Community Resilience

The sector consistently works to build and maintain the safety and resilience of the South Australian community through a range of activities including community education initiatives, training, collaborative partnerships and special campaigns.

New Plan of Attack for KI

The new Kangaroo Island Bushfire Risk Management Plan is the first of its kind in South Australia and, as a landscape scale plan involving all land managers and owners, is a step forward in the management of bushfire risk. The plan has been developed in response to the devastating bushfires of 2007 that destroyed 95,000 hectares of land on Kangaroo Island and resulted in the loss of one life. The pilot plan has been developed using the New South Wales Rural Fire Service planning framework, and the RFS has provided significant support for the project.

The final draft of the plan, released by the Kangaroo Island District Bushfire Prevention Committee on Thursday 16 July 2009, includes new provisions to enable private landholders to better prepare their properties to withstand bushfire attack. It also deals with a wide range of strategies designed to mitigate bushfire risk across the landscape including hazard reduction, community education, and review of bushfire protection zoning.

CFS Chief Officer Euan Ferguson commends the fact that community engagement and partnerships with various stakeholders played an integral part in the development of the plan.

"This document reinforces existing partnerships between the CFS, Kangaroo Island Council, DEH and SA Water, resulting in a more integrated approach to satisfy fire management planning objectives

"Managing bushfire risk is a shared responsibility and therefore anyone who lives, works or regularly visits Kangaroo Island will be influenced by this document."

The Bushfire Risk Management Plan is a comprehensive strategic document that maps and describes the level of bushfire risk across the island, along with the proposed treatments to minimise and mitigate the risk and outlines who is responsible for carrying out these treatments. Euan says that he hopes the new bushfire plan can be the template for developing similar plans across the state with the same level of community and stakeholder engagement.

Driven by the community in the first instance, the plan is now available for comment as the community is invited to have the final say. You can view the plan at the following link:

Kangaroo Island Bushfire Risk Management Plan