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- 0.1Start here
Confirm the exact title, publication year and a public link for the Firewise guide and the CFA’s Landscaping for Bushfire guide, and check whether DEECA Recovery Coordination needs to approve this guide as a public DRFA-funded output before release.
- 0.2How this guide was made
Acknowledgements: the thank-you line above should name the demonstration site landholders who are happy to be listed. Also: the nine landholders (with their sign-off), the ecologists and birders who contributed, the Men’s Shed, and photographer credits for every image used.
- 1.1Bioregions and geology
The Lowan Mallee row is new, drafted from VicFlora and DEECA’s Lowan Mallee EVC list, and the lookup tool now uses the same text. The new What it means for fire column folds in the old bullet points (Greater Grampians and Victorian Volcanic Plain) and adds lines for the Wimmera, Central Victorian Uplands and Lowan Mallee that are drawn from the fire divisions in 1.4 rather than a published source. All of it needs a check by Yasmin Kelsall or Huib.
Parts 1 and 2 now follow the demonstration block the lookup tool opens on (the property in the Long Gully photo sequence in 2.1). Get the landholder’s agreement before publishing: the screenshots show the boundary on aerial imagery, so the property will be recognisable.
- 1.2Finding your vegetation type
Worth stepping through NatureKit once to confirm the layer names in the note above, which come from DEECA documentation rather than the live tool.
Yasmin Kelsall pointed to the regional EVC reports, where experts did on-ground flora assessments, as the place to check what should grow in each EVC. Once those two report titles come off her slides, add them here and in 4.9.
- 1.3Your property’s fire history
The lookup tool loads the state data from the guide’s GitHub Pages site (checked 2 October 2026). If the landholder can say how hot the 2025 fire ran on the example block, set it in the tool and update 1.4.
- 1.4How much fire might this vegetation tolerate?
All five rows check out against the primary source: they match Table 2.5 of Cheal (2010) exactly. The key fire response species for our divisions are not in that report (they sit in a database, not the published tables), so this section explains the idea without naming them.
The sentence that large parts of the Grampians National Park have burnt severely twice inside fifteen years needs a source: Pauline Rudolph’s fire history slides, or a count from the state fire layers.
Link the maximum tolerable fire interval paragraph to the Project Platypus page on chocolate lilies (URL to come from Elia).
Should Sands Heathland and Shallow Sands Woodland be added for the Little Desert?
- 2.1The recovery timeline
This section now combines the old 1.5 (growth stages) and 2.1 (recovery timeline). The lookup tool screenshot still shows growth stages as section 1.5 on the Part 1 tab; retake it. The Your block in the landscape figures were read from the live tool on 3 October 2026; a screenshot of the 5 km growth-stage map could be added beside the card.
The mammal paragraph is new and draws on Hale and others (2022, 2016). The “What you see” table now uses the four stage names of the first table rather than its own five; worth an ecologist’s check of both.
The photo sequence above is from the example block. Its caption says the December 2024 fire, but the state record and the project’s site records give the 2025 Yarram Gap Road fire (January 2025). Confirm the date with the landholder.
The Inland Plains Woodland, Treed Swampy Wetland and Basalt Grassland rows fold Cheal’s five stages for each into the guide’s four (renewal and juvenility together as Juvenile, the last stage as Old). Worth an ecologist’s check.
Which term throughout — “young” or “adolescent”? Cheal’s formal stages for Grassy / Heathy Dry Forest run renewal, juvenility, adolescence, maturity, waning, senescence; Forby Forest has vigorous maturity and stasis instead of maturity and waning, so the two divisions do not even share a vocabulary. Recommendation: keep the plain set in the table and gloss the formal terms once in the glossary. The percentages above are attributed to La Trobe University work — that publication still needs pinning down.
- 2.2The return of sensitive plant species
The example species under each strategy come from the lookup tool’s plant lists for the example block’s three vegetation types. Resprouters, seeders and space-takers follow the tool’s fire-trait data (AusTraits, mainly DEECA’s Vital Attributes). The tool does not record what triggers germination or flowering, so the fire-cued examples were picked from known responses and need a botanist’s check before publishing (Huib or a local ecologist).
The lookup tool shows Silver Banksia as Usually killed by fire (the published records disagree), while Pauline Rudolph’s talk says it does both. Worth checking which is right for this district, and whether the tool needs a local override.
The plant figures for the example block (nine under Survey for these first and ten fine until 2030 on the Heathy Woodland tab) were read from the lookup tool on 2 October 2026, before its plant cards were simplified. Recheck them, and retake both screenshots above: they still show the old full plant list. The tool also gives two different hakeas the common name Bushy Needlewood; one of them needs correcting in its data.
The “Wimmera Vegetation Guide Tool” in the box above needs a link once it is built.
- 3.3Habitat structure survey
Plot size and shape for this survey, and whether the proportions are estimated in bands or as numbers. The field schema gives every variable recorded but not the geometry or the estimation method.
- 3.6Birds the automated way
Connor’s completed maintenance and troubleshooting sheet, and the “V2” setup notes for sites with poor mobile coverage. Also current unit and running costs, to put a figure in this section.
- 3.9Surveying nocturnal animals
The nocturnal survey method as actually run — transect length, timing relative to dusk, group size, what gets recorded. And Connor’s fuller trail-camera protocol if one exists beyond these rules of thumb.
- 4.1Why invasives are the priority
The house mouse claim is now cited to Hale and others. Still uncited: the timing given for deer and rabbit impact on regrowth.
- 4.3Mapping, prioritising and controlling
The full density band list from the project forms (I have three: sparse individual plants, 10–30% cover, 30–60% cover). Which mapping app should landholders be pointed to, and is there a public version of the Landcare weed mapping form?
Control techniques, timing and herbicide guidance per species — the Agriculture Victoria Partnerships Against Pests material would cover it. I don’t want to write herbicide advice from general knowledge.
The corm and tuber figures for cape tulip and weed orchid, and the germination timings, all need a source — they are currently unattributed.
- 4.8Thinning dense regrowth
This is the thinnest section in the guide and I don’t want to write it from general principles. The project ran small trials of understorey diversity protection through thinning — can you point me at the method, the sites and anything observed so far? Failing that, whose advice should this section carry?
- 4.9Do I need to replant?
This section still tells people to use the EVC benchmark for species lists, which Yasmin Kelsall specifically advised against — queued for correction along with 1.2.
- 5.1Priority order
Now cited to Legge and others and to Geary and others. Worth a read of both before publication to check we are representing their conclusions fairly rather than borrowing the headline.
- 5.2A one-page property recovery plan
A printable version of this page, designed to be filled in by hand, alongside the field sheets in 6.2.
- 5.3Seasonal calendar
Your review of the weed control windows once the species-by-species guidance in 4.3 is settled. This table is only as good as those timings.
- 7.1Who can help
The actual names, phone numbers and links to publish here, and confirmation from each organisation that they are happy to be listed.
- 7.2Field sheets
These have to be designed and laid out as printable A4 sheets, and the habitat structure one can’t be finalised until the plot geometry in 3.3 is confirmed.