Contestable reporting of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission
May 22nd, 2009 by Paul Norton | Published in Disasters, Environment, Media, Victoria | 68 Comments
[Author's note: This post has been altered to remove some unfair and hurtful imputations which appeared in the original version concerning the journalists Gary Hughes and Norrie Ross, who authored the articles criticised in the post. The author apologises to Messrs. Hughes and Ross for the imputations in the original post, and specifically for any suggestion that alleged errors in their reports were the result of an intention to mislead.]
Several newspapers on Friday 22 May reported Dr. Kevin Tolhurst’s testimony to the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.
Two such reports, in the Australian and the Herald Sun, report Dr. Tolhurst’s testimony in a way which suggest that fuel loadings were a principal, if not the principal, factor in the intensity of the Black Saturday fires.
It was my view at the time I originally posted on this topic, and it remains my view, that such reports provide an incorrect impression of the gravamen of Dr. Tolhurst’s testimony, and of Dr. Tolhurst’s general position in relation to the kind of extreme fires seen on Black Saturday, which is that the extreme climatic and weather conditions endured up to and on Black Saturday probably played a more significant role than fuel loads.
Whilst reporting of an information-dense testimony on scientifically complex issues to a lay audience is not simple, it can be argued in relation to the Black Saturday bushfires that journalists face a particularly important task in fully grasping and interpreting the essence of such testimony, not least in order to move public discussion of these issues beyond the misinformed and frequently malicious claims – about the role of unburned ground litter, the lack of prescribed burning to eliminate ground litter, and the reasons for the lack of prescribed burning – which have bedevilled public commentary about bushfires in Australia over the past 15 years.
I’m going to repeat this comment here because I think that it is partially relelvent and topical.
Black Saturday
Bush Bunker
http://www.gizmag.com/the-bushbunker-last-resort-wildfire-protection/11736/picture/80077/
and, for a fast getaway but illegal in Australia
1000 watt folding bicycle
http://www.gizmag.com/the-highly-desirable-1000-watt-limited-edition-tidalforce-m-750-x20-electric-fold-up-bike/11674/
It’s interesting reading the submissions to the Commission.
There seems to be a lot of focus on communications and road evacuation.
There’s no way in the world we’re going to build freeways to every little hamlet in the country, and the only communication system guaranteed to work no matter what would be satellite-based – would rural residents be prepared to shell out for Iridum phones and subscriptions for everyone? Satellite radios for every CFA truck too?
Which leaves us back with bunkers, I reckon.
Paul, the bought media have little interest in accuracy. Some writers are better than others, but primarily their concern is with grabbing attention. So boring old facts and science lose out a lot of the time in the interest of sensationalism and “balanced” mudslinging.
Bilb, a 1000W motor on an electric motorbike is completely legal. It’s just that putting a 1000W motor on a bicycle turn it into a motorbike, just as putting a V8 motor into a shopping trolley makes it a motor vehicle. In both cases you’re better off with a purpose-built vehicle rather than something cobbled together. And 50kph for an hour on the flat is not going to help much in a bushfire situation.
Paul, it’s not about reality. If you keep whining on about limited resources and people making stupid decisions you’ll just alienate everyone. It’s simple: people should be allowed to do whatever they like and “the gummit” is supposed to make sure it all works out ok. Just ask any politician :)
Moz, I am fully aware that it may be possible to use such a vehicle if it is registered as a motor bike. I should point out that such a vehicle is unlikely to meet the requirements of motor bike registration standards (headlights, indicators, mirrors, brakes, etc, etc) because it is not designed for that class of useage. What I am trying to highlight here is that power break for unregistered electric vehicles is at a ridiculously low 200 watt level. And our brain dead government appears to be determined to keep it that way.
Fire behaviour is a very complex science with much that is still not fully understood. Kevin Tolhurst is certianly the pre-eminent expert in SE Australian forests, but he would not want to be declared a guru in these matters. It’s basically impossible to expect that the MSM will cover this issue with remotely informed commentary, it’s not their interest or their readers inclination to deal with risk assessments, probabilistic outcomes, uncertainty and all those wicked problems.
As for evacuations, it’s all well and good to say evacuate Melbourne’s ranges by midday on a day like Feb 7, but we’d also be having to evacuate the entire Otways, Dandenongs, all of East Gippsland, the Midlands. Idiots forget that we only know where the fire is going come once it’s already on its way. Where do these million people go to?
I’m sure I read that two of the problems were “crowning” and “the air was on fire”; both typical of very bad bushfires.
Bad fires spread faster through tree foliage than on the ground – hence, once the fire really takes hold, ground fuel-load is less problematic than the way fire behaves in the area’s trees. What makes any eucalypts such disasters in bushfires is their oil, especially when the area’s over-heated. In Victoria, that wonderful blue haze is an exuded oil volatile even by eucalypts’ standards, and it catches fire; thus the “air” really does burn, and trees erupt. In bad fires in Q, I’ve watched eucalypts (much less volatile that Vic’s) literally erupt into flames well ahead of the firefront – the fires race at one from the tree-tops! (Conifers, camphor laurels – any tree which exudes highly volatile oils in similar circumstances – are similarly dangerous).
But if you’re an “anti anything I can pin on conservationists, environmentalists, greenies, lefties, etc” NewsLtd hack, are you going to choose truth over beat-ups?
another element to watch out for is the daily reporting which will highlight one submission/person giving evidence as if that somehow represents a clue to the final report. You get this ith court cases all the time, where claims are printed and then everyone wonders why the judge’s decision is different.
I expect that to happen with the “stay and defend or leave early” policy, wrongly summarised as “stay or go”. I will be very surprised if the Commissioner doesn’t support the policy, because it’s supported by rigorous research. But the media will have reported all these people criticising it, and few of those defending it, and will then be shocked with the outcome.
