Fire trails in the ACT are in poor condition due to a lack of maintenance and there is little interest in fire management in the upper echelons of the environment and planning directorate, a former senior director of ACT Parks has told an inquiry.
Former ACT Parks and Conservation senior director of fire, forest and roads Neil Cooper said the maintenance of the territory's fire trails had gone "down hill".
"I've witnessed that first hand," he said.
Mr Cooper, who held the position from 2005 to 2021, said bureaucratic processes in the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate (EPSDD) for road maintenance were an impediment.
"There's also a real impediment within EPSDD and parks around the bureaucratic processes that one needs to go through to undertake what is essentially road maintenance of an existing trail," he said.
Mr Cooper was speaking at a Legislative Assembly inquiry into the ACT's bushfire preparedness. In his written submission, he wrote the directorate was predominantly focused on urban planning issues and he struggled to get attention on fire management issues.
"In my 16 years as senior director of the ACTPCS first forest and roads section, I witnessed very little involvement or interest from the senior EPSDD executive in the fire management program," he wrote.
ACT Multi Hazard Advisory Council chair Sally Troy told the inquiry that communities in the territory were not adequately prepared as they needed the right information.
"I don't think the communities are adequately prepared. In its simplest form, preparedness is having the right information and the right resources," she said.
Dr Troy said the territory's highly transient population meant not many may have been in the capital when the 2003 bushfires occurred.
"We can't assume that people who've had experience in the major bushfires 20 years ago are still the dominant members of the community," she said.
"That memory and knowledge fades very quickly and needs to be constantly refreshed."
Dr Troy said government needed to think about how information gets through to all sectors of the community, including people who do not speak English as a first language
A former director of ACT Forests Tony Bartlett, who is also a member of the ACT Multi Hazards Advisory Council but was appearing in a personal capacity, also gave evidence to the committee on Tuesday morning.
He said, in his submission, while the ACT was better prepared to fight bushfires now than in 2003 he was concerned areas were being overlooked.
"I have significant concerns that some aspects of the hard learned lessons from 2003 are now being overlooked or diminished and that the current collective bushfire management strategies in the ACT will not be adequate when the next major bushfire occurs," Dr Bartlett wrote in the submission.
"It is my considered view that just doing more of the same, or less of the same as appears to be occurring, will be found to be wanting when Canberra is next threatened by a severe bushfire."
