The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
The CFA myth and other fables the Commission failed to fire
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Victoria’s Bushfires Royal Commission has politely damned the performance and policies of the state’s fire agencies. In doing so it has overlooked the inherent dangers of politeness. Premier Brumby knew immediately after Black Saturday that the catastrophe could threaten his government. He chose to brazen it out, heaping fulsome praise on the fire chiefs and responding truculently to any hint of dissent. The Commission underestimated the ruthlessness of politicians and the thickness of their hides. Universal criticism by the media for the administrative and policy failures on Black Saturday will not faze the Premier. Neither will smouldering public anger. Brumby diluted the concept of responsibility to homeopathic proportions. His final formulation was audacious: “all Victorians feel a responsibility for … February 7th”. Far from allowing the Commission to do its job unhindered, Brumby repeatedly pre-empted it. After banning separate legal representation for the various authorities, his most serious interference was the reappointment of CFA chief Russell Rees. In spite of this white-anting, the Commission produced 360 pages of cogent analysis after a mere 35 days of hearings, and digested 1260 written submissions. A magnificent effort. But will key reforms be implemented? What, indeed, are the key reforms? The Interim Report recommends changes to virtually every aspect of wildfire policy. Sirens, websites, roadblocks, warnings, forecasting; it’s a plethora in search of a principle. Have the deep, twisted roots of fatal bushfire policy been cut? Five myths have to be debunked to clear the way to genuine reform:
Has the Royal Commission demolished these myths? Brumby kept the fire chiefs, and the commission was too polite to insist on new leadership. On CFA impotence, the Commission could be clearer, though it has unequivocally put life before property. On residents fighting fires, the Commission is more forthright, but recommending the CFA advise on “defendability” has left a loophole. The bad old policy could squeeze through. And who’s to say the unreconstructed CFA is a good judge of safety? In Anglesea in June, I listened in amazement as the CFA told elderly residents that the “stay or go” policy was “110% right”. Even in a severe fire, only the edge of town would be undefendable. “The rest is spot fires. You can handle them,” we were told. The report does crush the “house as refuge” myth but this is vitiated by the ambiguity of “defendability” and the timid “relocation” policy. I don’t care if the vaunted “Wilson House Survivability Meter” (a crude rule of thumb masquerading as science) says your house has a 99% chance of survival, if it’s in Anglesea, leave early. Quite rightly, the commission dealt first with urgent practicalities. The final report is due in July 2010. There’s time to rout the dark forces which shaped Victoria’s strange wildfire policy. There’s also time to expose the sixth great myth, the most seductive and dangerous one of all, that prescribed burning will make us all safe. |
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17 Comments
I have been a member of the RFS (NSW) for 20 years and an informal firefighter since long before that.
I share the same reservations as the author and thus agree with this opinion piece. The science and art of fire risk assessment and preparation should… must not be left to those in authority who have risen, not through real fire skills, but through time and organisational promotion from the ranks.
We need to build the art and science of fire fighting from a fact-based platform, using the best brains possible… Engineers and scientists, supported by legal and town planning professionals.
Entrusting our communities to beauraucratic clerks, willing landowners, community representatives and other such mental midgets is not the way forward.
The amount of decoration displayed on the shoulder, the peaked cap and the breast of someone in authority over the business of running a fire brigade in no way indicates ability, knowledge or competence as a fire scientist. I suggest that there must be a disconnect between those who, on the one hand, provide the advice which informs those advancing the science and art of fire risk assessment, fire resistance of structures and communities and so forth, right up to those framing the building codes and planning law and, on the other hand, those whose business it is to administer and control the resources (including people) who respond to fires.
This conflict of interests must be addressed.
A good article. I, too, think the responsibility given to the CFA, essentially a volunteer organisation, needs a closer look. That a nice bloke - male or female - has risen through the ranks to command is no guarantee of capacity to think through the complexities, co-ordinate and rank priorities in consultation with professionals. This does not mean that professionals have all the answers: but a more professional and thinking leadership than demonstrated so far is essential.
