The NSW Alps 5 years after the 2019/2020 bushfires

Opinion and opportunities review John O’Donnell on 4 April 2025

The author undertook this 5-year review of the alpine area post the 2019/20 Dunns Road bushfire, in particular the Kosciuszko National Park (KNP) section and areas to the west and south of this. One of the reasons for this review was to provide a detailed photographic record 5 years after the Dunns Road bushfire and also consider opportunities to better manage the land and vegetation.

The full review link is available.

The review involved an assessment of 100 kilometres of forest, woodland and grassland areas of the NSW alps next to sealed roads affected by the 2019/ 2020 Dunns Road bushfire. The author believes in the importance of providing alternative opinions in order to optimise fire management in this important area.

The 2019/ 20 bushfires had a disastrous impact across the KNP landscape, as evidenced by the information in this review The same disastrous impact applied with the 2003 KNP bushfires and earlier intense bushfires.

The author considers that current fire management approaches across this landscape are not working.

The current small scale prescribed burn approach is not going to work in the KNP, the areas to the west nor elsewhere. Across NSW, prescribed burning of forested areas has an average of 0.6 % of forests per year over the last seven years. Section 4.1 outlines current prescribed burning rates in KNP, in reality they are very low, although slightly higher than the very low recent NSW prescribed burning of forests % average.

Over the landscape, fuels now contain a high proportion of woody material and for many years subsequent bushfires will have long burnout periods and be more damaging to the regenerating trees and vegetation.

The author and others consider that it should be the aim of management of all forests that the scale and degree of impact of high intensity bushfires should be limited in extent as far as possible. And this can only be done by professionally targeted and applied prescribed burning and cooperation between all key parties. 

The same applies to setting up fire resilient landscapes. Fire fighter and community safety are also very important.

The author considers that repeat bushfires at 6 to 10 years post 2019/ 2020 may be a whole different proposition and likely result in large scale vegetation changes. With the large fuel loads within KNP from the 2003, 2019/ 20, earlier bushfires and other areas of high fuel loads outside these areas, repeat bushfires and megafires are possible in any bad fire season, or maybe not even a bad fire season.

Thirteen opportunities have been identified in Section 5 that represent real opportunities to start turning current fire management around. The author has made the effort to document these opportunities in good faith and like most, wants to see a fire resilient, health and fire safe alps. 

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Source & image credit: John O’Donnell