DeeCee #6, the points you mention are discussed quite extensively by Tolhurst in the transcript I linked to, and his testimony on those issues is reported fairly adequately in the Fairfax coverage of the Royal Commission, not mentioned by the OO and underplayed relative to the “massive fuel load” by The Hun.
There is another factor to be considered, which is that the hacks reporting on the Royal Commission typically lack either the formal scientific education or the lay scientific knowledge to understand what people like Tolhurst are talking about.
I should add that the Courier-Mail in Brisbane has not repeated the errors of its national and Melbourne stablemates – although it has, twice this week, been advertised with shopfront banners declaiming that the wrong amounts of “flouride” have been added to Brisbane’s water supply.
Another stupid piece of reportingL Fire power equalled 1500 atomic bombs”. I’m not sure Tolhurst was wise to use the analogy (though I’d have to read the transcript to see what he’s on about).
Explosives are so destructive because their energy is delivered over millisecond timescales, not just because of the amount of energy delivered. The energy released by Little Boy was roughly equivalent to the energy of the sun shining on a square with one kilometer sides for an hour or two.
Yes, I found that one a bit confronting. But having driven to Melbourne down the motorway twice last week (having never driven there at all before in my life) and seen the spaced out burnt patches, it is clear that it would have taken a lot of “air” heat to combust one patch from another. And considering the duration of the fires it is probably correct. Energy wise.
Bil: I’ve no doubt the number is roughly correct. I’m just not sure it’s particularly meaningful.
Are your Benambra hills green or black at the moment, Robert?
Green. Mount Benambra burned in 2003.
Apart from the usual MSM BS I think that Dr Tolhurst’s commentary is very interesting. Of course it will be part of the overall testimony but what he has to say about the pyrocumulus could be useful for real-time analysis of future events of this magnitude.
He probably could’ve picked his words a bit better about the atomic bomb thing, but it really is quite difficult to get across to many lay people the energy associated with such events. Analogy is a tool that seems to be regularly misunderstood by many in MSM (deliberate or otherwise).
Will have to download the other pages and read up.
Well i wonder when they are going to look at the fuel loads in the bush , plus the speed the fire travelled and also , the amount of oxygen consumpition the fire needed to fuel its desires . Then you must look at the amount of fire trucks sitting around not used and just waiting for if but and maybe , then you must look at how DSE jam a radio system by idle chatter about there girl friends eg .Communacation on the fire ground is just , well not there , a pageing system didn’t operate for 2 days and just because a fire was not reported by pager you don’t respond . Also when are the Government going to look at all house’s in very high risk areas having a built in sprinkler system , on the outside of the building , with its own water supply .
x number of hiroshimas is a perfectly cromulent measure of energy, like emissions are measured in cars and volumes are measured in MCGs.
Rob Merkel – iirc – I think even satellite communications get blank spots with heavy smoke.
Not to mention if you’re at the bottom of a steep valley and the satellite’s behind the hill…
The low frequency CFA radios work very well in the fire proximity. UHF radios -digital or not – don’t work at all well. Not at all sure about satellite, should theoretically work but they would need a lot of testing. There is much to be done. It’s not so much the smoke, but this is a problem with UHF satellite, its also the ionisation. Trouble is even the RF experts tell me different stories.
Huggy
@ Paul Norton: “The transcript of Kevin Tolhurst’s testimony shows that nowhere did he, or any other witness at yesterday’s sitting of the Royal Commission invoke a figure of “up to 45 tonnes per hectare”.”
Paul, this is a very ordinary effort. I was at the royal commission yesterday, reporting for a newspaper (not one of those mentioned). The passage you cite from The Australian was entirely correct.
As Mr Tolhurst was giving his evidence yesterday, the relevent sections of his report were projected on to a screen. That’s where the 45 tonnes per hectare figure came from. I know this because I saw it myself and scribbled it in my notebook.
Gary Hughes, the journalist in question who wrote the piece in The Australian, lost his house and nearly his life in the bushfires. Seems like a funny person to impugn the motives of.
@ Robert Merkel: “Another stupid piece of reportingL Fire power equalled 1500 atomic bombs”.”
Take it up with Dr Tolhurst. It was a line that came directly from his report, which again, was projected on a screen as he gave evidence. He is the expert, it was his evidence.
For the record, my first paragraph went like this: “The energy unleashed by the fires that swept across Victoria on February 7 was equivalent to 1500 atomic bombs of the size dropped on Hiroshima in World War II, an expert in bushfire behaviour told the Black Saturday royal commission yesterday.”
@ josh lyman: “wrongly summarised as “stay or go”.”
Take it up with counsel assisting the commission Jack Rush QC. It’s his preferred phrase. Here’s a passage from his opening address, very first day of the commission.
“The evidence to be put before the royal commission will demonstrate that the cornerstone of bushfire warning policy for the Victorian Community, and indeed across jursidictions in Australia, is the so-called “Stay or Go” policy.
“An examination of warnings and the Stay or Go policy associated with those warnings will be the focus of the first block of hearings of the Royal Commission, commencing on May 11 2009.”
It’s been the phrase that he and the commissioners have used throughout.
@ Paul Norton: Sorry to hog things, especially at this hour (I have to play football tomorrow, don’t you know?) but I have to have another go, this time into 25 tonnes per hectare being “very high”.
You assert this is wrong, and to do so, you cite this quote: “it would be typical of a lot of our sort of mountain and foothill deposits to have an average in that vicinity.”
Can you apprecite that you have completely misunderstood Tolhurst’s evidence here? His 25 tonnes per hectare figure is for the entire fire affected area, not just areas of “mountain and foothill deposits”. And can you also appreciate that the entire fire affected area is comprised not just of “mountain and foothill deposits” (ie. the areas of highest fuel load) but also grassland, farms, towns, etc (ie. areas of significantly less fuel load)?
