Bushfire and terror

While keeping in touch with developments in the Israel-Gaza military conflict and aftermath of the Hamas raid into Southern Israel I heard a relatively brief opinion of “terror”.

I searched the web for terror-related information and finally settled on a definition in the Macquarie Dictionary, Fifth Edition:
   1. intense, sharp, overpowering fear: to be frantic with terror.
   2. a feeling, instance or cause of intense fear.

Started me thinking about meaning and forms of terror and how it may be created and used to advantage.

Within the definition there is also a reference to a political group using violence to maintain or achieve supremacy. A recent example was the activities of Hamas on the ground inside Southern Israel.

The definition of terror-stricken is relevant:
    - smitten with terror; terrified

No doubt many will have seen media coverage of people attending the music festival in Southern Israel running to escape the Hamas shooters.

As I write I'm hearing of a severe bushfire situation in Southern Queensland while the attention of our media is distracted by broader regional and economic situations affecting Australia.

This causes me to think about Australians in areas threatened by bushfire being urged to leave their homes and businesses — some Australian states, but thankfully not Victoria, have mandatory evacuation legislation.

For several years, emergency management agencies have urging people to leave for an ostensibly safer place when bushfire reaches a certain level of threat. But, are we told why?

Urged or mandatory evacuations can create risk situations where unattended properties are lost to bushfire, why, because most building fire loss is due to ember or firebrand attack!

How then is a decision made to advise voluntary or mandatory evacuation?

At one level of the Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) people are advised to leave, then only a few minutes later informed that it’s too late to leave and to shelter in place. This must be confusing, leading to unnecessary fear in some. How do those who wish to leave to now learn that it’s too late to leave cope with this? It must be unnerving and potentially result in injury or death for some unprepared individual.

Plate 1

From an ABC story "Sixteen homes lost in Tara as Queensland bushfire emergency continues", by Scout Wallen and Laura Cocks, 26 October 2023

To the uninitiated, media coverage of bushfires in Australia can only serve to frighten. While some will argue that it's informative this ABC story is typical of the sensationalist reporting of bushfire.

The AFDRS classification “catastrophic” is a prediction of a catastrophic fire, an outcome that may never occur. Serves only to further frighten, even panic some people.

Why then did Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC) decide on “catastrophic”, by definition an outcome rather than a warning such as Code Red that had previously applied in Victoria and why did emergency management decision makers in Victoria abandon Code Red?

Plate 2

Did those who settled on “catastrophic” do so through lack of knowledge of the English language or was intended to avoid agency or individual responsibility for loss by outsourcing the decision to the individual? Was there any realisation that "catastrophic" as a warning or generally in the narrative was bound to add to the level of fear of fire in the broader community?

Referring again to sensationalism in the media, Vladimir Lenin, former Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union, was well aware that use of the media was critical to him in seeking to control Russia: Control the media, control the people.

Plate 3

Painting of Lenin by Isaak Brodsky (Public Domain).

Do the emergency management agencies see the sensationalist media coverage of bushfire as assisting them in seeking to control rather than support the community to withstand bushfire and minimise loss?

How does AFAC and for that matter the NEMA see their roles in the community, working in partnership with the broader community to withstand bushfire or frightening it into running?

And, what of EMA in Victoria? It’s performance to date has been miserable e.g. Loch Sport, what was learned from the Wye River and Mallacoota experiences that I would argue saw the involved communities pushed aside, leaving town protection to fire brigade units, some of which travelled long long distances involving several hours.

And, on terror, "Wallangarra resident Bryce Wells told the ABC he was scared for his life as the fire raced towards his home."
"The wind just carried it all over here … the Sun was fiery orange, I was pretty terrified," he said.

To conclude, from the above story:

"Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk praised the collaborative efforts of firefighters from two states for saving the community, after winds blew the bushfire to the edges of the town late yesterday afternoon."

Has it ever occurred to Premier Palaszczuk to question Queenslanders responsible for emergency management how fires reached this stage, again?

Once again, Australia is indebted to legions of volunteer firefighters who leave the comfort and safety of home to go chase and round up the rampaging red steer.

As always, I would welcome your feedback.

Note that the coloured text indicates links to further information to be clicked on.