As has already been said elsewhere the CFA chief was not available on the day, nor, as theCommissioner’s report noted, was information co ordinated meaningfully and/or in an accessible way. On 7 February I was in an area where the wind was blowing the other way - fortunate for me…! Information was available via the web, belatedly, haphazardly and often lost in the midst of long lists. The name of the fire, indicating its location altered mid way through that treacherous night.
Is the problem to do with some sort of group think, a problem of internal culture ossified into fantasies of glory, bar a few mistakes along the way? The only way through is calling the situation for what it is, naming facts, however unpleasant, debunking myths and reviewing all the ‘can’t be dones’afresh. It risks piquing a few egos along the way. Better than more fatalities,
A few thoughts.
1. thanks Frank, voice of experience over pollie waffle
2. Russell Rees was in trouble from the moment he did that 4 Corners interview ‘hail well met, awe of the beast’ style in the backdrop of CBD of Melbourne. He sounded like an adrenalin junkie and voyeur. I know that’s cruel, but when people die, lots of people, a leader needs gravitas and decisive qualities, not reverie at our collective inferiority to the elements, or one’s now central role in the lime light. Oh dear. A governmental disaster unfolds. Nice bloke victim of the Peter Principle. In NSW for better or worse Phil Koperberg did gravitas very well before moving into formal politics.
3. It was clear when the government state and federal indulged greenie bashing those first few days and weeks that you knew they were shamelessly abrogating their paid responsibility. As I said back then and now the government is the government … is the government.
I took a photo of the first big plume of smoke north west of Sydney today. A burn off near Scheyville National Park. A drop in the ocean given the private and other land tenures all around the Hawkesbury and Baulkham Hills Shires. I reckon we are due and it already feels dry and warm enough for an early season. God have mercy.
What a load of 20/20 bollocks! Jeez, we are all geniuses in hindsight aren’t we? Where was the author on February 6, or 5, or 4, telling half a million Victorians to evacuate while they still had a chance? And where would they evacuate to? Where was Mr Campbell telling us all for 20 years that the stay-or-go policy was so self-evidently wrong?
I am sorry, but it is too easy to go scapegoating the blokes at the top of the tree. Maybe Russell Rees isn’t a charismatic leader, and maybe the chain of command was broken at too many places, but no suggestion in this article gives me any confidence that loss of life could have been prevented. If only (say) 40 people had died on February 7, would we be congratulating ourselves?
Lessons need to be learned, and policies need to change, but cutting off all the heads at the top to salve our collective consciences won’t solve anything.
What appears to be ignored in all this is the entrenched culture among the paid staff (in South Australia it is the CFS) against modern fire fighting as used by Europe, Canada & America. We have already heard how the people doing real time mapping of the spread of the fires were not taken any notice of. But how many people are aware of the opposition to a modern fleet of aerial firefighters (such as the Superscooper415)
I have a letter written by a State Minister which states the advice given to him by the Directer of the CFS re aerial firefighting. At best this advice is misleading and at worst it is totally wrong. What is really worrying is that the Director has been shown the correct facts and for reasons best known to himself has chosen to ignore them and instead gives his Minister false information!
We heard an American Professional Wildfire Fighter coming to assist last February comment on the news about our “old fashioned way”of fighting fires. They must think it hilarious if tragic when they see what we call aerial firefighting with crop dusters and a converted logging helicopter.
A modern aerial fire fighting force last February could have saved lives and property and even prevented some of the fires taking hold at all. How many more lives will it take?
The total cost of the Victorian fires in dollar terms would have paid for this fleet as well many years running costs.
Let’s start with RMacFarl: a natural response. It does indeed read like a noisy tosser’s hindsight. So “where was the author on Feb 6, 5 , 4?” The answer is, twitching with anxiety in my rural firetrap, flooding the garden with water etc.
