BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS
A firestorm swept through the western suburbs of Canberra on January 18, resulting in the deaths of four people, the destruction of 503 homes. Around 300 people had to be treated for burns and smoke inhalation and 60 hospitalised.
Shops, a high school, a health centre, a water treatment plant and the Mount Stromlo Observatory were among the facilities incinerated by the firestorm. Almost a third of the city was left without electricity, telephone, gas, water and sewerage services.
During the disaster itself, and once the embers cooled, there was an enormous outpouring of human solidarity for the dead, the injured and/or those who had lost their homes and irreplaceable personal possessions. In addition to the firefighters, thousands of volunteers risked their lives to save the houses of strangers. People shared their houses with those who were left homeless.
At the evacuation centres there were generous donations of food, mattresses and blankets — so much so that people had to be asked to stop donating. Teachers opened up the Duffy primary school as a drop-in centre.
Could the fires have been fought better on the night? There can be no criticism of the firefighters, both paid and volunteers. The bushfires were not unexpected, as they had been burning for a while in Canberra's Namadgi National Park. However, the speed and intensity were unexpected, being driven by near-cyclonic winds.
Only 12 fire trucks were immediately available to fight the fires but even substantially more would not have made much difference. Mike Cochrane, the ACT secretary of the United Firefighters Union, told ABC Radio on January 21 that "the Canberra community are entitled to be outraged by the handling of Saturday's firestorm. The ACT fire brigade was cut out, or locked out, of the incident management team when it hit the city area."
A NSW volunteer firefighter, Peter Holding, told ABC Radio on January 20 that he was with three tankers that rushed to Canberra. When they arrived, the tanker crews were told to have a cup of tea, while 60 to 100 houses were on fire. Holding said: "I feel that the people, the firefighters, did what they could. I think the community did what they could do, but I think there was no command structure."
Successive ACT governments have failed to act on a 1994 report on Fire Hazard Reduction Practices prepared by Howard McBeth at the request of the ACT government. McBeth was quoted in the January 22 Australian as saying that this year's devastating firestorm in Canberra "was predictable and it did exactly what we said it would do — wreak havoc on the ACT". He said that "the impact of these events would have been sufficiently reduced" if his report's recommendations, such as constructing access roads through national parks and carrying out systematic back burning, had been implemented.
Phil Cheney from the CSIRO's bushfire management unit told ABC Radio on January 21 that the fire risk could have been reduced by continuing the practice of low-intensity managed bushfires, but that successive governments had decided to reduce this practice till no burning was carried out at all.
A recent CSIRO background paper on bushfires notes some factors that can reduce the severity of bushfires including:
forest and land management strategy; fuel reduction strategy, including prescribed burns; fire prevention strategy, e.g, fuel management and public education; and use of fire suppression technology including chemical retardants.
To do all these things, a strong public sector is required.
This point was reinforced by Australasian Fire Authorities Council executive director Len Foster when he told the media that the Howard government's refusal last August to back a $28 million request for new firefighting equipment — including additional helicopters and planes — as part of an integrated national strategy, had contributed to the Canberra catastrophe.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, January 29, 2003.
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