As the first hot days of the southern summer dry out the Victorian bush, the state government has announced that it’s going to lease a fixed-wing water bomber aircraft – probably a modified 747 or DC-10 – as an additional firefighting tool. That presumably means either the Evergreen Supertanker or the Tanker 910. Useful additions to Victoria’s firefighting capability, without a doubt. But I do wonder about the value for money; it will be interesting to see how and where the plane is used when it arrives.
Meanwhile, the Victorian government has also brought in new interim regulations requiring any bunker to meet fire protection standards. The Master Builders Association claims that this will actually prevent the construction of any bunkers:
The association’s executive director, Brian Welch, says in order for builders to comply with the new guidelines, testing must take place, and that will take time.
“My experience suggests to me that you will find that they will not be able to have a bunker legally installed in Victoria for probably the next six months – that’s because that’s the time I assume it will take to get these things tested and approved,” he told ABC News Online.
Better to have no bunkers installed at all, rather than the lethal illusion of safety.
Still, bits like these suggest the response to Black Saturday is still more ad-hoc than systematic. That’s probably unavoidable given that the fire season is now upon us. But one hopes that after the final report of the Royal Commission that the response is considered in totality rather than piece by piece.
The problem with all responses to the bushfires is they continue to seek blame and they hope there is a technological solution. I think the real solution to the bushfire problem is counter-intuitive in that we need millions, if not billions, of new trees, to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere, stabilise our climate and reduce the extreme adverse weather patterns we will continue to suffer. But i am not sure how you sell ‘prevent fires – plant more trees’.
Interestingly, given that the DC-10 was explicitly mentioned in a Bushfire CRC report looking at the economics of aerial fire suppression that concluded that fixed-wing aircraft were not economical (PDF link). Looks like the Victorian govt is in a position where impression management (being seen to do something) is more important than fire management.
My admittedly non-expert, not very well informed understanding of the value of the Erikson Sky Cranes is that in the majority of situations they aren’t worth the money, if it’s a bushfire in rugged terrain then it would be far better value to have more, more nimble smaller waterbombing planes and ‘copters. however, for some critical asset protection (houses and people), you can’t get away from the fact that it drops nine tnnes at a time, compared to the 1.2 tonnes for other, lighter aircraft (which may have a work rate nine times as high).
And the publicity is unbeatable.
I expect a fixed-wing large water bomber is the same multiplied. But the safety of flying very large planes in rugged terrain with smoke and wild local weather means I’d be worried that they’d either be so high that they’ll simply miss, or very much strategic bombing of questionable value, since it isn’t human applied water that ever puts out bushfires, it’s natural rain.
Robert
I think you’ll find that some Victorian families are already building their own bunkers, or already had one previously and may be modifying it in the light of recent anecdotes. My guess is their priority is self-protection and safety. And “complying with building regulatiovs” may not be a high priority at this stage.
Of course, what they’re building are wine cellars, underground storage rooms, subterranean cubby-houses, etc.
But that’s the problem.
Not so much that regulation is a magic bullet. But the regulations say, in a nutshell, that a fire bunker design needs to be shown to work. At the moment, the people building their own may well be building a death drap.
They may well be. But it turned out last February, that families who (by all professional advice available) thought their own well-prepared, sturdy houses (or cellars) were safe, died.
So I won’t condemn a family for building a cellar, that they may never have to test out in extremis.
My own preference would be to evacuate the night before an extreme weather day. I have friends who routinely evacuate to the safety of a town (that’s not surrounded by bushland) on every Total Fire Ban day. I’ll not condemn that choice either.
I’ve heard that the old bush “dugouts” (long earthen tunnels) saved may lives in the 1939 fires. Perhaps the dugouts weren’t perfect, but they were a d*mn sight safer than being in the open air or jumping into a water tank.
I suppose it’s considered too expensive, sorry, not cost effective enough, but I guess having a fully equipped professional fire fighting force across the state is a model no-one will give any serious airtime to.
