The fire season is upon us yet again and it promises to be a perilous one judging from our recent weather. I discovered this interesting commentary by Robert Manne, a professor of social sciences at Latrobe University following the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday Victorian bushfires

Why We Weren’t Warned by Robert Manne

Oxford educated Prof. Manne (who by the way is not an bushfire expert) was (is?) a resident of Cottlesbridge south-west of the Kinglake area. In his essay he criticises the long-held 'stay or go' doctrine of bushfire planning.

In a nutshell, he alleges victims were denied the opportunity to make a last-minute decision to evacuate due to a lack of contemporaneous and accurate warnings about the progress of the fire-front.

In contrast, the commissioner of Emergency Services, Brian Esplin reiterated the accepted convention that late evacuations are more dangerous than staying to defend a well-prepared home. He also made allusions that some residents were not prepared for either eventuality. Esplin suggested that a decision to leave early should not be prompted by warnings of an imminent fire front but in the hours or days in advance of a possible threat.

Prof. Manne counters that this is an impractical recommendation and would imply that hundreds of residents would unnecessarily need to leave their homes during the fire season. He pleads for a third solution where residents are allowed the luxury of remaining in their homes to the last moment before making a dash to safety.

As a non-meteorologist I would hazard a guess that predicting fire behaviour is not a precise science as what Prof. Manne would hope. It is easy to plan an escape route in retrospect. It is infinitely more difficult to do so with constantly changing weather patterns and incomplete field information. Professional firefighters know all to well how quickly a fire-front can turn upon you - and they are prepared for that possibility. Prof. Manne believes all you need is a short-wave radio or an internet connection. In the midst of conflicting situational reports one can always 'discover' the unheeded warning after the event. Prof. Manne has been watching too many Hollywood disaster movies. I wish we were all given such powerful 'retrospectocopes'.

It seems that Prof. Manne wants to have his 'tree-change' cake and eat it too. I beg to differ. Bushfire plans are created in the months before the fire danger season begins. A house is either defendable or not. A person is either prepared to defend it or not. In the midst of a bushfire, a house is not a temporary respite so one can sit in the shade and sip a cool drink just prior to making one's escape to safe suburbia when it all becomes too much.

I disagree with Prof. Manne and those who follow his philosophy. The stay or go policy is here to stay. If you don't agree then it is time to go.

This post has been edited by dymonite69: Nov 7 2009, 02:59 PM

So, the plan is to stay with the house, if that catches fire then transfer to the safe room and once the fire passes over escape to the safety of the valley because it will have already burnt. ?

Mike.

Yes there is a flaw in the logic.
Normal fires that plan is fine, super fires you are as good as dead.

Those people that died, the man with his children and the dam. His shoes melted off his feet, he threw his daughter into the dam and went back to get his wife and son.
His wife, son and daughter were all dead and this was after the fire had passed. He went to hospital with no skin left on his feet, torso and head. The ground melting his shoes off said it all.
I hope your friend has nothing but grass where he intends to go..

It takes 4 hours for ground to cool are reaching temps that turn soils into fuels. 2000+

It would be like opening a tunnel kiln and walking on the floor of it with running shoes. Carrying 20kg or more? nope!

That kind of heat will do in you in 2 minutes.

This post has been edited by Red: Nov 10 2009, 04:59 AM

Bushfire anecdotes are interesting particularly those repeated by the media - and particularly those who wish to pursue a point.

Frank Campbell gives the one of Karen Ward. He argued that even if you are professionally prepared (like the Wards), in the face of a firestorm, your house will burn down.

Her testimony is not exactly the way Frank would have you believe. She and her former CFA volunteer husband decided that when the fire approached 500metres away on the next ridge, they would abandon any attempts and leave their house to burn. This is not a case of a couple valiantly going down with their fire pumps blasting away.

2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Comission

On the other hand, there is the story of Brian Corrigan.

He was involved in the Canberra firestorm that lit up a pine plantation adjacent to the suburb of Duffy. I visited the area 12 months after the event and know it well from my childhood days. He stayed in the ember blizzard and with cold presence of mind put out every spot fire that threatened his house (including those of his neighbours). The video interview of the man is quite amusing as he laconically describes the event.

Canberra Firestorm

This post has been edited by dymonite69: Nov 10 2009, 08:30 PM

bunker anecdotes there as well?

It's not so much that the stay or go policy is flawed but people don't actually understand what is required to stay and defend a house or when they should go.

Here is a literature review and commentary by Katharine Haynes * et al.

100 years of Australian civilian bushfire fatalities: exploring the trends in
relation to the ‘stay or go policy’

She makes this comment at the end of the report:

"a clear intention of the AFAC policy position is one of community self reliance, where people are
encouraged to prepare both mentally and physically for a situation in which they may have no
warnings and therefore no choice but to stay and defend their homes.

Our study demonstrated that some victims were not mentally or physically prepared to stay
and defend their properties, often not knowing what an effective survival strategy would be or
misunderstanding the messages (e.g. people sitting in baths of water or sheltering passively in
their house). Many others underestimated the ferocity of the fire. Although these are issues
the fire agencies now try very hard to rectify, this study yields some difficult examples for the
‘prepare, stay and defend’ argument. For example: how do we know how much preparation to
fight the fires is enough? Even those who plan to stay are often not well-prepared: they do not
expect to lose electricity or water, have no back-up plan and do not wear adequate protective
clothing. Of primary importance is the need to recognise and target vulnerable groups such as
men who die attempting to defend property outside and women and children who die fleeing
or sheltering in an undefended home."




* Ms. Haynes research was subject to criticism by Professor Manne.

Thanks for the Catalyst link. I missed that one.
I have heard of trees being blown down in fire, but not like that.
You could crash 2 747's and still not get anywhere near the damage.


I agree with everything that is written there. Most Australians have no basic concepts of fire and our landscape so they tend to stick with what they know and do nothing to prepare for a total catastrophe, yet they know it can happen. Its like watching a man in shorts hosing a giant flame with a garden hose while standing on a balcony made of treated pine that is covering T tree and paper bark scrub.


One does not chase dragons with a toothpick while riding a horse made of TNT!

This post has been edited by Red: Nov 12 2009, 05:19 PM

go for C4, will melt and burn but not explode