Queensland's major bushfire mitigation exercise this year is being hailed as its most successful, harnessing lessons learnt from last season's Black Summer fires.
This year's Operation Cool Burn saw 104 hazard reduction activities completed in high-risk areas within the central region — the highest number recorded for the area.
"It's our most successful cool burn activity … and we're very proud of that," Rural Fire Service Queensland regional manager Brian Smith said.
"That included hazard-reduction activities through burning … slashing, and also putting fire breaks and other mitigation processes in place."
Mr Smith said the success was result of lessons learned from last season's devastating bushfire events which highlighted how crucial hazard reduction was in preventing the spread of fires.
"As we've seen over the last couple of years, particularly here in central Queensland, those temperatures have been increasing, the winds speeds have been increasing, the drought conditions on the fields have dried that fuel out," he said.
"So it's about [controlling] the things we can change, which is the fuel load."
'Right tools' to develop fire plan
Landowners are being urged to work with local fire authorities to prepare their own properties and develop a bushfire management plan.
Peter Donaghy has a property at Emu Park, 50 kilometres east of Rockhampton, who worked with the Rural Fire Service to back burn his property for the first time this year.
He said the fire management plan gave him the right tools to properly prepare his land.
"Managing the fire load on your property by yourself isn't easy without the right tools," he said.
"By developing a plan, and understanding how fires burn and what you can do to manage that risk, makes it a much more achievable task."
Mr Donaghy said his efforts in preparing his property were also influenced by the number of subdivided lots around his property that now have houses on them.
"Controlling the impacts on those houses if a fire got away would be quite challenging," he said.
"The goal that I had watching what unravelled last year was to ensure that my property was prepared as best that we could prepare it."
Mr Donaghy said in working with the authorities to develop his plan, hazard reduction burning was less daunting and he urged more landholders to do it.
"The tools that QFES gave me to develop the fire management plan and to understand how we calculate the fire risk, the fire risk index, and use that to pick the day that we burn, was just terrific," he said.
"I'd recommend any land holder in central Queensland … to develop a fire management plan and reach out to QFES and get some assistance."
