A total area of 74,882 hectares of land in the Hume region has been marked for Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning burn-offs this year in the hope of preventing serious bushfires.
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The Fire Operations Plan released this week shows that number increase each year, up to 75,988 hectares by 2017/18.
But residents will have to wait to see any smoke in the North East, with the ground currently too wet for DELWP to start burning.
“Cool and wet conditions throughout much of this week mean that much of the eastern half of the state is still unsuitable for burning and will remain this way for at least the next seven days,” the latest DELWP outlook states.
The size of burn-offs in the plan range from just a few hectares up to thousands.
New ecological burn-offs have been added to the plan for Wodonga this year, targetting parkland on the outskirts of the central business district.
Five burns have been listed to take place over the next year in Wodonga, Baranduda and Bandiana, which would involve traditional owners teaching traditional burning practices to Indigenous youths.
They range from 10 hectares to 426 hectares at Gateway Island, McFarlanes Hill, Waterworks, Baranduda and Kiewa River parklands.
The plan also includes a range of fuel-reduction burn-offs, such as a 606-hectare burn at Boweya in the Warby-Ovens National Park.
Boweya and surrounding towns were hit with a serious bushfire that stretched to more than 5000 hectares from Lake Rowan in December last year, tearing through farmland before burning into the edge of the Warby Range.
Bungeet farmer Doug James lost more than 1000 sheep in that devastating fire, but said any more burn-offs would not have made a difference.
His property is to the west of the bushland, meaning the fire got to his property before the national park.
But the former fire captain said he is skeptical about the effectiveness of burn-offs in helping to manage bushfires.
“Purely as a firebreak, they’re fairly useless,” Mr James said.
“When you’ve got a really windy day and the fire gets going, there’s not much you can do.”
When you’ve got a really windy day and the fire gets going, there’s not much you can do.
- Doug James
He said DELWP regularly conducts “patchwork areas” of burn-offs in the Warby Range, but there are low odds of fire hitting these sections.
“Any of the burning in the Warbys I’ve seen is pretty much neutral as far as a firebreak goes,” he said.
Fighting fires in bushland is different than open areas like the farmland that was burned in December.
Mr James said the best way to deal with a fire is when it happens, by getting people who know the terrain to chase the fire from behind and limit what it can do.
The approved plan can be viewed on the DELWP website at delwp.vic.gov.au.
