Early last month, as fire crews monitored a huge blaze burning out of control beneath a major power transmission line near Batemans Bay, a senior Rural Fire Service official signalled a very different challenge that awaits once the bushfire emergency finally recedes.
“At the back of our minds, we know there’ll be inquiries coming,” he said, just before overhead cables ominously twanged, forcing an immediate move from those nearby.
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| Volunteer firefighters work to keep a fire north of Batemans Bay from crossing the Kings Highway, in early January 2020. Credit: Kate Geraghty |
The inquisitions already have much to work through with 12 million hectares torched - the equivalent of 1.5 Tasmanias - and the fire season still has months to run. Canberra remains under threat from a blaze - started by an army helicopter’s lights which ignited dry vegetation - and large areas of Victoria, NSW and elsewhere remain at risk.
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| More than 1000 power poles were burnt in NSW in the fires so far this season. Credit: Kate Geraghty |
Australia’s armed forces have been quietly “war-gaming” disasters including large bushfires with federal and state agencies for years. Scenario testing is what most militaries do, and the memory of Cyclone Tracy’s devastation of Darwin around Christmas Day in 1974 - which prompted the dispatch of almost every available plane and ship - hasn’t been forgotten.
A multi-year project, the Australian Vulnerability Profile, led by the CSIRO, is just one of a series of programs that have been workshopping away with the aim of improving preparedness for calamities and the necessary “pathways” to recovery for communities and governments alike.
The project detailed scenarios for South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia/Northern Territory, but it was ended before the country’s two most populous states - NSW and Victoria - had mock disaster runs of their own.
The SA scenario came closest to the current crisis in that it modelled a multi-day heatwave similar to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires with temperatures approaching 50 degrees. A 5.6-magnitude earthquake, similar to one that rocked the state in 1954, was added to the mix.
Shocking footage taken on January 4 by the Dunmore Rural Fire Brigade in NSW shows how a bushfire engulfs an area in just over three minutes.
Michael Thomas, a retired army major, says the military has been preparing for years for the challenges from climate change, such as a simultaneous extreme bushfire event at home and a more intense cyclone smashing one of our Pacific neighbours.
“The [Australian Defence Force’s] voice has been lost in the Australian debate,” Thomas told the Herald in January. "Climate change is talked about as a 'threat multiplier' but it's actually a 'burden multiplier.'"
Whether or not the ADF should have been more involved in the fire efforts sooner and in greater effect - such as acquiring or renting Module Airborne Firefighting Systems (MAFFs) to convert military transport planes into 30,000-litre water bombers - will likely feature in the inquiries.
But Thomas says it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how even the military could quickly get overwhelmed by “sudden, multiple regional disasters”.
“The ADF becomes very stretched, very quickly in its ability to respond,” he says.
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| Fires have burnt through about 12 million hectares of Australia this season, or 1.5 times the size of Tasmania. Credit: James Brickwood |
A spokesperson for the ADF says the 2016 Defence White Paper identified climate change "as one of the causes of state fragility, a key driver of our security environment to 2035".
"Defence factors climate change considerations into our strategic planning for Defence capabilities, estate, personnel and equipment, as well as related operational responses and preparedness."
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| The clean-up and recovery costs from the fires will run into the billions of dollars nationally. Debate will likely turn to whether governments could have done more to limit the bill. Credit: Nick Moir |
The most prominent federal effort to increase the nation's climate resilience, the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, lost its funding in 2017 under the Turnbull government, when Scott Morrison was treasurer.
And, as the ABC reported last September, regular meetings of the heads of federal government department - the so-called Secretaries Group on Climate Risk - started meeting in March 2017 and abruptly stopped in the middle of 2018. Meetings of less senior officials continue.
Barrie is among those who say the reliance on a mostly volunteer firefighting force, as in NSW, will likely be prominent in any review of how prepared agencies were for this fire season and whether it will be “future fit” in a warming world. With an average age of active volunteers at more than 50 years, “that doesn’t really work”, he says.
Officially, the RFS has grown into one of the largest firefighting services in the world, with about 72,491 volunteers at last count.
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| Army reservices are helping with cleanup operations across bushfire affected areas. Credit: Justin McManus |
Ben Shepherd, a senior RFS spokesman, earlier in the season said 46,000 volunteers were “more or less active” with many playing key support roles, from drivers to managing logistics and assisting at air bases.
With this fire season already approaching six months and more big battles in prospect before it ends, scrutiny is turning to how volunteers are coping - physically, mentally and financially.
One seasoned RFS firefighter, already active for months this season, has watched on with a mix of frustration and determination as the extent and severity of the bushfires appears to have caught authorities routinely on the hop.
As far as he could tell, there were no bushfire plans for public assets in his area, whether it was for power substations, water supplies or even some fire sheds - often the place locals would be expected to evacuate to if they were unable to defend their homes and couldn’t leave the area. In his area, crews were scrambling to clear vegetation from RFS depots on the day before the worst of the fire dangers.
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| Australia had its hottest and driest year on record in 2019 - factors that have contributed to what fire agencies say are "unprecedented" bushfires this season. Credit: Nick Moir |
A spokeswoman for Endeavour Energy said the group aims to "fire proof" major zone substations by using vegetation exclusion zones and fire walls surrounding substations located in bushland."[The] Tomerong zone substation on the South Coast survived a ferocious South Coast fire due to this design, she said. Fires burnt across 45 per cent of Endeavour’s network area, "but we only had minor damage to one zone substation at Hartley Vale in the Blue Mountains".
Other preparations included the use of helicopters equipped with cameras and light detection imaging radar to pinpoint network defects and identify encroaching vegetation, which are then fixed before the bushfire season starts, she said.
Trent Penman, an associate professor in bushfire behaviour at the University of Melbourne, says the inquiries should, where possible, be community led, since they can be an important process for the public to air their grievances and even grief. Handled badly, they can also add to the trauma of those giving evidence or submissions, he says.
However, any tinkering with the volunteer model should also be done cautiously as such firefighters were often the core of local communities. “In NSW and Victoria ... they’ve done an amazing job given the circumstances,” he says, noting the human death toll, tragic as it was at 32, could have been much higher given the scale of the blazes.
And while the reviews will have to tackle complex issues - such as why some backburns got away or whether increased hazard reduction burning would make much difference to reducing fire risks - there is no need for hasty verdicts.
"The decisions we take over the next six months to six years will play out over the long term,” he says.
The RFS itself says it welcomed the inquiry but would also conduct its own internal one. "We owe it to the community and future generations to review what has happened and take lessons wherever possible to improve for the future,” a spokeswoman said.
Links
- Praise for inquiry but more investigations to come, former fire chief warns
- NSW wildlife recovery plan to stress protection of unburnt areas
- The country's top bureaucrats say Government appears unprepared for climate change
- 'Dystopian future': Climate change to force review of military's role
- Australian Vulnerability Profile
- Safety in numbers: As a horror fire season looms, firefighters are struggling to attract new volunteers
- (AU) Getting Down To The Business Of Evolving Australia's Climate Policy
- Top Academics Write To Morrison Government Asking For 'Deep Cuts' To Australia's Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- (AU) Climate Change Is A Serious Threat To National Security
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