I know it’s been discussed on LP before, Armagny.
But whether the front-line firefighters were volunteers or professionals wouldn’t have made much difference at all on Black Saturday; the only thing that could have stopped those fires was a change in the weather.
If crucial mistakes were made in the response, they were made at the managerial and policy level, which is all professionals anyway.
“the only thing that could have stopped those fires was a change in the weather. ” I’m wary of just waving such assertions through. We all know the fires were incredible, but it is too easy an out to constitute the response this way. The relevant question might not be whether we would have ’stopped’ them, but rather whether we might have stopped, or contained, more of them, and/or rescued more people. If the loss of life could have been reduced 20-30% by any given initiative, that might be a worthwhile thing notwithstanding that the fires would have raged on in many places.
As I understand it, there was a change in the weather, with cooler air being blown in, but from another direction, which caused the fires to “open” a second front. Additional fire-fighting resources, perhaps particularly on-the-ground trucks & persons, would surely have been invaluable in combatting the resultant weather-induced spread.
Armagny, if you go and read the royal commission’s interim report, it makes abundantly clear that those fires were not going to be stopped, nor their courses substantially altered, by any available firefighting technology. Read this bit, particularly the bit about the fire intensity. The best professional firefighters in the world would have been no more effective than Scouts with a wet sack and shovel in those conditions.
The only chance of containing fires on days like that is if they had been spotted, located, and attacked almost immediately after they started. It’s very hard to see how having additional professional crews would have made any difference to that – the limiting factor is how fast fire crews can get there. More choppers or fixed-wing water bombers – perhaps even having them continuously in the air on extreme fire danger days – perhaps.
As for rescues, we’ll have to wait for the commission. But, frankly, in most situations it’s very hard to see how rescuers could have gotten anywhere near the fire front, professionals or not.
My understanding is that CSIRO does have have tested designs available. There is no reason why production of these designs couldn’t be geared up now. I suspect that the problem the Master builders are talking about is the new wine cellar/bunker design that their clients desire.
The real issue right now is what is being done for this fire season given the reality of the bunker building program and what can and cannot be achieved by fire fighters.
Last years fires mean that places like Maryville wont be at risk this year. So there is a need to sort out which places and houses really will be at risk this year and to make sure that resources are concentrated on these places.
For the high risk places there will need to be action plans to reduce the risk as well as plans for what needs to be done on high risk days. There is also a need for community briefing so that people will have the best chance of surviving and people are not killed when they drive into danger.
My own view is that it’s probably best to focus on
a) where residential development is allowed and the environmental and cost feasibility of ensuring relatively fire-safe access roads with the carrying capacity to allow rapid evacuation by vehicle.
b) The construction of centrally located and secure fire refuge points where those who for any reason had left it too late to leave could be accommodated, and/or evacuated. These points would be set up to provide overnight shelter, water, first aid and have secure communication to not less than 20% of the people in their catchment area.
IMO, the cost of building and maintaining these facilities in a state of readiness ought to fall upon the ratepayers through fire insurance levies.
Robert is right above though. Short of keeeping larg neumbers water=bombing aircraft continuously in flight — effectively having massive redundancy and at huge cost, you can’t do much to hold back a megafire that is consistent with preservation of bushland.
In the longer run of course, mitigating climate change is a key measure, but it’s now clear that nothing we do now can mitigate that on any timeline pertinent here. While what we do might, if it is very robust and ubquitous, have a mitigating effect on megafires after about 2100, none of us will be around to see it.
I live in Belgrave Heights which is pretty much in the middle of it all.
I am currently at war with the local council trying to get a gate taken down that blocks a potential escape route for around 30 people. They have replied to say that they will only open up the gate when the fire season is officially deemed. I told them that next week we will have a 36C day which will most probably be a total fire ban day – with the gate still closed.
I told them har har because in fact the gate has been kind of open for the past 2 months because someone crashed into it and at the moment it is a hazzard as they do no maintenance and it is literally swinging freely.