Later in the day, counsel assisting Jack Rush produced a memo from the CFA Yarra Ranges district coordinator to all his area firefighters. The memo is an advisory that contains a number of estimates about fire conditions, including an assumed fuel load of 12 tonnes per hectare. Here’s what Tolhurst says about that assumption:
“Not knowing how the figures came up with it, it looks to me as though what has happened is they have used basically a standard fuel load of about 12 tonne per hectare, probably about half of what I would consider the average for somewhere like the Yarra Ranges. The McArthur meter, if you like, was designed for a
standard fuel type, which is level ground, in an open forest, with a surface fuel load of about 12 tonne per hectare. Now, as soon as you go into the long unburnt (forest), you need to incorporate the shrub and the bark component and so on, so you get up to the 25 tonne per hectare. So this is a bit of an underestimate but even at two and a half kilometres an hour that’s still a rapidly moving fire.”
I’m not sure what other inference you can draw from this, other than 25 tonnes per hectare, across the entire fire affected area, was very high. Furthermore, Tolhurst is making the exact point that because the forest is “long unburnt” you have to revise up your fuel estimates, and the net result is a fiercer fire.
It’s late and I’m tired and I’m not sure I’ve explained this as clearly as I could have, but rest assured Paul, your entire post is shit. You should apologise to Gary Hughes and Norrie Ross.
Gareth: He is undoubtedly an expert in fires, but I stand by my view it was a very bad choice of analogy, because it was highly likely to be misinterpreted. As the report did.
It is interesting that Tolhurt’s recent public statements about the fire behaviour being determined by extreme weather conditions seem to not have been highlighted at the commission.
I asked him a direct question on this – he stated the fuel loads were very much a secondary consideration with fires of this intensity.
This doesn’t suit those who continue to argue that the problem was “fuel load” and that say we need a huge increase in fuel reduction burning, or even logging. Some in the MSM are in on this.
Planations, farm land, forest that previously been burned and fuel reduction burned (e.g. around Marysville), all burned.
What does the tonnes per hectare consist of? some of the “unburned” forest consists of wet schlerophyll, the remnants we have been allowed to keep. These would probably be defined as having quite a few tonnes per hectare, yes? especially with the rotting fallen logs and such that contain a lot of moisture. We all know what sectors are trying to “harvest” (euphemism) the few vanishing remnants of that which isn’t “locked up” (reverse euphemism and emotive term) in national parks and turn it into woodchips. Most of us know that what springs up is more like dry schlerophyll and more likely to burn.
So will there be pressure on the commission to let sectional interests raze as much old growth forest as possible, to the ultimate detriment possibly of communities that live near them?
helen, you’re completely ignorant if you believe that timber harvesting a) had any effect on the severity of the fires, or b) will benefit in any way whatsoever from these fires.
There’s a fanciful myth circulating amongst a few deep greens that timber harvesting is implicated in bushfires. There is no good evidence available to prove this at all.
Our worst fires ever were in 1851 – gonna blame the timber industry on that one are you?
Talk about pushing an ideological barrow…
Wilful, I wouldn’t suggest the timber industry contributed to the fires, but that they will benefit from the efforts by the Miranda Devines of this world to blame the whole thing on environmentalists is pretty clear I’d say. True, Devine and co are probably pushing that barrow more as part of a culture war (and to cover up the contribution from climate change) than to help their mates in the industry, but I’m sure its part of their motivation.
THank you, Sparrowhawk, yes that is what I am talking about. And Wilful, I’ll thank you to stop throwing around the ridiculous “deep green” epithet. Deep Green, as you would know, has a very specific meaning within the various Green movements worldwide with the DGs being the furthest outliers. I imagine most people who read and comment on LP are intelligent enough to see through this though. It’s the equivalent of the people in the 1970s who would call everyone to the left of John Gorton “communist”.
The majority of Victorians are very keen not to trash the remnants of our great old-growth forests and while some of them are Greens voters, very few of them are deep Greens
Gareth #21 & 23.
On the “up to 45 tonnes per hactare” issue, your quarrel is not just with me, but with the official transcript of proceedings which still (as of this morning) nowhere cites a figure of “up to 45 tonnes per hectare”. The linked report by Gary Hughes seems not to have been corrected in the light of this.
On the second point, you may have a point about a question of detail, but for the reasons mentioned by peterc #25, Parker’s report still succeeds in overstating the significance of fuel load and understating the significance of other factors on which Tolhurst testified to the Royal Commission.
1. The 1851 fires were before Victoria lost over 60% of its trees.
2. Robert is correct: the use of the atomic bomb analogy for fire energy simply exposes the bias of the user. The output of our power stations has the same equivalent energy as thousands and thousands of Atomic bombs – so what?
Huggy
As I said above it seems to me that Dr Tolhurst simply used the atomic bomb reference as an analogy. Simply a tool for getting across a rough idea of the energy involved. Problem is that it has some pretty strong imagery attached which affects different people in different ways. I find it a handy reference but some of my work colleagues were freaking out.
Good point above: The weather factors involved that Dr Tolhurst talks about (in considerable detail) are being virtually ignored/misunderstood by some MSM journos. His description of how the wind and smoke directions at different levels interact and in some cases confuse is set out beautifully.
We really need people like this building training tools for firefighters – could really help them in “realtime” firefighting.
As for communications: – if you want an example of how flakey satcoms can be just take a GPS into the Blue Mountains one day and check out how many times your position “jumps” by 100m! One major problem is RF reflectivity (granite can be a real pain in the a%$e this way), meaning that even line-of-site UHF/VHF communications can be difficult depending on the surrounding topography/geology. Possibly ROV aircraft with repeaters would be one way of fixing this? Put on some FLIR gear and you’ve also got a handy tool for fireys – albeit not that cheap!
