In every case I will argue that there are government agencies, both local and state, that have prevention responsibilities both statutory and/or moral to mitigate the risk of fire in such environments. These agencies and government officers include the fire services, EPA, municipal councils, Emergency Management Commissioner and Inspector General for Emergency Management (IGEM).
Each of these fires disrupted communities and cost a fortune to make safe. Then there is the cost we all carry in helping affected people recover.
The Grenfell Tower fire in London, for which the fire brigade has received some criticism, interests me as it should the fire agencies in Australia — there are important lessons to be learned as there are parallels in Victoria, indeed Australia.
One may well ask why these avoidable losses are increasingly occurring when it should be the opposite. It's because governments and their senior public sector minions allocate the bulk of financial resources into fire suppression and cover the losses when they inevitably occur, losses that can be enormous in both financial costs across the whole community and particularly by those who suffer directly and in many cases are affected emotionally.
An example of finances increasingly being directed to suppression is the Emergency Management Commissioner fostering the use of helicopters to fight fires at night, when he knows that the time air attack is most required is when weather conditions ground these aircraft, day or night. And all the while people are being encouraged to leave their homes undefended and risk losing them. There's more to providing leadership in emergency management than promoting air attack, which comes at considerable cost and is not a panacea.
Probably the most recent example of a very costly failure of wildfire risk management are the St Patrick's Day 2018 fires in Western Victoria that I began to cover in my blog posting on Saturday, 14 April 2018 "Wildfires caused by the electrical distribution system ... why?
Towards the end of the posting "Wildfires caused by the electrical distribution system ... why?" I referred to the Government appointed board of inquiry into the occurrence of bush and grass fires in Victoria in 1977 conducted by Sir Edward Hamilton Esler Barber, Q.C., former judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria and concluded with the final two comments:
Enough for now with more to follow including the eventual fate of section 44, but bells already ringing for anyone yet?
First, on CFA feeling chastened by Barber's censure.
The Regional Officer in Charge
Shortly after being transferred from Region Nine, Warragul, to Region 14, Sunbury, in late 1977, CFA directed officers in charge of fire control regions that reports according to section 44 CFA Act and listing issues to be covered were to be submitted regularly, regardless of whether a fire hazard was detected or not.
As I remember that was either late 1977 or early 1978 and the first time I can recall section 44 was to be addressed, and I commenced working in fire control regions in late 1967.
At that time regions had an officer in charge and a deputy and one transport vehicle. To get us both out on the road inspecting, CFA provided an additional vehicle to each region. Though years late it was.
I can remember driving with one eye on the road and the other on power lines and trees likely in contact and long spans where spreaders to prevent conductor clash should be considered.
Over time my interest extended to tired, cracked old timber poles, timber poles with flammable vegetation around them, braced poles that should have been replaced and suspect timber cross arms.
The parts of the pole shown in Plates 2 and 3 show that it was braced, braced because a pole inspector considered it was at risk of falling over.
Braced for 20 years is one estimate I've heard, but happy to be corrected if provided with proof that I'm wrong.
Plate 4 shows a 22,000 volt line on the eastern side of the Geelong–Bacchus Marsh Road, approximately 2,000 metres north of the Geelong Ring Road. Plate 5 shows this pole braced on one side.
It also shows how exposed it is to wind from the northwest to southwest. If this pole was to be be subjected to strong wind in circumstances similar to that experienced by the pole shown in Plates 1 and 2 would it remain upright?
Food for thought as to where a fire caused by the conductors in contact with the ground would head.
Plate 5 shows the brace bolted to the north side of the pole. A recessed nut is just visible on the southern side of the pole. Plate 6 is a view of a recessed nut on the southern side of the pole.
Very 'tired' poles are sometimes braced on both sides as shown in Plate 7, obviously needed to provide restraint superior to a nut on the end of a bolt. Is that what happened with the pole shown in Plates 1 and 2, was it only braced on one side?
The yellow arrow in Plate 3 indicates the length of brace below ground level. To me the butt or base of the pole seems intact or undamaged, with the barely visible green pole at the right hand right side of Plate 2 suggesting that the pole did not fall but snapped off at some point along the brace, with the old pole base removed by the power company to enable the same hole to be used for the new pole. The remains of the pole shown in Plate 1 tend to support this theory.
Maybe someone has photos that reveal more of the fallen pole they could send me, with anonymity guaranteed.
Plate 8 shows the base of the pole shown in Plate 4. What does the condition of the pole at ground level suggest? Remember, it's only braced on one side. The plugs are part of the pole inspection process and in the past were part of pole preservation measures.
Plate 9 is here to show a severely compromised pole that I found in a suburban street in Ruthven. It's only braced on the left side.
Plate 10 shows the mark of the pole inspector for 2017 on the colour plate that seems to be standard for that year. I'm really curious to learn if the pole inspector had been to The Sisters pole prior to it coming down.
Vigilance required of all of us
I urge everyone to keep an eye on the poles and wires in their area and report any concerns to the CFA office in their part of Victoria to help the Chief Officer meet the section 24(d) CFA Act responsibility or MFB fire station if the concern is within the metropolitan fire district, and do it in writing.
Now, what of the fate of section 44 CFA Act?
During my last few years with CFA as Director Risk Management I was responsible for taking section 44 reports to the CFA Board, reports that were taken very seriously and issues that I was expected to know inside out and recommend solutions —challenging, some of those Board meetings. However, at that time CFA had a Board that understood the full extent of its responsibility for both prevention and suppression!
Then, in early 2012 Section 44 was revoked! And, who was it who introduced the Amendment Bill and who was Premier of Victoria at that time? A National Party member who would no doubt have claimed to represent the interests and welfare of country people and a Premier with a largely rural electorate: South West Coast and veterinarian who surely would have understood the effect of wildfire on farm animals.
From the Amendment Bill:
Other investigative, monitoring and reporting functions, what were they? None, if any, that matched the importance of section 44.
What were these people who were supposed to be acting in our best interests thinking when they repealed section 44?
How did this happen? Was it driven from within the CFA and if so why? What prompted and supported this irresponsible weakening of Victoria's protection from loss due to wildfire?
Regardless, it's reasonable to conclude that those who shepherded this repeal through the Parliament ultimately have some culpability for the fires caused by the failure of the electrical distribution network on St Patrick's Day.
But this is not the end of it, there are others with a statutory fire prevention and reporting function that it appears are not meeting their responsibilities e.g. see my blog posting of Sunday, 21 February 2016 "Obfuscation, sanitising, cabinet-in-confidence documents, burying, leaking — examples of some of the processes of government".
Note that the coloured text indicates links to further information to be clicked on.
I hope the fire investigators do their job as thoroughly as on Black Saturday (Weerite-Pomborneit had a few red-herrings thrown at it though, and don't get me started about Murrindindi's alleged arson). Odd to see tall 22kV feeder being staked, it looks seriously under-engineered to me, especially as the span length adds enormously to the bending moment at the pole's base, during high winds. Engineering safety expert Kelven Barnbrook was scathing of DNSPs outsourcing line inspections to labor hire companies. He urged DNSPs to adopt genuine Reliability Centred Maintenace (RCM) not some risk-fudging, watered-down version. Genuine RCM would see zero staking of any rotten wooden pole more than "X" metres high and with more than "Y" metres between poles. This almost certainly means replacing all rotten poles in rural HV and SWER lines with new poles
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