Imagine if a bushfire tore through the picturesque village of Central Tilba.
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Listed by the National Trust in 1974, the village with its timber stores, cottages and pub is a tourist magnet but also highly vulnerable to being irreplaceably lost to bushfire.
The 2020 Far South Coast Bush Fire Risk Management Plan prepared by the Rural Fire Service (RFS) and other agencies ranked Central Tilba very low as a priority.
Not everyone agreed.
Preparing the village
In 2021 Eurobodalla Shire Council alerted the Tilba District Chamber of Commerce to a NSW government funding opportunity to develop bushfire resilience plans.
Grant provider Minderoo Foundation matched the government funding, resulting in $120,000.
Council, RFS, the Chamber of Commerce, Minderoo Foundation and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) contracted Susan Courtney of EcoLogical Australia to prepare a bushfire resilience plan for the village and offer to do individual plans for businesses and buildings.
Mark Stubbings, a member of the Central Tilba Bushfire Committee, said 21 of around 50 individual businesses and properties now have bushfire resilience plans.
Those plans and the one for the village include a list of recommendations, with the simplest and most affordable ones being actioned.
Sprinkler system
The ultimate goal is to install an automated sprinkler system, as used by Four Winds, to protect the whole village.
The committee is working with Embarr Argus to implement it.
Potentially, it would be done in modules - groups of say five buildings, each with their own dedicated water supply, battery, pumps and sprinkler system.
Obstacles to implementation include funding and locating water tanks in the rocky and hilly heritage conservation area.
Mr Stubbings said they are engaging with Council's Heritage Officer as it needs its support and sign-off on the heritage element.
They intend installing any system in a restrained way to avoid impacting the village's heritage values.
The committee is also talking to state government representatives who are interested in the community initiative and may be a source of funding for its implementation.
Next steps
Ms Courtney will continue talking with agencies about ensuring the village's power, telecommunications and water supply can be maintained during natural disasters.
The committee is working with NPWS about establishing an adequate asset protection zone, as well as hazard reduction, in nearby Gulaga National Park which is the direction from which bushfire would likely come.
Given the village's historic, economic and cultural significance, the committee is determined to implement all EcoLogical's recommendations.
"If we get this right it will be a really good model for other similar villages threatened by bushfire," Mr Stubbings said.