I have a feeling that (a) this will not be the last time
.
I have a feeling it wasn’t the first time either.
.
This is standard practice and it really is disgraceful.
.
What in essence is being performed is a concerted act of corporate policy to get in as early as possible and get straight to work on the first draft of a bogus history. And people will believe it. This sort of stuff is right out of Pravda c. 1950. But it’s worse because us dumbarse’d mindless consumers think that what we read in the papers is, um, true. Why? Because we think that Fairfax lies. So Rupert must be the good guy right? The simply moral dichotomy of the classic Western obtains in the real world yeah?
.
I will have reason to draw attention to misreporting of the Bushfires Royal Commission and (b) certain newspapers, and certain journalists, shall be called to account much more than once about this sort of thing.
.
Well okay. But the root of this problem is much deeper and Statist solutions won’t work. Laws are no good unless the culture supports them. The problem here is one of ethics and closed markets. Rupert controls 70% of the news here so his minions can lie like pigs in shit until the cows come home and the only people who’ll dissent are the Balmain Bourgeoisie. There’s a reason that Rupert penetrates the collective psyche of the Great Unread and that Fairfax doesn’t so much.
.
There’s also a serious problem with the education system if people are so blind to blatent manipulation.
.
Activism is called for. On various fronts. I wonder if News Ltd can get sued for misreporting on a vital issue so badly? Is there some tort that applies viz your lies are leading to bad bush management practices? And maybe this for Rupert? But make it with dog food. :) .
.
But what’s really called for is a boost to general skepticism skills and a lot more competition for News Ltd.
What interested me about Dr Tolhurst’s figure of 25 tonne/hectare was that it was an estimate based on the vegetation type. Nobody appears to have done any fuel load sampling in the bush fire affected areas. The CFA used a figure of 12 tonne/hectare which is a factor of 2 different from Tolhurst’s estimate. Given that fire intensity varies as the square of fuel load this means that their estimate of fire intensity would be a quarter of Tolhurst’s and both are only a guess/estimate!
How can one expect rational decision making when one key factor, fuel loads, are based on a guess.
I don’t want to flog a horse already deceased, but the “atomic bomb” metaphor is a poor analogy. Robert Merkel nailed it: the power is the energy divided by the timespan of the release. Milliseconds for the bomb, hours for the fires.
In addition
1) the bomb is a point source, the fires unfortunately were spread over many square kilometers
2) no residual nuclear radiation from bushfires (no “atomic plague” of radiation sicknesss, in Wilfred Burchett’s phrasing)
3) Victoria was not at war
4) the intensity of radiant heat in the fires was high but not comparable to a flash that left silhouette shadows on walls where had stood people [vaporised in the flash]
5) very high smoke plumes but not a mushroom cloud
etc
etc
I think it’s a poor metaphor, hardly qualifying as an “analogy”. But people use these comparisons all the time. E.g. total of deaths compared to annual road toll, volume of water compared to capacity of Sydney Harbour, etc.
Last night on the telly, a NSW volunteer in the SES said the flood water he was pumping out “would have been lots of Olympic size pools” worth. He was accurate by being vague.
@ Paul Norton: A weak effort. If you choose to rely on the transcript of the oral evidence is the totality of the evidence heard by the commission, then you are in a very precarious position to be accusing others of misreporting.
Before I posted, you could perhaps be excused for jumping to an erroneous conclusion. Having been alerted to the true situation, your position is now one of bad faith.
Sorry, that first sentence above should read: “If you choose to rely on the transcript of the oral evidence AS the totality of ALL the evidence …” etc.
Gareth, I rely on the transcript of the oral evidence as the totality of what is available to me the day after the evidence has been presented. If you can provide evidence (other than your own uncorroborated assertion) that a figure of “up to 45 tonnes per hectare” was presented to the commission, I will stand corrected on this matter of detail.
This will still leave standing the point which peterc made at #25 (and to which you haven’t responded) that it is a misreporting of Kevin Tolhurst’s position to impute to him the view that fuel load was the principal factor in the intensity of the February fires.
“In forests leaves, bark and twigs can accumulate by up to 10 tonnes per hectare a year, if left untouched. Fifteen tonnes of fine litter per hectare makes any fire that starts in it uncontrollable. Such intense bushfires have flames that leap high, and scorch or kill the leaves. These leaves drop. Killed trees fall, making a start to a new litter layer, which can be 5 tonnes per hectare from leaves alone after a severe scorching.” (Excerpt from my book The Complete Bushfire Safety Book -3rd edition, Random House, 2000). First published 1986.
For a thorough understanding of what ‘stay or go is really all about, read The Complete Bushfire Safety Book, chapter 12, the decision – stay or go? Safety or Suicide?
Thank you Joan
Your book was a valuable guide to my family when we lived at the edge of bushland overlooking Churchill, perhaps 1 km from where the Churchill/Jeeralang fire raced through on 7th Feb. That and CFA advice about clearing litter around the house, maintaining a gapo with no shrubs or trees, water-in-the-roof-gutters, sheltering indoors if a fire arrived, not depending on electic pumps, hazards of trying to drive away (falling trees), etc.
All our former neighbours survived last Feb, by a combination of preparedness, knowledge, water bombing aircraft, and sheer LUCK.
The physical “fuel” load is not the only factor. Material becomes fuel when it dries out: so low humidity (on the day) and previous drying (in a heat wave) actually increases the fuel load, without the physical mass changing at all. As you know. The simplest analogy is to consider buring dry firewood vs having trouble lighting damp firewood. In the Ash Wednesday fires, CFA reported some gullies – always previously too damp to burn – were in flames. More difficult then, to predict fire behaviour and fight the fire.
