Plans for close Tas fire reduction burns

Hazard reduction burns across Tasmania will lick the back fences of suburban homes as the state emerges from an unprecedented summer bushfire season.

Announcing a program of autumn burns that could number up to 200, State Fire Management Council chairman Ian Sauer said high-risk areas will be their focus.

"It's a strategic program - it concentrates very heavily on human settlements, houses, on industrial assets, and ecological values," he said on Tuesday, adding that computer modelling had been used to zero in on problem areas.

To minimise the threat to homes and lives, burns will come closer than ever to residential properties.

"Because the closer you get to some of the urban interface the higher the priority," Mr Sauer said.

Residents will be notified of burns near their homes and crews will try to minimise smoke over houses.

"What the community will see this autumn is fires coming much closer to the urban interface than they've been seen perhaps before.

"The community need not be worried about this, these burns are planned within an inch of their lives ... we make sure those fires are well and truly contained."

Low rainfall and above average temperatures contributed to the summer's destructive bushfire season during which dry lightning strikes sparked more than 300 blazes as the state was forced to call for help from interstate and New Zealand crews.

The fires burnt through thousands of hectares of remote wilderness including a large portion of the protected World Heritage Wilderness Area.

The extensive fires mean fuel reduction has already been done in several parts of the state's west, Mr Sauer said.

But ecological values will be an important consideration in planning hazard-reduction burns.