You haven’t read my other Crikey pieces, or my Op-ed in The Age on 10th Feb. In one of the Crikey articles I quote emails I sent my mother in her Anglesea deathtrap in the days before Black Saturday. I told her Saturday would be catastrophic and that the CFA would be “useless” and to head for the beach at the first hint of fire within 50km. On 4th Feb I sent a letter to The Age warning that Sat. could be an ‘inferno”. It was published on 7th Feb, the only letter warning of firestorm.
In the 90’s I campaigned to change the CFA’s “Gallipoli Syndrome”, in which volunteers were sent to fight fire fronts. The policy did not change until after 1998, when 5 Geelong West volunteers died in a minor fire at Linton.
Both John and Chris refer to something everyone wants to ignore- the sociology of the CFA, DSE and indeed all organizations which are rooted in both the city and the bush. They escape urban attention because they are rural, yet are schizophrenic and to some extent dysfunctional because rural/urban govt/volunteer splits are hard to manage. It’s a clash of ideologies, not to mention complex conflicts of interest. It’s asking a lot of the Royal Commission to untangle all this, but here’s hoping. The battleground currently is the bitter struggle over “controlled burning”.
Which takes me to Tom’s point about greenie-bashing. Just read the posts on Herald-Sun stuff on the fires. My favourite is the CFA volunteer who wants to chain greenies and councillors to burning logs.
As for Bataba’s point about water-bombers- there are planes which carry 5 times the water that the big helicopters do here. I’ve never understood why advanced technology gets so little attention in Australia. It’s another example of wildfire in Australia being ignored by the media and the public: Aust. journalists know next to nothing about bushfire. And where are the commentators? There’s hardly been a handful of op-eds in 6 months in the Big Media, excluding the ridiculous intrusions of wankers like Germaine Greer and dozens of other bush-ignorant but strident fools: that lasted 3 weeks. Since then, silence. I wrote a piece for this in Crikey (“Disregard Demagogues, Ecogogues and Celebrity Dilettantes”). Without sustained public debate, the CFAs and DSEs will continue to burble along, morphing into strange creatures.
Great article and I hope some people from the Tasmania Fire Service pay attention. The head of the service was on the radio a couple of days ago saying it was too early to draw conclusions and to wait for the final report. He was using very cautious language and they aren’t keen to change. I hope that changes.
Frank, your response is laudable as apparently ins your prescience, but it still doesn’t address the core questions: when, how and where do you evacuate 500,000 people?
Barry: the other states will follow Victoria’s lead when the dust settles. Victorian hubris spread around the world- “stay and defend” was regarded with much suspicion everywhere, but evangelism (esp in the USA) from Vic (and TFS officials too) swayed some. Immediately after Black Saturday the foreigners ran a mile from Victorian policy. Standard practice in California is evacuation to a hierarchy of “safe” places, from the desperate and informal (a ditch) to regional centres.
This is why the Royal Commission is so vital. The big swinging Victorians are all still behind their desks, thanks to Brumby. So hard for them to change. The RC has a chance to toughen up its findings in the final report next year. Timidity and euphemism (“relocation”) gives the current fire chiefs room to backslide. Therefore RMacFarl’s point comes into play- the crucial point: how do we manage evacuation? Brumby has scaremongered on this (“1-2 million may have to move”)- so how does the Premier think California, Spain, Greece etc manage? having spent months in California wandering around the LA canyons and the forested north, then into Oregon and Washington state, I’ve seen just how awful some of their terrain is. Volatile oil vegetation, narrow roads, steep gullies etc. And lots of houses built in insane places. So if they can evacuate, so can we. Our terrain/vegetation is often less threatening than theirs. Kinglake for example has good exit roads and is close to safe country down the hill. Marysville is impossible. Woods Point: without the mine they’d have no chance. But most people at risk here are not far from safe zones, because most live in bushurbia. Then the question becomes how do we plan evacuation- it will vary with the district. Forecasts these days are excellent. But we can’t leave en masse 3 days early, because we don’t know where the fires will start. We need safe places in each population centre. Not ‘safer” places, but safe places because the killer bushfires are driven by the weather far more than fuel. A bare oval may not be safe.This is why controlled burning is a complacency trap. Much of the Black Sat fire zone was burned in wildfire and controlled burns. Made not a jot of difference. It would make a diff. in an ordinary fire, but those are not killer fires and the CFA handles them well anyway.