May I say in Victoria the climate has changed in a very dramatic way in recent years.
All my life I have never known the hottest days to be blowing wind. Its always still. That was some kind of consolation then. But Black Saturday was 46C and blowing a northerly. That is something new. Tragically, what killed most was the change to the southerly in the late afternoon.
I wonder what sort of water supply will be used in fixed wing aircraft. Elvis, the sky crane, sucks its water out of the closest dam. I guess the fixed wing aircraft will use tap water from fire hydrants.
Really as soon as the CFA or DSE identify a fire, they should plot its path, evaluate its intensity and evacuate people in its path or put fire fighters in to control the fire. All we can expect is for everyone to do their best, not make mistakes. Why do volunteers risk their lives and health undertaking this valuable community work?
People who live in the identified high risk areas often don’t know people they could evacuate to. Would you like to plan to sit on an oval without any shade all day in 47 degrees? About 4th & 5th February 2009, when asked on Radio National why Victoria didn’t have mandatory evacuations, Brumby said there were half a million people living in high fire risk areas and not enough evacuation areas. Evidently even the treeless and bushfree outer suburbs are fire risks.
The problem with community bunkers is the cost of maintenance, the obvious threat of vandalism and damage by disengaged yobbos rendering it unfit for habitation. There is an outfit in Albury making concrete bunkers – uses a similar mould to septic tanks
brendan – I lived in the Otways and was a CFA fire fighter in my early(ish), wasted but none-the-less elegant, years.
I can’t say I agree about hot days always being still.
But none of us have the data so its all beer talk.
I’m with Dr Faustus – its all PR TV thisdaytonight bullshit with firebombing – but hey thats what you get with lawyers and media setting the agenda.
Ash Wednesday had a screaming northerly, I believe, though it was marginally cooler.
Francis Xavier Holden,
Beer talk? Yes, I suppose. But anyone you mention it to who is old enough will immediately say “Thats right!”….thats a lot of beer. I worked outdoors for 30 years and I can never remember a day over 40 that was windy and the one thing that struck me on black saturday was that it was windy during the heat of the day.
Robert, you are right. There was northerlies the day before too.
So I guess, those are the days, because they are pretty rare.
Billie,
Elvis or whatever it was emptied Birdsland lake (Belgrave) last Feb in one day. Nothing left but mud.
brendon, the hottest days are generally associated with wind, becuae it’s bringing the heat from the desert. Our worst fire weather is always with a northerly. This hasn’t changed.
Armagny, there is absolutely no chance that any of those black saturday fires could have been meaningfully controlled, within about 15 minutes of ignition. To attempt to do so merely kills firefighters. As for a professional firefighting force, we do have one, there are over 1000 DSE staff dedicated to fire management, and I think about 800 paid professional CFA firefighters. If you doubled or tripled the size of this force (is that what you’re suggesting?), then for the overwhelming majority of the time you’d be wasting a godawful amount of money, and for the critical periods they’d still be inadequate. Nothing, repeat nothing, can stop a bushfire with the wind behind it.
Billie: Really as soon as the CFA or DSE identify a fire, they should plot its path, evaluate its intensity and evacuate people in its path or put fire fighters in to control the fire.
Good idea. In fact, that’s pretty much exactly what happens. First attack on small fires is highly successful, more than 95% of fires are put out at ten hectares or less. The reason you may not know that is because success isn’t very newsworthy. The only thing that doesn’t really happen is evacuations. No power to do so, and a belief (which is being tested) that people survive in houses, and die on roads.
Not too sure about that, wilful. I can remember plenty from the mid 30’s to about 40 being windy. But whenever it is a real stinker its normally still with sometimes if you are lucky a a cooling breeze in the late afternoon.
Uh-oh. A fully loaded 747 loitering at 400 feet? I don’t want to be under that thing when it goes in, thanks very much.
Brendon, just got some info from Barry Brooks Brave New Climate blog. Turns out that currently in South Australia the windfarms are turning at 9% of nameplate capacity. So yes, quite still.