We used to rake up and remove fallen eucalypt twigs, branches, leaf litter etc in an area around the house. That material wasn’t fuel in winter time. It would have been fuel in a hot, dry summer.
After reports of this year’s fires, we’re not sure our old fire plan (stay, shelter downstairs) would have saved our lives if the fire had arrived.
Came across your site while doing some research. Hope you dont mind the comment.
Is misreporting to be the issue or is there something more taking place? the aim of any good inquirer is to have a game plan, for what evidence you want to bring forward and what you want to supress. Is not the person asking the questions during the commission following a plan.
For the Royal Commission into the fires to be announced so soon after the devestation has in my view been a means of suppressing commentary of anything other than to lead to a certain goal.
Follow what witnesses are being presented and in what order? What is the goal. So far my view is the goals are (1) we need more resources to fight fires, (2) we need more research into fires (3) we need to assign blame but not in a way to damage anyone’s reputation, (4) we need to justify a stay or go policy.
Apart from the stay or go policy I suspect the findings of the Commission will be repeats of inquiries into previous bushfires, some names and events changed to match the circumstances. Might as well just retype other reports. Am I too negative. From research done, Oz is one of the only countries that still has a stay or go policy. With 273 deaths is the policy worthwhile? 273 deaths are what proportion of the population in the areas of the fires.
Does not the stay or go policy reply upon people making an informed decision, rather than looking out the door or looking up to the sky and seeing huge balls of smoke or flames? In those circumstances how can stay or go be understand. If your home is already catching fire or the ember attack is so great you cannot keep up, is stay or go worthwhile thinking about. Survival mechanisms kick in, based upon the known factors at the time. One would like to think a rescuer is on the way, a friendly fireman, a helpful policeman. Who would think the firey’s were taking it easy near the duckpond at Marysville.
My most skeptical view of the fires, their consequences and the Royal Commission is that the high death toll follows from a reliance on technology and the professionalism of bush fire fighting, rather than the preservation of life and property
Two days ago I wrote at #38:
This invitation still stands and is extended to all readers.
As fascinating as it is to read the amateur technicalities viz bush fire fuel volume I wonder if anyone has any comment whatsoever about the increasing tendency of the so called free press to behave as if Beria ran it?
.
No? That’s too hard a fight ‘ey?
.
I think I’ll write some new lyrics to the Itchy and Scratchy Show theme:
.
.
And I for one welcome our new dictators. :)
If you can provide evidence (other than your own uncorroborated assertion)
.
C’arn Paul. That goes against the spirit of the whole internet. It’s un-American. :)
Gary Hughes was in the room. I was in the room. We both saw 45 tonnes per hectare. Paul was not in the room. But he thinks he knows better. Hilarious.
Paul also believes that unless the primary source material can be made available to him on demand on the internet, it does not exist.
Paul is a clown.
Saw 45 tonnes per hectare in the room? You have remarkable vision! I would be more interested in reading the actual transcript. Eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable, even when the eyewitness are considered reliable.
Tolhurst has unequivocally stated that the overwhelming cause of the ferocity and intensity of the bushfires was the extreme weather factors (low humidity, extreme temperature, strong winds, preceding hot weather), not fuel loads.
This is obvious when you look where the fires burnt – across farmlands, plantations, “managed” forests, and fuel reduction burnt forests alike.
Reporting “fuel loads” as the primary factor is telling a big lie.
Paul has never been to Loch Ness, whereas people who claim to have seen the Loch Ness Monster obviously have been. Do we therefore conclude that Paul has no right to be sceptical about such claims in the absence of further corroboration?
No. Paul is suspending judgement as to the content of said primary source material until he sees it.
Paul is moderator of this thread and interpreter of the LP comments policy which states inter alia “Any comment judged unacceptable may be deleted at the discretion of moderators. Unacceptable comments include but may not be limited to… Vexatious and purely abusive comments.”
Gareth, civility will (a) cost you nothing and (b) have the added advantage of enabling you to continue to comment at this blog. You are on notice.
Paul – Gary Hughes says he was in the room when the report was given and that the figure quoted in The Australian was the one presented there. That’s hardly a Loch Ness monster story is it?
.
So why the discrepancy?
“This is obvious when you look where the fires burnt – across farmlands, plantations, “managed” forests, and fuel reduction burnt forests alike.”
Yes Peter, quite.
I’ve dropped that totally uncontroversial observation into the discussion a bunch of times, and get responses ranging from “…” to “but… but… TEH GREENIEZ!!!”.
Adrien #48, I was invoking the Loch Ness Monster analogy in response to Gareth’s provocative first paragraph.
For whatever reason the figure of 45 tonnes per hectare does not appear in the transcript of proceedings, I have not been able to find the figure elsewhere on the Royal Commission website, and when I googled “45 tonnes per hectare” and variants thereof I could find no mention of such a figure in relation to the Black Saturday fires (other than in links to this thread and to the report in the OO).
Whilst I appreciate that the transcript of oral proceedings cannot represent all forms of information presented at the Royal Commission, I would submit that it seems intuitively reasonable to suppose that if such a figure were presented by Dr. Tolhurst on (e.g.) a PowerPoint slide, it is more likely than not that he would have commented on the figure and its significance and/or that a question regarding the figure would have been posed by one of the commissioners or counsel assisting the commission, and that such comments and/or questions would have been recorded in the transcript of proceedings.
This does not necessarily mean either that such a figure was not presented, or that Gary Hughes (or Gareth) is not sincere in his belief that such a figure was presented. All I am saying is that if such a figure was presented, there should be evidence out there somewhere to independently corroborate this, and it should be possible for someone reading this to draw my attention to this evidence.
