Fundamental change' needed in fire preparation and response: Lapsley

Improved firefighter protection, more use of emerging technology to fight blazes around the clock and prescribed burns on private land are among priority changes proposed by former Victoria emergency chief Craig Lapsley.

Craig Lapsley during the 2017-18 bushfire season, when he
 was Victoria's emergency management commissioner.

In a submission to the federal Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, Mr Lapsley says authorities need a "fundamental change from a traditional response dominated focus", as climate change in particular drives conditions that are "now very different" from the past.

"Bushfire risk and response will need a change of horizon to a more proactive mitigation, early detection, improved suppression and building community resilience," Mr Lapsley says. Submissions to the commission close on Tuesday.

Extreme landscape-scale drying of the soil and vegetation as seen last season were not yet captured by fire danger indices, nor was the "aberrant" fire behaviour triggered by large pyro-convective columns that create "erratic, unpredictable and completely uncontrollable" blazes.

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam and Mike Foley - “‘Fundamental change' needed in fire preparation and response: Lapsley.”