So if there’s a sudden fire close by- head for the nearby safe refuge. If there are 2 or 3 hours warning (as there usually is) you can evacuate further if you wish, along designated routes. Good warnings are essential of course. The RC has that as priority 1. It will all take some organizing and a change of mind-set, but it is feasible.
My biggest dissapointment from the royal commission is the fact the public were not and still are not responible for their own actions
If you live in a forested area you must be prepaired
If we have an half decent fire on the Boulevard in KEW near Melbourne the death toll will make Feb 7 look good
These people in metro areas are more at risk than mosr country areas
I’m passing on a comment from Tigerquoll, who writes for candobetter.org about bushfires. In fact, it’s a really crucial observation:
“The fundamental failure of the Jan-Feb 2009 Victorian Bushfires is not putting out the ignitions soon enough.
This is it. But it is not a simple task. It involves investing millions by federal government but would have saved billions and priceless lives (human and non-human).
Key performance metrics (not recorded nor legislated to be recorded would alert the pubic to the root bushfire causes and to solving the real problems without torching the rest of Vic in the process).
1. Elapsed time between each ignition and bushfire authorities detecting it
2. Elapsed time between each recorded detection time and response time for dispatch (leaving the base to the ignition)
3. Elapsed time between each response time and the time the associated fire as suppressed.
Think about it. If we are talking hours, which I expect, isn’t the fault it the resourcing. The answer is in a single federal professional (qualified, trained and paid) as a key new arm of our military with live satellite coverage and standby airborne divisions. It will cost in the billions, but Australian bushfires do already – after the fact.
Short of this, we are committing an abused Dad’s Army to unquestioningly lend woefully under-resourced token support, effectively little more than mopping up ops after an increasing body count every Summer.”
Sheila: I must look up Tigerquoll’s stuff.
By definition and (since 2000) policy, “mopping up” is about all the CFA can do with severe wildfire. One danger from this is complacency, since many people don’t realise that the CFA is not the fire brigade.
So Tigerquoll is quite right- and the CFA knows it. The CFA are very good at knocking out fires quickly. But once they escape we all know what happens. So immediate suppression is of paramount importance. There’s no reason why the CFA couldn’t continue doing what it does best, while a new firefighting organization deals with potentially bad fires on bad fire days. It doesn’t have to be military. I think the Oz military would run a mile from that idea, but they could help in emergencies as they do in many countries.
Look at what the state Govt is now saying: “preparation”. We all have to “prepare”. It’s a vague and misleading word. Yet who could oppose it? It’s a motherhood notion. The root of this notion of “preparation” is that if we do x , y and z, we’ll be “ready”, and perhaps “safe”. Very dangerous assumption. What are x, y and z? More controlled burns? Largely a waste of time. Fuel reduction/removal close to buildings is far more useful, but is not a priority. Look at any shambolic country town. Full of grass, weeds, flammable plants against houses, staggering masses of flammable junk piled up in every second back yard…What about “preparation” in other senses? refuges etc etc. All good things to do but they don’t address Tigerquoll’s point, which is to hit fires before they escape.
Fire detection failed abysmally on Black Sat. Looking at the evidence presented, it’s clear that technology either wasn’t used effectively or was unused. There is much that could be done to employ advanced detection technology. Having detected the fire early, it can be hit with much larger water bombers than Elvis helicopters. The barrier seems to be money as well as entrenched and inadequate practices which date from WWII.
I’d like to respond to the piece and some of the comments made of it.
I’m an active 10-year volunteer with the CFA on the Victorian West Coast.
I think it is fair to say that volunteers find the quasi-military bureaucracy of the staffed section of the CFA one of the biggest issues and obstacles to deal with. Most of the time the tail wants complete control of the dog and information/experience/opinion from the grass roots is lost.