The final point to be made is that if such a figure was presented, it was presented in the context of an information-dense presentation on quite complex scientific issues, and therefore can only be meaningfully discussed or reported in the light of that context. Also (once again) what peterc said.
All I am saying is that if such a figure was presented, there should be evidence out there somewhere to independently corroborate this, and it should be possible for someone reading this to draw my attention to this evidance.
.
True. Up to him I s’pose to find it. This issue is interesting to me because of the sheer volume of bullshit expended on’t and the skill with which it’s applied. Essentially a certain segment of the population have been led to believe that the Greens are responsible for bushfires.
.
Goebbels and Beria would be proud. And awed.
.
I had quite a job convincing people otherwise on another site.
The extreme weather conditions before Sat 7th Feb, turn out to be have been eerily similar to those preceding the 1939 “Black Friday” fires. That’s why we took the warnings from Premier Brumby so seriously.
Strong northerly winds, hot day, low humidity have ALWAYS been the “Total Fire Ban” indicators. But this was much, much worse. And the CFA et al knew so and said so beforehand.
I live in West Gippsland: we were sheltering indoors from 11am (temp already about 39C). Around noon we watched the massive, clearly-defined smoke plume passing overhead from Bunyip State Forest. Later, saw the Churchill/Jeeralang luume rising 50km away, etc etc.
Paul: I apologise for the clown remark, it was childish and unnecessary.
I cannot agree, however, that you are “reserving judgement”. Quite the opposite, you made your mind up at the start, when you pulled the 45 tonnes per hectare figure (one small element of a detailed news report which covers a whole lot of ground, including, Peterc, as it turns out, weather conditions if you actually read it) and used it to suggest that the reporting was deliberately slanted and agenda driven.
That’s a fairly serious accusation.
I, with no “interest” in any of this other than a) happening to run across your post and b) having actually been there, chipped in to say that your reasoning (45 tonnes per hectare is not in the transcript of the oral evidence, therefore 45 tonnes per hectare figure is made up/does not exist. therefore Gary Hughes, who works for the “Opposition Organ”, is running an agenda) is faulty.
Having given you new information about what actually went down, which might allow you to understand why Hughes wrote what he did, you have instead dug in your heels and insisted that you were right the first time.
Again, I have no interest in this at all. I write for a newspaper that is not owned by Fairfax or News Limited, I have not been instructed by my editors to find fuel loads and Greenies guilty for killing 173 Victorians.
I am simply defending a man who is not here to defend himself against an accusation of professional misconduct. Because that accusation is absolutely and completely unfair and wrong.
Having made these points for the third or fourth time now, I am not going to waste more of my time by making them again. If you choose not to amend your post in light of what you now know, that is your choice. You will be judged accordingly.
Gareth, thanks for the apology.
I should also say that it was not and is not my intention to call your honesty or your motives into question by asking for corroboration of your claims about having seen the 45 tonnes per hectare figure.
Having re-read my original post and considered the discussion, I’ve come to think that (a) I would write it differently if I had my time over and (b) I was less than fair and less than completely decent to Gary Hughes, especially in the light of his personal misfortune. I have taken my own steps (beyond those mentioned at #50) to try to establish the facts of the 45 tonnes per hectare bit, and whatever turns up will obvious shape the extent to which I amend or qualify the original post.
Thank you Paul. May I suggest the independent corroboration for will be found in the report referred to in page 990 of the transcript linked in your original post.
The original post has now been rewritten.
Gareth #55, thanks for the tip regarding the corroboration, but you may be interested to know that I’d already taken the action suggested by email to Kevin Tolhurst early on Friday afternoon. Dr. Tolhurst, busy man that he undoubtedly is, has not yet responded.
Much better! Well done Paul.
Joan Webster
The issue of tonnes per hectare in the forest during a bushfire becomes irrelevant when it is realised that what is important for the survival or destruction of homes and lives is the amount of ground litter and the fine fuel of undergrowth and shrubs in the immediate area around the house.
Where there is less fuel in the back yard, there is less radiant heat released to directly affect the home, regardless of what happens elsewhere. The intensity of any fire impinging on a particular building is a direct correlation with the density of vegetation immediately adjacent to that house. Heat intensity immediately diminishes upon reaching any property with judiciously cleared ground litter and undergrowth. The less dense the vegetation, the less intense any fire in it . Radiant heat has to die down in an un-cluttered garden’; flames have to thin out; embers become more sparse. With an un-cluttered garden there are fewer embers trying to get into the house and less radiant heat to threaten life. It is the flaring of fine-fuel undergrowth that creates the most dangerous radiant heat. The killer factor. Burning tree trunks are OK in this respect.
A flaming forest can’t harm a house if the householder has distanced the house from it and thinned its undergrowth, put paths instead of plants adjacent to windows and flammable cladding, and used compost or granitic sand rather than bark chips for mulch.
Planting European deciduous trees around houses can be of great benefit.
It can be seen from video footage of television news and documentary programs such as ABC1’s 4 Corners Eye of the Storm, that even at height of the bushfires, with ignited houses blazing into utter destruction, many trees, even nearby, are not concurrently burning and have not already been burnt. Aerial photographs also show many intact trees and gardens surrounding the ruins of houses. Personal visual inspection has affirmed that although some of these unignited trees were eucalypts, the vast majority were European deciduous trees such as oak, poplar, plane, elm, elder, willow, liquid amber and beech. This phenomenon was repeatedly observed at Marysville, Kinglake, Strathewen, Flowerdale, Humevale, and Bendigo.
It does not necessarily follow that either judicious ground clearing, or the planting of European deciduous trees, will prevent house destruction or save life during a bushfire. A vital factor is knowing what to do.
