The Victorian Alpine Fires Salvage Program: Response, Progress and Lessons (Report‪)‬

Introduction The mountain forests of north-eastern Victoria and eastern Gippsland are characterised by extensive stands of mixed eucalypt species and pure alpine ash that serve as the resource base for a number of sawmills in eastern Victoria. Fire is an integral part of this environment, with ignitions by lightning an annual event. The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) commits significant resources to detecting and suppressing these fires, and has a high rate of success with first attack. Periodically, however, large fires develop that cannot be readily controlled, due to a combination of high fuel loads, prevailing weather conditions and insufficient firefighting resources (Rawson et al. 1983; Esplin 2003; Wareing and Flinn 2003). On 8 January 2003, after six consecutive years of drought, lightning from a dry storm ignited 86 fires in these forests. While most of these fires were controlled within a few days, a small number in remote terrain could not be controlled and ultimately joined to become the 2003 'Alpine' fires, the largest in Victoria since the devastating 'Black Friday' fires in 1939.