Timber growers and processors are heading into the 2026-27 bushfire season with more than $100 million invested in fire prevention, mitigation, and response across Australia. That is according to the Australian Forest Products Association, the peak national industry body for the forest products value chain, which yesterday set out the sector’s firefighting resources for a season it says starts today.
“Our sector is fully committed and ready to reduce and manage bushfire risks, and invests significant resources every year on preparedness and prevention,” AFPA Senior Policy Manager and bushfire spokesperson Dominic Lane said. He said the industry is embracing new techniques to cut fuel loads, with Wespine, a pine sawmiller in Western Australia’s South West, trialling goats and cattle in forests.
Pyrograzing, as the biological method is known, offers a “highly customisable, low-emission approach to fire management,” Lane said. AFPA joined forestry members near Bunbury on the state’s south-west coast to demonstrate the industry’s commitment to reducing bushfire risk in regional communities.
According to Lane, the industry has a “long and effective tradition” of keeping forests, assets, and communities safe, and works closely with local, state, and national emergency management authorities and volunteers to protect farms, reserves, and wildlife, as well as forests.
Lane said nearly $65 million a year is spent on firebreaks, roads, prescribed burning, and fuel management, whilst almost $30 million funds more than 1,200 firefighting appliances and 1,500 personnel. A further $8 million covers 137 fire towers, detection cameras, and other monitoring systems, according to the member survey AFPA first published a year ago.
Forestry companies contribute another $15 million through insurance and other levies that support bushfire preparedness and response, Lane said. The industry works “hand-in-glove” with local fire authorities, he said, and regularly undertakes hazard-reduction burning to reduce fuel loads.
It comes as Australia’s fire chiefs warn that above-average fuel loads and dry soil are lifting fire risk across parts of Western Australia this spring. Rob Webb, chief executive of the Australian and New Zealand Council for Fire and Emergency Services, said communities must “understand their local conditions and prepare early.” It also expects heightened risk in northern and south-eastern New South Wales, south-east Queensland, north-eastern Tasmania, and large parts of the Northern Territory.
