We urgently need to rethink how we protect our forests and communities from bushfires

And we need your support for our statewide campaign to challenge the Victorian government’s damaging, dangerous approach to forest fires, especially as our climate heats up.

The science is in. Planned burns don't work. They don't stop bushfires. In fact, they can make forests more flammable.

Planned burns harm human health with widespread smoke across rural and urban areas. They also destroy habitat, wound and kill wildlife, and threaten biodiversity. Fifty per cent of hollow-bearing habitat trees are destroyed or damaged in a planned burn. In setting up for a planned burn, critically important big old habitat trees along forest roads are also cut down, under the guise of “hazardous tree removal”.

122,000 hectares were lit up in 2024. Just under 300,000 hectares of state forest, national park and other lands are slated for deliberate burning this year. By contrast, logging affected 50,000 hectares over the whole of the last 13 years of native forest logging in Victoria.

Planned Burns are a massive threat to our native forests. We are calling for an immediate Pause and Review of Forest Fire Management Victoria's burn operations, and urging for a redirection of funds into rapid detection and suppression technologies, so small fires are put out before they become large.

Victoria’s unscientific and ineffective planned burns program is environmental vandalism on an industrial scale.

We need your support to stop this devastation. We need a Pause and Review of this fire management travesty.

Forest biodiversity is collapsing

Australia has one of the highest extinction rates in the world. Many forest-dependent species rely on large old trees and hollows for shelter and breeding, which take at least 120 years to develop but can be destroyed in a single fire. Government research found that around one quarter of hollow-bearing trees reached by planned burns collapse, a 27-fold increase in risk compared with unburnt trees. Each tree lost can wipe out habitat for dozens of species, with some populations dropping nearly 50%. Planned burns are repeated on cycles of varying lengths, meaning this destruction is exponential.

Fire management works are often documented in threatened species habitat, based on outdated data, ignoring recent observations, and recognising ecological damage only after it occurs. The result is a chain of cause and effect: biodiversity decline → dependence on ancient trees → destruction from burning → weak oversight. Without urgent reform, Victoria’s forests and the species that depend on them face mounting, long-term losses. (Lindenmayer & Taylor 2020; Lindenmayer et al. 2022, 2024; Bluff 2016)

Reform must be led by First Nations peoples, recognising their deep cultural, spiritual and custodial responsibilities to Country, and embedding their leadership in the care and management of all landscapes.

Planned Burns and Bushfire Risk

There are many scientific studies showing that planned burns are of little use for mitigating bushfires. See for instance, Land Management Practices Associated with House Loss in Wildfires.

Planned burns can increase the fire danger within a few years because of the pulse of regrowth that follows. As the understorey grows back after a fire, becoming taller and denser, fire risk greatly increased for the next 37 to 49 years. Source: Old forests three times less flammable.

Mature forests slow fires — broad-scale burning increases risk

Repeated broad-scale burning is making Victoria’s forests more flammable and destroying critical wildlife habitat.
Older, less disturbed forests are naturally less flammable. They have:

• Cooler, moister microclimates
• Denser canopies that slow fire spread
• Higher biodiversity, carbon storage, and water retention

Victoria’s current fire strategy focuses on frequent, large-scale burning. The problem: there’s simply too much forest to burn every 4–5 years, and repeated high-intensity burns fragment habitat, destroy species, and actually make forests more flammable over time. Hollow-bearing trees, rare species, and long-unburnt forest areas are particularly at risk.

Science supports smarter approaches that suppress fires quickly without destroying ecosystems:

• Rapid fire detection
• Aerial surveillance and remote sensing
• Fast initial attack
• Targeted protection of communities and homes

Protecting mature forests and reducing broad-scale burning is safer, more effective, and better for biodiversity, carbon, and water resources
See: Bradshaw, Lindenmayer & Zylstra 2022; Zylstra et al. 2016, 2018; Yebra et al. 2021.

Watch our webinars below with Prof. Phil Zylstra and Prof. David Lindenmayer to learn a bit more on the science and history of planned burns.

