Supplementary Agenda of Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting

Supplementary Agenda (Open Portion)

Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting

Page 2

12/3/2020

The General Manager reports:

“That in accordance with the provisions of Part 2 Regulation 8(6) of the Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations 2015, these supplementary matters are submitted for the consideration of the Committee.

Pursuant to Regulation 8(6), I report that:

(a) information in relation to the matter was provided subsequent to the distribution of the agenda;

(b) the matter is regarded as urgent; and

Item No. 11

Supplementary Agenda (Open Portion)

Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting

Page 6

12/3/2020

Memorandum: Parks and Recreation Committee

Bushfire Preparedness - Update

The City of Hobart continues to work in partnership with key agencies and research bodies to ensure the organisation and the Hobart community is suitably resourced, informed and prepared for bushfire.

A Council briefing to be held on Thursday 12 March 2020, will provide an update to elected members.

Tasmania Fire Service

The Tasmania Fire Service will be presenting the summary of the 2019/20 bushfire season and will discuss plans that have been made for the current Autumn 2020 burning season.

The Program commenced on Wednesday 11 March with a joint TFS and Glenorchy City Council burn in the Limekiln Gully area.

The City of Hobart and the TFS hazard reduction burn is scheduled in the Junction Cabin area of Wellington Park Thursday 12 March 2020.

The TFS will also update the briefing on the progress of implementation of the 2019 AFAC (the Australian and New Zealand National Council for fire, emergency services and land management) Operational Review and a review of the implementation actions identified in that review of the 2019 Bushfire Response.

University of Tasmania

The City partnered with UTAS to investigate community attitudes to bushfire risk and mitigation measures in high risk suburbs of the City.

Dr Chloe Lucas will be briefing elected members of the research (undertaken through an online survey) that provides interesting insights into the perception of risk in what are considered to be high bushfire risk suburbs and the reaction people have to the likelihood of a bushfire impact upon their property. Some of these findings illustrate the need for greater direct engagement and information sharing with at risk communities and better informed communication to specific property owners.

The research also showed a high level of regard for the work undertaken by the City of Hobart to manage bushfire risk and the level of work undertaken to protect individual properties. Of particular interest are the additional comments provided in Question 54 of the survey which raise a number of side issues and qualitative comments which will be considered for future research. The responses are provided as an attachment.

City of Hobart

The Acting Director City Amenity will provide elected members with a short overview of the 2019-20 bushfire season from a City of Hobart perspective and details of the Autumn burning program to be undertaken by the City.

In addition, a preliminary scoping of the review of the value of an Ember Attack Strategy for the City of Hobart, requested by the Council in February 2020.

The Ember Attack Strategy has involved a review of the Greater Hobart Bushfire Mitigation Plan project which is currently underway through the Tasmania Fire Service. This is developing a broader risk management matrix for human settlement areas and utilising the Phoenix Rapid Fire Model to determine exposure to bushfire attack (direct impact, radiation and ember attack potential) for the Greater Hobart Region. This exposure layer and the assignment of relative values to assets and critical community infrastructure.

A review of the currently available information provided to the community by emergency services authorities is underway to determine if there is new or innovative messaging that can be used to better inform the community in Hobart of the requirements to prepare their property for the impact of bushfire.

The University of Tasmania has been approached for a joint proposal for a research project to better understand fine detail exposures of human settlement areas in the Great Hobart Region to bushfire attack. This proposal is likely to provide a measurement tool to allow the City to demonstrate the residual risk delivered by the carious fine scale mitigation measures undertaken by the City in our bushfire mitigation program. This is developing into a PhD stipend top up for a PhD candidate supervised by Prof Bowman at the University of Tasmania Fire Research Centre. The project will be using SPARC as a modelling tool to determine bushfire risk exposure and modifying parameters relevant to the bushfire mitigation program undertaken by the City. This will allow future modelling of proposed action to determine a level of risk reduction achievable by specific works.

The City is also undertaking a review of the community engagement tools is has used over the past three years and comparing that with web based survey results in order to improve and expand its information.

A summary of these is attached that demonstrates the wide range of tools used to date and the potential for expansion of these into different messaging and specific target areas of the community as required.

REcommendation

That the information contained in the memorandum be received and noted.

As signatory to this report, I certify that, pursuant to Section 55(1) of the Local Government Act 1993, I hold no interest, as referred to in Section 49 of the Local Government Act 1993, in matters contained in this report.

John Fisher

(Acting) Director City Amenity

Date: 11 March 2020

File Reference: F20/27505

Attachment a: Bushfire Awareness Campaign 2019/2020 ⇩

Attachment b: Survey Responses ⇩