Wildfire management — what's normal today?

My posting Failure — two stories on the failure of wildfire management, one distant and the other closer to home, Friday, 23 November 2018, raised some of the issues important to minimising loss in the event of wildfire. To this end I drew on issues that Australia might learn from that came to my attention from following the recent fires in California, USA.

When I posted the 23 November 2018 edition it was my intention to then look at a wildfire experience closer to home, the Christmas Day 2015 fire that engulfed a large part of Separation Creek and Wye River on the Otways coast.

To me, a major cause of property loss and associated loss of life in the California fires is a general lack of understanding of how fire crosses the land and mandatory evacuation orders. From what I've seen from the media and other videos I consider that the agencies are too response focused and need to involve the general public in active defence of their homes where the threat is ember or firebrand attack. What then are the lessons to be learned?

In recent times I’ve become aware of people who refer to the new normal or new abnormal and of course they’re referring to their perceptions climate change or global warming on wildfire. But we should consider the new normal or new abnormal is more than just climate change.

Plate 1

Graphic: The Australian, 22 January 2018

What's the graphic "Carnage Costs" have to do with wildfire?

On 22 January 2018 The Australian carried a story "Major city vigilance urged, with vehicle attacks the ‘new normal’

Those living in major cities need to learn to normalise the possibility of hostile vehicle attacks by increasing vigilance as pedestrians, according to the clinical psychologist who helped shape the Bourke Street recovery effort.

One year after a car attack killed six in Melbourne’s CBD and just weeks after another car rampage on Flinders Street left one man dead, Rob Gordon said recovery was easier for those who accepted this new “indiscriminate violence”.

“We probably don’t realise how dangerous things are with cars racing around; we take for granted those risks and we’ve got to live around the new risks. We can normalise that once we ­accept it as this is our world and we have to deal with it,” Dr Gordon said. “The point we need to get to is just to be more cautious, just the way most people don’t go on to zebra crossings without looking at cars … we should do that, and other places too.”

Causes me to wonder what the total suppression and recovery costs will be for Wye River‒Separation Creek. Could this money have been better spent on health and education in Victoria?

Preparing this posting during the afternoon of 7 December 2018 I listened to broadcast radio alerts to the communities in the Little River area concerning a wildfire — predominantly a grassfire albeit in stony country — with advice to the residents of Little River to evacuate.

From a story in The Age later in the afternoon "Little River fire: Blaze contained but homes still at risk"

At least 50 fire trucks, several large air tankers and dozens of firefighters are battling the 1240-hectare blaze, which has been contained south-east of the Princes Freeway but is not yet under control.

Again the vexed question of evacuation, in this case an established township situated in open grasslands and having the benefit of a firebreak/control line in the form of a railway reserve aligned generally northeast southwest directly north of the closer settled part of the township.

Harking back to Dr Gordon's statement concerning the new normal, with global warming, be it short or long term its effect on the heavier fuels in our forests is a higher drought factor that leads to the heavier fuels more easily ignited and contributing to fire intensity that can in turn lead to pyrocumulus development above the fire.

Plate 2

Photo: Nicholson

Plate 2 shows pyrocumulus development above the Kilmore East fire. The photo was taken late afternoon on 7 February 2009 in Sunbury, which is approximately 50 kilometres west of where I estimate the location of the cloud. A lot of fuel is required to enable the development of a cloud of that size. Later into the evening it was producing lightning and light falls of rain towards its south-eastern end. Clearly a very hot fire.

Queensland fires spark federal inquiry

In a story in The Australian on 7 December 2018, concerning the recent wildfires in Queensland, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is quoted:

"If you want to know what caused those conditions I'll give you an answer - its called climate change," she told reporters.

Climate change, Premier Palaszczuk? Begs the questions, what was your government doing to prepare for the effect of climate change? Were your government's agencies monitoring the increasing dryness of Queensland and modifying or adapting emergency management plans to take account of increasing vulnerability to wildfire? And what of preparing the people of Queensland? Nothing, I assume from the decision to evacuate 8,000 people from Gracemere to Rockhampton as one example.

It seems from the story that the federal parliamentary inquiry will have a relatively narrow focus:

The federal parliamentary inquiry will look at all states and territories and how their laws on vegetation and land management affect farmers.

Queenslanders, indeed all Australians deserve more and the inquiry should be expanded to consider the full gamut of factors that contributed to the fires and losses incurred, and the inquiry should not allow itself to be dominated by the emergency management agencies or their representatives. All wisdom concerning wildfire is not confined to the emergency services and the general public should be encouraged have input.

And again back to Dr Gordon's statement concerning the new normal.

It’s being reported that police are investigating the cause of the Little River fire considered to be "suspicious". Without going into detail, malicious fire-lighting or the "weaponising" of wildfire should be considered part of the new normal.

With 50 firefighting vehicles reported as being committed to the Little River fire, where did they come from and were their home areas weakened in the event of other fires occurring? Would a trained and supported community have reduced the need to draw so many resources from other parts of Victoria?

Gracemere

Gracemere is a prime example of the need to seriously review wildfire management arrangements in Australia in today's environment.

Plate 3

Photo: Google Earth

Plate 3 is a Google Earth photo of Gracemere, Queensland. Take a stroll through and round the outskirts of the town using Google Earth Street View and determine for yourself its vulnerability to wildfire — comparable in size and surrounds with Hamilton or Horsham in Western Victoria and all surrounded predominantly by grassland.

Why then the decision to evacuate Gracemere?

Victoria fire model helped save Queensland town

From a story in The Australian, 29 November 2018, reasonably assumed to be from the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services:

"So we have the software but the inputs are uniquely Queensland. Queensland weather forecasts, Queensland fuels, Queensland terrain, and we've spent years refining, and that's an ongoing process, because any model is only as good as the data."

He said the software predicted the path and intensity of the fire very well on Wednesday although Gracemere was saved only due to the efforts of fire crews on the ground.

Makes me wonder what the modelling actually predicted and who directed the evacuation.

The same questions could be asked concerning the advice to evacuate Little River Township.

This is what I wrote about in my last bushfire blog posting. How many homes, business, schools, etc, will be lost due there being no one there to extinguish embers as they begin to arrive, with homes, businesses and community infrastructure at risk far exceeding the availability of firefighting vehicles and firefighters to protect them?

Finally, from the USA:

When embers land on ornamental mulch, pine needles built up at the base of a wall or wooden deck furniture, they smolder. And those little fires can eventually ignite the house itself, even a fire-resistant house, especially if no one is there to put them out, as is usually the case in an evacuation zone during a megafire where firefighting resources are stretched thin.

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