Greenies fighting to save baby birds blocked vital hazard reduction burns in a tiny Victorian town two months before residents had to be evacuated as a deadly bushfire closed in.

Holding placards that read 'be firefighters not firelighters' and 'spring burns kill baby birds', the protesters refused to leave the planned burn area in Nowa Nowa, Victoria in September.

Firefighters were forced to abandon what they considered a necessary step in bushfire mitigation before the government reduced the planned burn area by more than 97 per cent to appease activists.

The backdown has played out in similar scenes across the country with devastating consequences as hazard reduction burning drops to dangerous levels.

'Burning in spring is the worst time because the animals are breeding and trees are flowering and it is still so dry,' Mary from Nowa Nowa told her local ABC outlet during the protest.

'The Department of Environment, Land and Water and Planning (DELWP) is dividing the community because they are telling us this has to be done to save our lives but in fact they're just destroying the environment.'

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Hazard reduction burns had to be abandoned because of protests about the damage done to wildlife (pictured), despite authorities insisting it is a necessary tool in limiting bushfires

Protesters (pictured) in the tiny Victorian town of Nowa Nowa saw a planned hazard reduction burn reduced from 370ha to nine hectares last September. Two months later the town had to be evacuated when the East Gippsland mega blaze closed in

The department scaled back the planned burn from 370 hectares to just nine in what would prove a disastrous move as Australia entered a summer of disaster.

Just two months later, the town's 200 residents would have to be urgently evacuated as the East Gippsland bushfire - which killed four people, destroyed 340 homes and burnt 1 million hectares - raged.

The insurance bill from the Gippsland area alone is expected to surpass $100 million.

It was that burn and lower fuels allowed firefighters to stop the spread of that fire RFS incident commander Greg Wardle

The ABC has since blurred the faces of the activists to protect their identities, having become a target for trolls in the wake of the East Gippsland fires.

But also coming under fire online was the Victorian government and its agencies for bowing to the wishes of Greens and reducing its planned burns in the Nowa Nowa area by roughly 97.5 per cent.

A Royal Commission into the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires found that 385,000 hectares of hazard reduction needed to be carried out annually across the state.

But DELWP's annual reports reveal only one-third of that goal was accomplished in 2018/19, with 130,000ha burned.

Pictured are the East Gippsland fires shortly after they erupted on December 31, 2019, burning 1million hectares and destroying hundreds of homes

Homes were burnt to the ground this bus completely gutted (pictured) when fire tore through Clifton Creek, in East Gippsland, in early January

Temperatures soared into the 40s across Victoria as fires closed in on properties in East Gippsland

In the wake of the Black Saturday recommendations backburning peaked in 2012/13 with a total of 225,227ha of hazard reduction completed.

But by 2017 that had dropped off to pre-Black Saturday levels, with just 77,728ha of the burning goal completed.

While fire chiefs have been quick to point out that a lack of hazard reduction burning is not to blame for a record bushfire season, they admit it is a crucial tool in limiting fire impact and protecting rural communities.

The Rural Fire Service of New South Wales has also faced difficulties in hitting their hazard reduction targets.

Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons claimed earlier this month that he received a bevvy of complaints from locals after every back burning effort.

'Lighting a hazard reduction burn is complicated, it's resource hungry, it's risky,' Mr Fitzsimmons told the ABC on January 8.

'And the minute we see a burn lit, I end up getting inundated with claims from people wanting us to pay for their shade cloth on their greenhouse or the sun tough on their back pergola (which has) now got embers that have landed on it.'

Mr Fitzsimmons described back burning as a 'valuable tool', but admitted it was in no way a 'panacea' that would completely eradicate the threat of bushfires.

The enormous bushfire that raged across East Gippsland on December 30 and 31st saw Nowa Nowa residents evacuated, while further east Navy ships were called in (pictured) to ferry out 4,000 residents and tourists at Mallacoota - which became isolated as fire rapidly closed in

Backburning efforts across NSW in 2018 (pictured) were directly responsible for reducing the impact of fires in the Blue Mountains, RFS bosses claim

A mega blaze in the Blue Mountains (pictured) could have destroyed more towns if not for the backburning efforts of the RFS and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service

The Blue Mountains, a popular tourist attraction and natural wonder on the western outskirts of Sydney, was one of the first areas hit by bushfires this summer.

Fires in that area began in September, at least four months before the usual summer danger period.

They're telling us this has to be done to save our lives... but in fact they're just destroying the environment Mary from Nowa Nowa

The Blue Mountains blazes tore through 40,000 hectares of bush but were relatively small compared with fires elsewhere in the country.

But for firefighters on the ground backburning is widely seen as a crucial element in making their job easier.

RFS incident controller Greg Wardle told a recent community meeting that hazard reduction burns 18 months earlier had minimised the severity of the blaze.

Mr Wardle claimed that without burns at Mount Solitary in mid-2018, several towns in the mountains would have been devastated by the raging fires, the Blue Mountains Gazette reports.

A stream of fire flows down a cliff face in the Blue Mountains, a sign of the incredible force of the fires in that area

'I just want to make a point that without that burn this (Ruined Castle) fire would have been... in the back of townships from Wentworth Falls to Springwood,' he said.

'It was that burn and lower fuels allowed firefighters to stop the spread of that fire.'

And he's not alone, with long-time firefighting captain Bruce Richardson demanding that experienced members of the RFS and CFA be listened to.

'It disgusts me that people in offices think they can make decisions affecting people on the fire front and have the local experience,' Mr Richardson - who spent 76 days fighting fires this summer - told the AFR.

'If the weather is changing in our life, climate change or whatever, they need to get serious about land management and fuel loads.

'It's really simple. If there is no or little fuel, then there is very little fire.'

A total of 668,191 hectares of hazard reduction has been carried out in the past 10 years across New South Wales.

This is a significant increase on the 279,039 done between 1999 and 2009, but is substantially below the annual recommended level for Victoria - a smaller state.