I don’t know Russel Rees except for what I see on TV. Some people who know him think he is great, some think he is a knucklehead. Regardless of opinion or ability who was going to replace him, someone from the same bureaucracy? In my experience there are many, many dedicated, professional and highly experienced operators in the staffed CFA but they probably don’t get as far as they could because they aren’t political animals. There is also a lot of deadwood that simply drags the authority down. I think an overseas replacement would have provided greatest opportunity for change.
To hear the Premier announce on television that we must never allow what happened on Feb 7 to happen again fills me with both fear and contempt. He either still has no idea about fire (even after all that has happened) or is taking the purely political route. Either way it is stupidity in the extreme. When this is echoed by the contrived verbiage that our PM puts forward it makes me want to spit.
CFA members know you cannot attack or contain a firestorm. Our primary objective in any fire/emergency is the preservation of life and property, firstly your own or that of your crew or strike team, as a dead fire fighter is of no use to anyone. Containment and control would come days and weeks after.
In the week leading up to that weekend our brigade (and I suspect most others in the state) discussed the fact that if the weather bore out as predicted the most we could do would be to try and protect lives as best we could until conditions eased.
We were told not to expect any aerial support – most aircraft would be grounded in the impossibly dangerous conditions expected.
The forward rate of spread of fires on that day make containment impossible even with most stations being crewed and on the road within 60seconds of a fire call. It also made adequate warnings to immediate downstream communities/towns almost impossible. Aerial attack would be 10 minutes at best from the start of any fire in a semi-populated area, if it could take off and wasn’t already deployed elsewhere. In 10 minutes fire runs on that day were measured in kilometres not metres.
Many homes can be made defendable in the face of a bushfire if the people and property are prepared properly. Virtually no home was defendable in the face of what was experienced on Feb 7th. That day and bushfire really don’t belong in the same sentence. Most homes in a bushfire are lost due to spark and ember attack prior to or after the fire-front has passed. But mental preparation has to be as important as the physical; many people will simply never be able to handle the conditions and stress.
It is screamingly obvious to me that a system to rank the severity of TFB days needs to be developed and delivered to the community without delay.
I think most people see this “new” idea of ‘relocation’ as laughable bureaucratic spin. Anyone who has seen or experience the volume of traffic on the roads from Werribee to Lorne on Boxing Day will understand you go nowhere fast - for hours and hours. Add to this smoke, heat, limited visibility, and fear? Nice idea but in practice it would be a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions.
If you want to live or holiday in bushfire areas, you can only mitigate the risk not eliminate it.
What perhaps is missing in the community’s thought process is the fact that whilst most people love to surround their homes with plants and trees the flipside to this is the risk of loosing the lot to fire will be elevated by many orders of magnitude. This is just as true for a Melbourne suburb like Mount Waverley where, if a fire broke out on that day you would be lucky to pull it up at the Monash Freeway.
People need to take responsibility for their own actions and choices but to do this they need good information upon which to make a decision. Is the CFA the best organization to provide or deliver this information? – maybe not. Many brigades struggle finding enough operational members for response as it is. Asking them to get out there and provide pre-fire season information sessions wears thin when you have less than 1% of the population turn out for it. The level of knowledge in the community, prior to Feb 7th, regarding fire safety I found to be appalling. Apathy ruled supreme despite our best endeavours.
Contrary to what was stated in the piece the CFA has payed special attention to schools and travellers. Brigades in Schools is a program of educating kids about fire and fire safety that has been found to also influence the knowledge, approach and attitude of parents in relation to the same. Specific information is produced for tourists and is distributed by real estate agents, brigades, pubs and clubs, caravan parks etc. that aims to inform visitors to the risks. It may not be as effective as it could be but it is a two-way street.
The CFA has no hope of being the white knight some people and politicians may want it to be. It does some things really well and it does some things poorly.
What I think would be the greatest lost lesson from the horror and devastating loss of that day would be is if the general population fail to take on the real and immediate personal responsibility for their and their family’s safety and they allow those images to fade into the ‘rather not go there’ recesses of their minds. In my opinion this is where there is the greatest capacity for change and greatest gain to be achieved lies.
