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:
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.
