Dec2010 LESSONS FROM THE VICTORIAN FIRES
As part of our recent trip to the Llama AGM at Woodend in Victoria, Peter and I went up to see how the fire damaged areas of Marysville, Kilmore and King Lake were going. It was interesting to see all the implications and results from a fire of that magnitude.
Marysville was very severely affected and is slowly rebuilding. There is still a long way to go. The Post Office is just a ship’s container with a door and window, and it seems to work well. The Bakery feeds everybody and has been rebuilt as a modern and up to date building. It serves beautiful food, and I guess that is why everyone eats there. There are other completed sections in the small town, but the houses are slow to be replaced and it is obvious that some will not be returning. The lady at the Bakery told us to look at the “exploding trees” which happened when the heat caused the tree to blow the top ten meters off and it has landed some distance away.
We drove up the mountain towards Steavenson Falls, but had to go on a detour up the hill where houses had obviously been, because workmen were cutting down trees which could potentially cause a problem along the road. The mountains were black and devastated. There is no other word for it. It will take years for it to regenerate, if ever. Many trees show no re-growth, so the forest will have to regenerate from the floor up. In other areas the trees are still alive and putting on a complete “dress” of leaves from the bottom up. Every inch of the tree is covered with foliage. It is very interesting to see. There are beautiful ground orchids coming into flower amongst the ashes between the rocks.
We stayed the night at Healsville, which was not really affected. Many areas along the main roads up to and away from Healsville had been burnt, but the degrees of “burning” varied greatly. Some valleys were obliterated, and others fared much better, with tree ferns still there, a green under story and trees which are “redressing” in the manner I talked about before.
Kilmore had varying degrees of destruction, but the most distressing was at Kinglake. The township fared fairly well, but Kinglake West is burnt black beyond belief. It is obvious that many of the people who lived here would never have been able to get out or survive the heat of the fire when it came.
What can we learn from their experience? There is no way to prepare for a fire at the level experienced by those people. Nothing could have prepared any of the townships for the ferocity of the fires. 1,400 houses were lost along with 173 lives. 106 people died in Kinglake alone. Over 1000 residents have left the towns for other places.
We need to have heavy penalties for arson, which is a growing problem. We need to focus on hazard reduction around properties and roadways, so people have a safe way to exit. If you have only a narrow two lane road to exit, it can’t be so choked with rubbish along the sides that it makes it impossible to drive. Many people had their exit routes cut off by fires which obviously traveled along the road.
Communications and the “chain of command” was a shambles. We bought a large book detailing the stories of people who survived the fires and it has a very telling “Time Line” included. It shows a commander from Fire Command Headquarters ringing to say that Kinglake is under stress at 6.40pm. Well, it was burnt at 6pm. The problem was that the front was actually as far as 20km ahead of where it was supposed to be, so adequate warning was not given. Conflicting reports were coming in from everywhere, and no one took control of what was actually going on, so warnings were not given, or too late for people to leave.
Be prepared? Some people had lived in the mountains all their lives including TV Newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife. Water was often pumped using electricity. Power was lost early on. Hoses burnt. People who thought that they had cleared adequate tree space around houses found that it was woefully inadequate given the ferocity of the wind, the spotting and embers blown ahead. Fires often travel through the tree tops.
We do not face exactly the same challenges in Queensland as they do in Victoria, as our trees do not secrete the same amount of oil in the leaves, but we need to look at all the things we can do before the hot summer days arrive. We’ve had a lot of rain, so the fuel load will be high.
“Fire is a good servant, but a bad master” We never want to see this repeated here. Join your local Rural Fire Brigade and learn how to become better prepared to help each other.
Edith Fogg.
We drove up the mountain towards Steavenson Falls, but had to go on a detour up the hill where houses had obviously been, because workmen were cutting down trees which could potentially cause a problem along the road. The mountains were black and devastated. There is no other word for it. It will take years for it to regenerate, if ever. Many trees show no re-growth, so the forest will have to regenerate from the floor up. In other areas the trees are still alive and putting on a complete “dress” of leaves from the bottom up. Every inch of the tree is covered with foliage. It is very interesting to see. There are beautiful ground orchids coming into flower amongst the ashes between the rocks.
We stayed the night at Healsville, which was not really affected. Many areas along the main roads up to and away from Healsville had been burnt, but the degrees of “burning” varied greatly. Some valleys were obliterated, and others fared much better, with tree ferns still there, a green under story and trees which are “redressing” in the manner I talked about before.
Kilmore had varying degrees of destruction, but the most distressing was at Kinglake. The township fared fairly well, but Kinglake West is burnt black beyond belief. It is obvious that many of the people who lived here would never have been able to get out or survive the heat of the fire when it came.
What can we learn from their experience? There is no way to prepare for a fire at the level experienced by those people. Nothing could have prepared any of the townships for the ferocity of the fires. 1,400 houses were lost along with 173 lives. 106 people died in Kinglake alone. Over 1000 residents have left the towns for other places.
We need to have heavy penalties for arson, which is a growing problem. We need to focus on hazard reduction around properties and roadways, so people have a safe way to exit. If you have only a narrow two lane road to exit, it can’t be so choked with rubbish along the sides that it makes it impossible to drive. Many people had their exit routes cut off by fires which obviously traveled along the road.
Communications and the “chain of command” was a shambles. We bought a large book detailing the stories of people who survived the fires and it has a very telling “Time Line” included. It shows a commander from Fire Command Headquarters ringing to say that Kinglake is under stress at 6.40pm. Well, it was burnt at 6pm. The problem was that the front was actually as far as 20km ahead of where it was supposed to be, so adequate warning was not given. Conflicting reports were coming in from everywhere, and no one took control of what was actually going on, so warnings were not given, or too late for people to leave.
Be prepared? Some people had lived in the mountains all their lives including TV Newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife. Water was often pumped using electricity. Power was lost early on. Hoses burnt. People who thought that they had cleared adequate tree space around houses found that it was woefully inadequate given the ferocity of the wind, the spotting and embers blown ahead. Fires often travel through the tree tops.
We do not face exactly the same challenges in Queensland as they do in Victoria, as our trees do not secrete the same amount of oil in the leaves, but we need to look at all the things we can do before the hot summer days arrive. We’ve had a lot of rain, so the fuel load will be high.
“Fire is a good servant, but a bad master” We never want to see this repeated here. Join your local Rural Fire Brigade and learn how to become better prepared to help each other.
Edith Fogg.
