How communities, and councils, have rallied behind bushfire recovery

By Stuart McConnell
General Manager – Bushfire Recovery, East Gippsland Shire Council


Usually in December and January you’ll find me camping at the beach. Instead, this year I spent most of summer supporting our team at the incident control centres for the East Gippsland fires.  I joined in some amazing work setting up multiple relief centres and supporting many isolated communities. 

The summer bushfires have certainly rewritten 2020 for East Gippsland Shire Council. I am immensely proud of the work that our teams delivered in incredibly difficult circumstances. 

It has been a rough ride for East Gippsland. Three years of drought has had a major impact on our farmers and the businesses relying on them. Then bushfires burnt 56 per cent of East Gippsland and now COVID-19 is impacting communities, increasing isolation and doubling the effect on businesses. Throughout this I have learnt we have fantastic, resilient communities.

The combination of bushfires and COVID-19 has meant our focus on supporting our communities has been taken to a new level. While there remains a range of services that council needs to deliver, there is much that we have had to reconsider, redirect and create. Our journey to place management has been accelerated by the focus on recovery in at least eight community clusters. There are things we could never have anticipated, such as reopening a closed landfill to receive bushfire clean-up waste. 

Everyone in Council has a role to play in the recovery. We need to expect that any of our customers may have been impacted by the fires in some way (nearly 30,000 people in East Gippsland were advised to evacuate – although many didn’t). 

While important to focus supporting our communities with immediate needs, there is also a need to consider longer term interventions that will support sustained recovery and renewal, including economic recovery. Tourism and agriculture are substantial components of our regional economy and these have been hard hit. 

Our focus, and that of Bushfire Recovery Victoria, has been to ensure community-led recovery, listening carefully to the needs and priorities of our community. As I write this, I have spent the last two days in Mallacoota meeting with the newly elected committee of the Mallacoota and District Recovery Association.

I must acknowledge the fantastic support Council has received from across the local government sector. Almost 200 staff from other councils have spent time in East Gippsland helping us with emergency management, running relief centres, secondary assessment of impacts, managing repair works and so much more. 

A shout out also to the City of Melbourne which committed to a longer-term partnership. This has been fantastic both for the practical assistance and the encouragement and support.
Both the Victorian and Commonwealth governments have provided financial support which has enabled us to build capacity to support the recovery work. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly added to the challenges of bushfire recovery. A key step in recovery is bringing communities together to connect and support each other. COVID-19 has certainly put a hold on many community-led initiatives. While clean-up and several other services have continued, other services have moved online.  We are also back to working with other agencies to support stabilisation of businesses, before being able to again consider recovery.

I am very lucky to not have been impacted directly by the bushfires, but there are so many in our communities that have been, including some of our staff. I am inspired by the way communities can come together to support each other.