Politicians urged to improve fire safety

A group of former fire and emergency chiefs from multiple states and territories say Australia is unprepared for worsening natural disasters from climate change and governments are putting lives at risk. They say they are frustrated to hear lip service being paid to climate change when politicians make every effort to rubbish any suggestions designed to take action. The current spate of fires highlights the problem and past experience shows the need for better training. Fires at Grantville last February exemplifies some of the problems. Here’s part of a brief report we sent to the CFA at the time. 'On Friday February 1, my wife rang 000 at 11034 reporting a small fire in the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve towards Glen Forbes. She was advised that it had already been reported. At that stage the fire could easily have been handled by two people with shovels and a knapsack with 25 litres of water. My son, Bryan, walked into the reserve to find the exact location of the fire and to guide CFA units when they arrived. A fire truck came down Stanley Road but went away when the crew discovered that the gate on the fire track was locked and they had left the key at the fire station. My wife again rang 000 at 12013 and advised that if the CFA came to us, we could show them how to access the fire Some time later a police car arrived with a panicking and aggressive officer who jumped up and down and yelled at us incoherently about our son being in the bush. He was unable to give any advice about what was keeping the CFA from attending. I phoned Bryan and said the cop wanted him out of there – he asked “where is the CFA?” I said I had no idea but he’d better come back to the farm. Neighbours arrived with some of their animals because our property management provided a safe area around the main shed. Forest Fire Management also arranged for a small dozer to be unloaded here and the contactor was happy to leave his truck where it was safe from the fire. Eventually, after a wind change sent the fire towards properties in the Adams Estate, the fire burned out On Saturday morning we received a phone call from a Glen Forbes resident advising us to leave because the CFA was about to light fires to burn more bush and with the wind direction it was likely to head straight for our property. Looking towards Glen Forbes, we then saw various burst of smoke presumably from Incendiary devices used to start the fires. The Saturday fires were much hotter and more threatening than on Friday. In the afternoon, CFA officers said they were planning to cut a fire break through scrub on our property to protect the second house on the farm. But before they started that they told Anne they had been called away and “You are on your own”. All the fire trucks and the D9 dozer raced off up Stanley Road and the crews sat at the Stanley Road intersection with McGrady Road (where they could see nothing). It’s difficult to understand why this blaze was not tackled in a timely manner – unless brigades are instructed not to extinguish small fires, but to wait for them to develop into better photo opportunities and publicity on nightly television news broadcasts. During publicity about the fires, CFA presented a myth that the Grantville reserve was impenetrable bushland when in reality it is easily accessible coastal scrub. Another possible explanation for dysfunction within emergency services is the increase in layers of bureaucracy which has diminished individual responsibilities. Emergency management used to be a Government Department, with a Minister ultimately responsible.. Then an emergency management commissioner was appointed, followed by An Inspector General for Emergency Management - additional layers of bureaucracy which have done nothing to enhance service delivery.