Peninsula: your post shows how well new internet media can work- an inside view, which we rarely if ever see in the mainstream media. Shame that so much bloggery is monopolised by ideologues with axes: many online ‘debates’ just end up as ritualised tribal warfare (see for eg the posts to Andrew Bolt’s fuel reduction piece on 19th Aug).
Several things occur to me re your comment:
(i) Brigades were told ( no doubt they already knew) that aerial support would be minimal on Feb 7th, that firestorm conditions were expected, therefore suppression would be extremely difficult. “Virtually no home was defendable” on the day. Quite right- but did the public realise this? Many think the CFA can stop raging firefronts. And what does “Living in the Bush” say? It says people can defend homes. The whole family, kids and all. “Preparation” is shown as picking up leaf litter etc. The house on the CD has vegetation right up to the walls and a small lawn, then forest around it. My point is that complacency plus unrealistic ideas of defence derive partly from official CFA advice. Take Anglesea: residents were told in June 2009 by the CFA that they could handle spot fires inside the town- only the edge would be undefendable in severe wildfire. I was there and took notes. We were also told that a 75m strip would be cleared around the town. But this wouldn’t stop a severe fire. Asked about refuges, of course there were none. Since the Ocean Road is a nightmare in summer even without a fire , there have to be places of refuge all along the coast. I trust that will happen. In 1983 we all fled to the beach, if we didnt get out by car.
The most startling thing about CFA advice is the failure to distinguish between routine bushfire and Ash Wed. type firestorm. This seems to be generally agreed now.
I’m struck by the lack of discussion between the public and the CFA. The media is useless- I can’t think of one journalist who knows about wildfire issues in any depth. Until this changes the CFA/DSE etc will not get the scrutiny they need- like any organization needs. Think of the continuous drilling and picking-over the media routinely does on the economy, politics etc. Yet land management bores them stiff.
(ii) My point about schools, tourists etc: I know the CFA visits schools etc. What I’m saying is that CFA preparation advice is predicated on the resident at home, not other places. There was no school/factory/nursing home /whatever policy. The RC has pointed this out.
(iii) “Relocation” is indeed laughable spin, so let’s call it evacuation. In the Otways, getting out by road is the worst option, but people can’t stay home in an Ash Wed. scenario. So local refuges are priority No. 1. Public apathy will return after a few years, so let’s set it all up now.
(iv) Who should deliver bushfire info? Interesting point. Maybe there should be a separate body doing that. As you imply, that would relieve CFA volunteers of a burden.
People expect far too much of the CFA. But that is partly the fault of the CFA itself. It’s true role isn’t well understood by the public. If it was, far more responsibility would fall on the public and on other agencies of government. It’s the job of house-holders to make their properties as fire-safe as possible, then evacuate when told. If they want to stay and die- fine. As long as the kids are out.
I see Michael Bachelard in today’s Sunday Age has repeated the same arguments I made in Crikey on Wed.
I can’t understand how anyone is even vaguely surprised that the events of that day were anything other than a catastrophic mess, as that is the implicit nature of a natural disaster, and human beings are powerless in the face of such disaster, trained or not, expectant or not. Otherwise we may have to find another definition for the event. I’m fed up with people witch-hunting, looking for someone to blame for the unblameable.
On the night in question, my town evacuated under a black cloud coming from the Kilmore East fires that was heading in our direction. The cars evacuated - out of the one road in and out - at around 10 km an hour. Thirty centimeter embers and housing insulation rained upon my house. I saw the flames in the distance, all the way down the highway. I felt … not real - as though I had entered a scene in a movie and was hovering above myself. It was as though the whole world was on fire.
Blame was useless, and a waste of time and energy. The fire did not give itself over to our idea of order, it didn’t care for our political bickerings, or whose fault it would be afterwards, it was something primeval and had a consciousness of its own. It was a terrifying and angry god. In those initial hours, my inner ‘cave-girl’ came up through the years of history and put everything into perspective; this was the land of fire - inescapable truth.