Bushfire—and what of Homeland Defence?

Plate 1

A record of the Ash Wednesday 1983 fires produced by the Herald and Weekly Times Limited shows what remained of the main street of Macedon after the impact of the 1983 fire.

Today, the 40th Anniversary of the Ash Wednesday 1983 bushfires that took so many lives in Victoria and South Australia.

Some salient recollections

On that fateful day my involvement as CFA Regional Officer in Charge Region 14 commenced at 6.00 am with a telephone call from the Group Officer, Mount Macedon Group, informing me that there was a fire in unburnt bush at Cherokee in the Macedon Ranges and that it was "burning well".

At approximately 11.30 am I was informed that the Cherokee fire was "acting up" and that an additional six tankers had been despatched and that the Forests Commission were involved at the fire. By this time the day was warming up, with an already strong north wind.

At approximately 2.30 pm I received advice from the Forests Commission, Macedon office, that there was a fire at Trentham East and shortly after from the Daylesford office that the fire was heading south into the bush. The rest is history.

Responding to the experience of the Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria.

In the aftermath of the 1983 fires the CFA Board finally decided to address a statutory responsibility in the Country Fire Authority Act since its inception thirty-eight years ago — finally, an officer was appointed to establish a Fire Prevention Department. In those few years following the 1983 fires I consider CFA reached its short-lived zenith as it pushed Prevention at state and local government.

In the few years following Ash Wednesday considerable emphasis was placed on Prevention, but there was a lot of catching-up required and Suppression was always dominant when it came to the allocation of resources. For those holding the purse strings, there is much more kudos associated with the allocation of firefighting vehicles.

And what did we learn from Ash Wednesday 1983?

As a learning experiences Ash Wednesday and the major fires that have followed, and as recent as the Mallacoota fire of December 2019, Victoria continues to experience bushfire losses that indicate to me that little was learned from those fires.

Bushfire loss could be significantly reduced with better community understanding of bushfire and how to survive — it should be well understood in the fire agencies that the major cause of housing loss is ember or firebrand attack.

Some will remember a fire that occurred in the Lancefield area of Victoria in early October 2015 that spread from an earlier DELWP fuel reduction burn-off. Premier Andrews was quick for the government to accept responsibility for the fire and promised compensation for people who could have done more to protect their assets.

Here is one example of a house clearly lost from the effect of fire spreading from ember or firebrand attack:

Plate 2

Plate 3

Plate 4

Plate 5

Of the photographs Plate 2 is a dwelling on the north side of Three Chain Road, Lancefield prior to the fire; Plate 3 and 4 are the remains of same dwelling after the fire — look through the trees to see the green beyond and the only shrubs burnt were abutting the dwelling; and Plate 5 was typical of the adjoining the forest that showed no sign of crown fire.

With only small patches of dead grass and fallen leaves beneath trees burning, it was obvious that unprepared buildings and rubbish down the back yard succumbed to ember or firebrand attack.

No doubt a blanket one-size-all-approach to urging people to leave their homes adds to housing loss.

Lancefield, a fire that largely due to the fickleness of the weather escaped from a fuel reduction burn a few days after it was lit.

And what of homeland defence?

From The Australian today, 16 February 2023:

"[Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese has been handed a blue print to prepare Australia for a potential war with China, recommending a rapid boost to long-range strike capabilities, the urgent acquisition of killer drones, and a major increase in the nation's naval firepower".

It's not all that long ago that the Australian Defence Force needed to come to the rescue of people in Mallacoota in the aftermath of a fire that roared out of the bush and trapped holiday makers and residents in the town. Necessary due to the failure of a government agency managing land it was responsible for so that it did not endanger people and their assets.

With our military capability to be strengthened to keep an aggressor from our shores, what about our vulnerability onshore? Poorly managed tracts of public land, such as that which overwhelmed Mallacoota, must be assessed as to the risk they pose and treated accordingly. We can't afford to have our defence force being distracted to bail out a government shirking its statutory and moral responsibilities that ultimately place us at risk of fire by an evildoer behind the lines.

As always, I would welcome your feedback.

Note that the coloured text indicates links to further information to be clicked on.