The number of professional firefighters would need to double by 2030 to meet demand of more raging fires, a new report has found.
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The Climate Council report, The Burning Issue, to be released on Thursday, had bad news for this fire season: dry weather could mean Australia is a “tinderbox” ready to burn.
It stated 2015 was likely to surpass 2014 as the hottest year on record and include more intense heatwaves nationwide.
Albury’s hottest October day in 2015 of 34.1 degrees was 13 degrees higher than the monthly average.
Climate Council professor Lesley Hughes warned conditions were similar to those in the recent United States summer, where more than 50,000 fires burned across the country.
“Australia will face the same set of circumstances more and more often in the future,” he said.
“Australia’s climate change action is not enough to protect Australians from worsening bushfires.”
Wodonga senior station officer Brett Myers said his brigade was serviced by three firefighters per shift plus as many volunteers as could turn up for calls.
“There is definitely a likelihood that we’ll need to increase the staff requirements at Wodonga,” he said.
“You look at volunteers, it’s definitely a dwindling number of people.”
The report said pressure to share resources would increase with demand.
Mr Myers said sharing resources across small towns was how the CFA regularly did business.