Simple, clear, irrefutable.
I find freedom and wisdom in understanding that sometimes, we all do the best we can and still fail, sometimes there just is no one to blame. I could definitely find fault with decisions that were made on the day, and no doubt there were many mistakes, especially at the top end - but surely they were made at the hands of people who knew cognitively that a terrible disaster was imminent, but on every other level of intuitive knowing, had nothing to measure by just how huge the monster could get. And surely, we can seek out these mistakes for the purpose of making a better future bushfire strategies, without playing the blame game in the process?
I’ve lived in the bush for 17 years, and not once in that time, did I expect the CFA to arrive on my doorstep to save me in the event of a fire. In all that time I knew that I was responsible for ME. It would never have crossed my mind to accuse other people of inefficiency if it had gone wrong. I’d always figured that in the face of such a disaster, it was going to be pandemonium, and that we would all be doing whatever it was we could do to survive, including those in the CFA. I questioned some of their policies but did not feel fit to accuse them of negligence either. I figured they were doing what they thought was right at the time. And I always understood that they were finite, imperfect and frail, albeit brave, human beings.
For the next three weeks after Black Saturday, my town was one of the towns that lay threatened by the fire front. And I can honestly say that the very next day the emergency services had gained composure and worked night-and-day from then on in, in a coordinated and effective fashion which ultimately saved my town from burning. For these things, I have the greatest respect and admiration for the CFA and the DSE, flawed and imperfect and as much in need of an overhaul, as they may be
Sometimes Frank, we just need a bit of humility about how we voice our opinions. Russell Rees could easily be you or me in the wrong situation. We are not above being the wrong decision maker, anyone of us could have been that person. To say otherwise is to infer you don’t ever make mistakes. Unfortunately for Russell, his mistakes carried a greater weight than yours or mine do. It would have been remiss of the Royal Commission to have carried on with heavy handed tactics as you propose they do. I think your language insinuates a conspiracy theory at the top end that I really don’t see as being there.
And in regard to Brumby’s comments where you respond that he is “diluting responsibility,” - uh-hem - we ARE all responsible for the events of the day. If every man is brave and mature enough to look at what he may have done wrong so to be able to correct it in the future, without attributing shame, or guilt or blame, on ourselves and one another, then we may actually start to get somewhere.
The media need to think really carefully about how they express their opinions, as it has the power to do a lot of damage to the intrinsic trust and communal values of small towns, small towns that need to work with their local CFA to survive the coming fire seasons. Small towns that need constructive solutions, which blame detracts attention from. You sit and look for whom to blame for the mistakes that happened on Black Saturday, and yet ironically refuse to acknowledge that you are remiss with the power in your own hands by using language and concepts so flippantly, overtly manipulative and ideological sometimes that they come at the expense of common sense. I have to say that the reporting on Crickey, which I’ve only looked at once or twice, has left me very .. underwhelmed.
Haven’t we learned after all that’s happened, to have a little bit of compassion for each other?
And a note on fuel reduction. I don’t think anyone is proposing that it will make us “all safe.” I think most people understand that prescribed burning is only one common sense tool that has the power to at least minimize the severity of a fire by cutting down its fuel load. This by no way negates the need for other firefighting tools and strategies. Surely we can learn these lessons together without resorting to the lynch mob mentality of tearing each other to pieces?
Melita: you say that the fires were in the “hands of people who knew cognitively that a terrible disaster was imminent, but on every other level of intuitive knowing, had nothing to measure by just how huge the monster could get.”
I agree. They felt powerless. But they had just one power left: to warn people. They didn’t. And the stay and defend policy which they’d retailed for years encouraged people to do just that. That’s the essence of it. Those two basic things have to be fixed. Keeping the same management who were responsible for these policies is a mistake.
And I never said there was a conspiracy. There was just bad policy and bumbling organization.
As for the “intrinsic trust and communal values of small towns” being upset by criticism, it’s the very lack of any tradition of criticism in the bush which facilitates bad policy. Many CFA volunteers thought the policies were crazy. But they kept it to themselves.