All this is thoroughly explained in Chapters 4 and 8 of The Complete Bushfire Safety Book Insight into bushfire tragedy and A Protective Garden. For those who don’t have the time to read an in-depth book, there is the newly published CSIRO edition of my Essential Bushfire Safety Tips, Chapter 10, Planting for Bushfire Protection.
Joan Webster
‘Groups Divided over Future Relevance of Fire Rule Book’, The Age, June 14, 2009, page 12, reporting on the Fires Royal Commission. This article is the most biased piece of reporting I have ever seen.
‘People in four out of 60 Community Fireguard groups interviewed after Black Saturday said no amount of preparation would have helped, the Bushfires Royal Commission heard yesterday.
‘Things taught in Community Fireguard are no longer true. The rule books has changed, said one person surveyed in the CFA report, A View of the role of the Community Fireguard in 2009 Victorian Bushfires.
‘But others praised the way the program had helped save their lives and houses: “All I did through the fire was exactly what the Community Fireguard instruction book said, prepared, sheltered inside. No doubt that if (I) had not had education from (the) CFA (I) would not be talking to you today”. ’
One would think that a news report, in contrast to propaganda, would highlight the majority stance of the 56 out of 60, with possibly a tail-end reference to the minority view. But, no. The Age led the article with the opinion of the tiny minority, giving to it twice the space allotted to the 56.
This blatantly biased reporting not only lowers the standard of journalism to the depths but, by giving influential prominence to a small negative view of proven life-saving measures, puts future lives in jeopardy.
It makes me very sad that people are bagging the CFA. These are people who give up their time on a voluntary basis to do really horrible work which at certain times may see them dead, out of a job, or suffering nightmares from witnessing death and destruction. It’s evident to me that things have changed, but not because the old CFA was doing it RONG, but because the drying environment and increasing extreme weather incidents are shifting the goalposts. Instead of bagging out these extraordinary men and women the authoritahs at all levels should be putting more resources both into research into bushfire science and the resourcing and communications for the CFA.
On the research front, it is very sad and ironic that Jenny Barnett of the VNPA was working on bushfire mitigation research when she died in the February fires. I hope some of her work survives and can be carried on by others.
Yes Helen,
People who experienced some danger on that day tend to have a high regard for the efforts of the CFA volunteers. People who have lived in the bush or in fire-prone areas, who have learnt from Joan Webster’s book or from CFA, DSE information; people who took the very serious warnings from the Premier seriously……
There is still a hand-painted sign on the flower bed roundabout at the north end of Churchill township: CFA We Love You Big Time. The town was spared only by the wind direction. Many houses, farms damaged or destroyed nearby. Several lives lost. Very sad to see incompetent reporting muddy the waters.
I’m late to this thread, but I have to express my admiration for gareth, whose civility in dealing with dills speaks volumes for his saintly nature. There are so many myths and misconceptions, one hardly knows where to begin.
One commenter has repeated the canard that controlled burns (not back burns, which are an entirely different thing) were conducted all about Marysville. Yes, but only little ones, and the most recent of those were measured in mere hectares. (from memory, only 20% of the area designated for burning actually felt the torch). In any case, they could have paved a one- kilometre patch around all of Marysvile and it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference. the town was destoyed by a sustained ember attack over the course of three hours. There was no fire front, as such, but a series of eruptions all over the townas as candle bark touched down and set things off. Exploding gas bottles compounded this, probably being responsible for at least half the homes lost. The fires then followed a classic dresden pattern, in that they generated a vast convection column which further enhanced the fire.
And where did the embers come from? Try the forest country along the road to Narbethong, which hadn’t been burned and was probably carrying fuel in the range of 45 tonnes per hectare. Ash forests generate vast quantities of bark — it’s part of their life cycle, in that you only get a new generation of ash after the last has been destroyed by fire. The bark makes sure the fire does a thorough job of bringing on the next generation, most particularly by clearing the top storey so light can reach the now-nutrient laden forest floor. the southerly change carried that volume of embers up and over Mt. Strickland, which acted as as a ski jump, and let it rain down everywhere. Remember, the fires were spotting up to 25 kms. Look at Daryl Hull’s testimony, particularly his memory of looking up at the embers landing on the surface of the lake in which he had taken refuge. the rain was so heavy he had to duck dive because the top of his head kept being burnt. That’s a hell of a concentration if it is scoring multiple hits on a target area no larger than, say, 20 cm X 20 cm (if he has a big head!!!!!).
The ash on the Spur were less than 70 years old, most planted by Italian POWs to replace those destroyed on Black friday. Given that they live for 300-400 years, a little burning at this stage wouldn’t have done any harm. It would have given them a chance to get past adolescence, at any rate.
Thirty per cent of melbourne’s catchment area was burned out — and that is a huge worry. New ash stands will generate huge runoffs over the next two years, as there will be no trees there to snaffle the water before it reaches the dams. It will be laden with contaminants, however. But when they start growing in earnest, each regnan trying to outgrow and shade its neighboour, they will hoover dam-loads of water. Studies by the old MMBW indicate it will be 70 years before water flow gets back to what it was in january. If you wanted to be super-practical, you’d cut down the ash over the next century and replace them with an oak forest, which wouldn’t burn half so readily and will shed leaves only in winter. But we couldn’t do that, not when the green-voting residents of Fitzroy and brunswick derive so much satisfaction from their emotional attachment to native trees, although definitely not their proximity to them. A green of my acquaintance some time ago regaled me with his lemon-scented gums, which he planted in place of pines and poplars he had torn out. I was a guest at his table at the time, so good manners stopped me pointing out that lemon-scenteds are no more native to his patch of heidelberg than the foreign “exotics” he uprooted for no good reason whatsoever. Listen to a green talk about trees and you soon realise the trees are smarter. I believe he found the extolling of his own virtue a sweeter moment than dessert.
