Bushfire that burnt through plantation causes timber giant’s biggest loss since Black Summer

An out-of-control fire that burnt through hundreds of hectares of timber plantation west of Ballarat last month has rendered a large volume of pine destined for mills “unsalvageable”.

Hancock Victorian Plantation Holdings (HVP Plantations) lost 1,000 hectares of pine trees when bushland at Mount Lonarch went up in smoke in fires that began on February 22.

HVP Plantations corporate fire manager Richard Mailer said a large amount of pine, which was destined for mills in Victoria, as well as export, would be wasted.

“For plantations that are less than 12 years old, there’s very few products, if any, that can be recovered. So most of those areas are a total loss,” he said.

“But we are hoping that there is a considerable area that is of an age that we should be able to salvage some of the products.”

Mr Mailer said the Mount Lonarch fire had been the company’s biggest loss since the Black Summer fires of 2019-20 burnt through 6,000ha of the company’s estate.

He said once the losses were added together, they impacted their plans.

“It really does become a factor that does impact our long-term ability to supply our customers and maintain those mills that depend on our resource,” Mr Mailer said.

Staff called in to battle blaze

HVP, which is owned by a combination of Australian, Canadian and US superannuation and investment funds, manages 183,000ha of plantation forests in Victoria.

Mr Mailer said fire management was a “massive priority” for the company.

HVP sent in 100 staff from across Victoria and as far away as Queensland, who worked “day and night” alongside Country Fire Authority and Forest Fire Management Victoria firefighters to establish control lines and limit the spread of the fire, Mr Mailer said.

The company managed to save 700ha from a total 1,700ha estate.

The company was still assessing the total value of the loss. It planned to replant its Mount Lonarch estate to radiata pine this winter, Mr Mailer said.

Bushfire risk increasing

Victoria is home to Australia’s largest plantation timber estates, with a total of more than 380,000ha in 2021–22, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

It is also one of the regions most at risk from bushfires as global warming makes the climate hotter and drier.

Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and Society professor David Lindenmayer said forests in south-west Western Australia and south-eastern Australia were drying out.

“We’re seeing a significant increase in the number of extreme forest fire danger index days. In fact, it’s gone up tenfold since I was born more than 60 years ago,” Professor Lindenmayer said.

“We’re seeing an increase in the frequency of fire and an increase in the severity,” he said.

Australia’s timber industry shrinking

Australia’s national plantation estate shrank 15 per cent between 2009 and 2022, from 2.02 million to 1.72 million hectares, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The loss of plantations to bushfires, cyclones or other damage was one factor in the decline. The conversion of plantation land to agriculture also played a role, ABARES said in its report.

“Australia is losing more of its wood production forests than anywhere else in the world except Portugal,” Professor Lindenmayer said.

The future of plantation forestry was dependent upon fire management, he said.

“[It is] dependent on us being smarter in the way that we design plantations,” Professor Lindenmayer said.

“And smarter in the way that we use new technologies to detect fires quickly and then suppress them rapidly.”