Want to dive deeper? Head to our Fire Resources page.

For more information about the science challenging planned burns, download our Fire Fast Facts brochure.

What about First Nations use of fire?

Modern planned burns have nothing in common with First Nations use of fire. There is vastly more fire in the Victorian landscape today than there was pre-colonisation. There is no evidence of even "cool" broadscale burning, of forest by Traditional Owners.

Conflating planned burns and forms of traditional fire management, including cultural or ecological burns, is dangerous and misdirected. We aren't campaigning against traditional fire management, or the use of any fire in landscapes. We're campaigning against a very specific type of forest fire management, called a 'planned burn'.

Have a listen to Prof. Phil Zylstra's exploration of these ideas, with particular attention to the dialogue between Zylstra and Wurundjeri elder Uncle Dave Wandin:

Impacts on Human Health

Smoke carries PM2.5s (particles tiny enough to penetrate deep into the lungs), the most toxic air pollution most of us will ever encounter, triggers asthma attacks and is carcinogenic.

In 2016, six days of planned burns around Sydney caused 14 premature deaths, 29 cardiovascular hospitalizations and 58 respiratory hospitalizations.

See:
• Health Burden of Bushfire Smoke in Australia.
• Function of PM2.5 in the pathogenesis of lung cancer and chronic airway inflammatory diseases.
• Health burden associated with fire smoke in Sydney, 2001–2013

Planned Burn on Gunnai-Kurnai country, Feb 2025.

Photo: Irene Proebsting

Impacts on Biodiversity

Planned Burns have a horrific impact on biodiversity. They destroy many hollow-bearing trees, which are crucial habitat for many of our endangered species. They also directly kill wildlife, and can scorch ecosystems at a severity that takes many years to recover from.

Long unburnt habitat is crucial for the conservation of many species, plant and animal alike. As climate change makes bushfire seasons longer and more severe, maintaining these patches of unburnt, fire resistant mature forest is increasingly important.

Read the links below or head to our Fire Resources page and watch some of the webinars.

• Bad fire science can kill our threatened species. It’s time to cooperate with nature.

• Long-unburnt habitat is critical for the conservation of threatened vertebrates across Australia.

Damage to hollow-bearing habitat trees

A 2016 Victorian government study found that 25 per cent of hollow-bearing trees that the fire reached, collapsed during planned burns. A further 27 per cent were damaged. If a planned burn is conducted every 7 to 12 years, which is the government's ideal burn cycle, this can mean that most hollow-bearing trees could be lost from that forest within 25 years. See Reducing the effect of planned burns on hollow-bearing trees.

"Hazardous tree removal"

This article describes an example of the practice of felling trees, associated with planned burns programs, and the consequences for wildlife: Endangered greater glider found dead next to department’s felling site.

The scale of planned burns devastation

See Table 11 of the 2023-24 annual report of Forest Fire Management Victoria for details of the 122,291 hectares which they burnt that year.

Our Solution 

We're urging the government to increase funding for rapid detection and response capability, so that small fires are put out before they become large. This is already an effective strategy. Over the 2024-2025 summer, more than 9 in 10 Victorian fires were contained as a result of the first attempt at suppression. And we can do this better.

DEECA sets a target that 80 % of new fires be contained under 5 hectares, yet crews routinely exceed this, containing 90 %+ of small fires through rapid detection and initial attack alone. Despite this proven success, resources continue to flow into broad-scale, high-intensity planned burns instead of expanding early detection and rapid response capacity. This is a deliberate strategy to maintain planned burns activity, rather than to reduce risk — a choice that increases forest flammability, fragments habitat and threatens biodiversity.

$160 million was spent on planned burns in 2023-2024. This is a massive spend that should be directed instead to improving rapid detection and suppression.

Want a crash course on the reality of planned burns and current bushfire management strategies?

Download our Fire Fast Facts sheet.

Citizen's Reporting on Planned Burns

See a planned burn get out of control? Observe some dodgy conduct by Forest Fire Management Victoria? We want to hear about it!

Head over to our Citizen's Reporting on Planned Burns page and make a report.