One commenter made the absurd claim that some sort of arboricide had been going on, that 60% of trees had been cleared. I’d suggest that poster read Alfred Howitt’s address to the Royal Society of Victoria, delivered in 1890, “the Eucalypts of Gippsland”. Howitt observes that the passing from the land of Gippsland aborigines had led to a vast increase in trees, because the tribes’ regular burning had come to an end. Shoots and saplings that would normally have been consumed by a cool burn were growing to maturity, in his observation, and choking the bush, where once he could ride his horse as if in a deer park. Of course, greens reject this, saying that since no pioneer directly records observing a blackfella with a box of redheads, it must all be a myth propagated by loggers and developers. One of the casualties were Gippsland’s redgums, by Howitt’s reckoning, now an endangered species due to caterpillar infestation. The redgums have been replaced, however, with more of the ubiquitous dry sclerophyll. We don’t have less trees. We have more of them, it’s just that they are scrubby rubbish (and not in good health, either).
Go up and have a look at the mountains beyond Licola, which were burned out with heavy fuel loads a few years back. Many hills have washed into the macilster and the glen maggie dam, into which it empties, is now 20% silted up. the crap washed into the Gippsland lakes hasn’t done anything to improve their health, either. In other spots, nothing grows (near Fiddlers Green, for example), because the soil has been cooked to death, its chemistry and bacteria destroyed.
Fire is a serious thing, and it would be even 172 people had not lost their lives. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, if all you can manage is pithy parroting of the talking points from Green Left Weekly, then for God’s sake shut up. There will be more fires next year — the Bunyip blaze skipped vast acreages of country that must be 40t/ha at least, and it’s just aching to burn.
Ground fuels do matter, particularly in the bush-urban interface. The Nillumbik of 80 years ago looked nothing like the Nillumbik of feb. 6. It was pig farms, orchards and pasture (check the old land-use surveys if you don’t believe me) The trees imposed on the landscape are a construct (to use language that sprout-sucking wankers readily comprehend), a green fantasy, no more real than Michael Jackson’s late nose. The council encouraged residents to grow bursan!!!!! aka petrol bush, even paying a bounty for planting it around your home. Such idiocy, and 140 people in the greater Kinglake area paid for it with their lives. They then compounded this by allowing road verges to become multi-storeyed death traps. One reason so many bodies were found in bathrooms, I suspect, is because people knew the roads were impassable.
As I said, the nitwit brigade should shut up. When we have our next holocaust, angry people might just want someone to lynch. it would be a good idea not to remind irate grown-ups of your collective culpability.
Good work, bunyip.
The physics and chemistry etc of fire and fuel loads and the specific features of forest ecology/fire ecology need to be more widely understood.
I have only just come across this discussion thread (I’ve been busy continuing the coverage of the royal commission for The Australian!). It is a pity, because I could have cut short the conspiracy theories. The 45 tonnes figure comes from “Report on the Physical Nature of the Victorian Fires Occurring on February 7, 2009″. This was a report prepared by Dr Tolhurst at the request of the royal commission and tendered as an exibit. The 45 tonnes per hectare figure can be found on Page 10, under the heading “Fuels”. The document is available on the royal commission website at:
Tolhurst Report
Thankyou to those who defended me in my absence, although I would be the first to say that the fact my home was lost on Black Saturday should not (and does not) influence by reporting of the inquiry or would it make mistakes in any was acceptable.
Quite simply, the 45 tonnes figure was used by Dr Tolhurst and was reported as such.
Gary Hughes
The Australian
Gary #64, thanks for the link to the Tolhurst Report. Also, now that you’ve posted personally I’d like to express my apologies directly for the reckless imputations against you in the original version of the opening post (since amended).
That said, I think it is worth quoting in full what Kevin Tolhurst wrote on the subject of fuels:
In other words, whilst prior fuel reduction burning or the lack thereof is one factor in determining the amount of fuel available, in the conditions of Black Saturday climate and weather were also crucial in converting plant matter to fuel which would not have been part of the fuel load in less extreme conditions.
To recapitulate what has been established in discussion at this and several other bushfire threads at LP.
1. Fuel load is one of a number of factors determining fire size and intensity. In conditions of Low to Very High fire danger it is of primary importance. In conditions of Extreme to Catastrophic fire danger (as on Black Saturday) it is of secondary importance.
2. Fuel reduction burning is one of a number of factors determining fuel load, others including vegetation clearing, land use, and weather and climate conditions, with the latter becoming very significant in extreme conditions.
3. The quantity, type and location of fuel reduction burning carried out is determined by a number of factors. Questions of the quantity, type and location of fuel reduction burning that should be carried out are the subject of legitimate scientific and community debate. Given that we are talking about long-term changes in the characteristics of over 200 vegetation ecosYstem types in Victoria alone, the answers (if there are definitive answers) to many of these questions lie many years into the future.
Paul,
I’m happy to leave you guys to continuing debating the benefits or otherwise of fuel reduction. I think it’s worth pointing out that Dr Tolhurst in his report (nor me in the original article that prompted this discussion) made any reference to fuel reduction. As a journalist, it’s not my role to attempt to interpret Dr Tolhurst’s views on fuel reduction from what he says in his report about his calculations on fuel loadings.
Those interested in the issue might want to read transcripts from the royal commission last week, when there was some evidence about prior fuel reduction burns around Marysville and whether they played any role on the day.
The royal commission is due to look in detail at the issue of fuel reduction during hearings early next year.
Gary Hughes
The Australian
Thanks for the pointers, Gary. For the benefit of other readers, the testimony on the Marysville fire is contained in the transcript on the causes and circumstances of the Murrundindi fire.