselves caused widespread damage across the shire. 

• The Skipton–Streatham fire burned up to 20,000 hectares, destroying 18 houses, damaging six more, killing more than 7,000 sheep and damaging more than 1,100 kilometres of fencing. 

• The Larralea fire affected 18 properties and caused livestock, fencing and machinery losses.

• The Otways bushfire destroyed at least 16 structures near Gellibrand and burned more than 11,000 hectares.

Possible solutions: The Council will call for investment in backup communications and power, dedicated funding to increase local government emergency management capacity, upgraded fire brigade fleets, improved warnings for ultra-fast grassfires, expanded fuel management programs and more flexible, locally-led recovery funding.

• Councillors also voted unanimously to seek the opportunity to present directly to the parliamentary inquiry, which is due to report back to the Victorian Parliament by June 1.

Header image: Westmere CFA Group District 16