Fire fund established for rural communities

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 4, 26 June 1984, Page 6

Fire fund established for rural communities

The Acting President of Federated Farmers, Mr Peter Elworthy, has welcomed the decision announced yesterday by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon. A. Highet, to proceed with the establishment of a Rural Fire Fund. The Fund, which will be administered by the Fire Service Commission, is aimed at providing financial assistance to counties and District Fire Authorities to meet the operational costs of fighting rural fires of no known causes. Wild fires which occur as a result of controlled burns and which are subject to a valid permit, will also be covered by the Fund in situations where all of the conditions of the permit

have been fully complied with. The initial Fund of $500,000 has been greeted with approval by those in the rural sector who have to date been liable for meeting the firefighting costs for fires started wholly outside their control and of no known cause. Mr Elworthy commented that farmers had been supporting the introduction of a fund over a number of years to remove a significant imbalance in the liability borne by the rural sector as opposed to the urban sector for meeting the cost of wild fires. A further disadvantage, which the proposed Fund will remove, was the inability of the farming

community to adequately insure against the cost of suppression of fires of unknown causes. The Rural Fire Fund limits the liability of the Rural Fire Authority to the first $2,500 of the operational costs of fighting rural fires qf unknown causes. Contributions to the Fund will be met wholly out of the existing Fire Service Levy paid on fire msurance. To some extent the Fund meets the Federation's concern to provide for a more equitable distribution of the current Fire Service Levy. Mr Elworthy pointed, however, to the continuing need to upgrade rural fire services generally and to provide further financing in

order to extend the present network. Mr Elworthy commented that the Federation would continue to press for changes to the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977 which imposes a levy on the rural community for both the operational costs and the capital damage incurred as a result of rural fires. The Fund, as described by Mr Highet to the Counties Association on Wednesday, does not alter the significant burden which the rural sector must bear through the imposition of a levy for capital damage to adjacent land as a result of wild fires or damages to neighbouring properties from a controlled burn.