Shire of Capel keeps ban on solid fuel barbecues during high fire danger following bush fire brigade concerns

A South West council has decided to keep its ban on solid fuel barbecues and pizza ovens during the summer months after bush fire brigades shared their concerns over a possible easing of the rules. The Shire of Capel had been set to remove the restrictions in this year’s bush fire mitigation notice following a meeting of the council’s bush fire advisory committee in April. But committee confusion and concerns from some of the local bush fire brigades have resulted in the potential change being scrapped for at least the next 12 months. At last month’s council meeting, Stirling Bush Fire Brigade captain Ian Cocker said the changes could potentially put brigades under increased stress, highlighting how crews were stretched “as far as we could go” during the fire in Dalyellup in early March. Cr Ashley Dillon moved to have the council retain the current mitigation notice for the next year, noting he had attended April’s committee meeting. “It is fair to say that it probably wasn’t the most fluent of meetings I’ve ever attended — that’s putting it mildly,” he said. “There were some misunderstandings amongst the committee and in the room ... so I think it’s just safest to go back to our original mitigation notice wording around solid fuel barbecues and pizza ovens, and I assume (the committee) will revisit the terms of the notice at their next meeting and thrash it out then.” Shire president Doug Kitchen told the meeting he had received a number of calls about the issue and highlighted some community backlash when the restrictions were introduced in 2017. “I think if we are going to take away some of that restriction, then we need to make sure we do it properly (so) we don’t relax the standards and then have to try and whack them up again if there are issues,” he said. Cr Dillon’s motion was passed unanimously, alongside three others dealing with changes to the order of who receives 000 fire calls in the shire, updates to the bush fire advisory committee’s terms of reference and support for council’s bush fire brigade training coordinator to become DFES accredited.