![NSW Rural Fire Service's Reynir Potter has warned that complacency about the potential for grasslands to quickly turn tinder dry could have serious consequences. Picture by Mark Jesser NSW Rural Fire Service's Reynir Potter has warned that complacency about the potential for grasslands to quickly turn tinder dry could have serious consequences. Picture by Mark Jesser](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/rv6MQWjvnMEraft8Jq2Ac3/4dcbd7fa-8844-4163-afe5-c69cd971c4df.jpg/r0_58_4425_3493_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Border fire authorities have warned residents to not let this year's record spring rainfall lull them into complacency.
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They said the 534 millimetres of rainfall recorded in Albury-Wodonga alone had already been enough to generate substantial grasslands growth.
Both the NSW Rural Fire Service and, over the border in Victoria, the Country Fire Authority said the danger was low for now, but this could change quickly.
Rural Fire Service operational officer in Albury Reynir Potter said all that rain was "a double-edged sword".
Mr Potter said clearly there would not be any fires in the short-term, "which is good".
"But that rain has promoted a lot of growth, especially grassland fuel," he said.
"It doesn't take long for those grasslands to dry out and cure, and then we've got some significant risk out there in the community."
The CFA in Wodonga said it was not expecting to see the kind of extreme bushfire events of more recent summers, but agreed complacency in the community could create unnecessary risks.
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CFA officer Brett Myers said it was "really hard for people to be starting to think '' about the fire season when there had been so much rain.
"But in the last week, or two weeks, the tables are turning in some areas," Mr Myers said.
"(In those areas) you wouldn't even know we've had the amount of rain we've experienced leading up until then."
Mr Myers said that combination of recent warm weather and the preceding rainfall "has really encouraged the grass to take off".
"It's predominantly going to be a grassfire-risk season; it's just that the areas of bushland aren't going to dry out as much."
Mr Myers said this meant a smarter approach when making risk assessments, especially on farmland.
"The message for the community is that grass is a relatively easy thing to manage," he said.
"That's especially if it's on your property - get the mower out and the slasher out to reduce that risk of fires."
Mr Potter said that in the past couple of weeks alone there had been grassland curing rates of 60 to 70 per cent of grassland curing, where 100 per cent represented dead grass.
The Bureau of Meteorology's prediction, he said, was that Australia's south-east would remain in a La Nina event, with higher than average rainfall "until February to March. We're certainly asking members of our community not to be complacent and to just do a few things around their home," he said.
"That's especially large landowners, who can keep their fuel loads at a controllable level - so that's mowing, slashing, things like that around their properties and their perimeters."
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