CLOSE to half the Woorinen South community is at serious risk of losing their properties this fire season after years of neglect of bordering bushland, according to members of the local progress association.
Woorinen South residents can remember the last time the Bushland Reserve was burnt off and now rubbish including dumped TVs, car bodies, washing machines and other household discards sit on crown land behind private properties.
Throughout the reserve at least a decade of dry leaves, dead wood and other natural fuel has been allowed to build up.
“We’ve been lucky so far,” secretary of the Woorinen South Progress Association Lisa Ashdown said.
“At least 50 households border the reserve, so about half the town is at risk.
“The biggest concern is if it catches fire it will be an absolute disaster.”
Mrs Ashdown said the progress association had contacted authorities about a decade ago to get something done at the reserve.
At the time she says her inquiry was passed from the Department of Sustainability and the Environment in Mildura to Parks Victoria in Swan Hill, yet still nothing was done.
Residents are waiting on a Fire Action Plan, being put together but the Swan Hill and Mildura councils, after a review of bushfire hazards in Woorinen South by the CFA, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and staff from council earlier this year.
The draft report is expected to be published early 2016.
Meanwhile, properties bordering the reserve have trees right up to their fences, with some touching their eaves and roofs, while The Guardian saw yards with large piles of dry garden waste piled meters high, seemingly waiting to be burned.
For more on this story, grab a copy of Wednesday’s Guardian (November 11).
