The royal commission into Black Saturday will bring about a raft of changes to better protect communities in the future.

However, the government will have difficulty protecting people from themselves when it comes to the right to stay and defend one’s property. Whilst the landholder has that right, he also has corresponding responsibilities.

• In exercising that right, he does not have the right to put other people’s lives in jeopardy.  That includes his family as well as emergency service personnel.
• He has the responsibility to make provision for himself and his family against being burned to death.  That probably involves building a bunker underground away from the main house.  One couple died in their cellar with the house falling in on top of them.
• He has the responsibility to understand the properties of fire under extreme conditions and what precautions he needs to take  to defend his property against the fire.  Even those of us who have the CFA Minimum Skills accreditation can never be sure

A CFA Volunteer must be accredited before s/he can enter a fireground – why should it be different for property holders.  To exercise their right to stay and defend, they should be required to get accreditation from their local CFA Captain that shows:

1. The applicant has undergone the CFA Minimum Skills program
2. They have a designated shelter to survive in upon a blow-over of fire
3. They have a responsible fire plan to work to.

On the fireground, the incident controller has the authority of the Crown and must be given the authority to evacuate the landholder.

Defend your home or evacuate

The CFA rightly promote the concept of everyone having a bushfire plan.  They also tell people to decide whether they will stay and defend their property or evacuate.  The reality is that none of us are qualified to make such decisions and this advice gives people a false sense of security.

As the tragedy of the bushfires unfolds, it disturbs me to see footage of people in shorts and thongs defending their homes. We watch as residents take comfort in filling their roof spouts with water or filling up the kids wading pool and then waiting for the fire to approach.  That comfort could well place their lives in jeopardy.

In the 2006 bushfires, an eighty year old man on a property at Whitlands asked me, in my capacity as a CFA officer, whether he should stay and defend or should he leave.

He had a dam full of water, a massive petrol driven pump with 100 metres of 75mm diameter fire hose all laid out ready for action.  Reasonable preparation one would think.

The reality was that he didn’t stand a chance with such facilities.  A four inch hose full of water is completely unmanageable.  It really needed a team of men to control it.

His backup plan was to retreat to a huge enclosed tin shed should the fire come in fast. That, most likely, would have been fatal.  As the metal heats up in a bushfire, the beams expand and invariably, the roof falls down inside the walls.  I was able to convince him to leave.

Life is too precious to risk in a bushfire and I believe the CFA advice needs reviewing.

You can view THE LIVE FIRE MAp here to see the current situation

Related articles

• Black Saturday; 65-100 Victorians Dead ? (benbarren.com)
• At least 108 dead in Australia inferno (guardian.co.uk)

Premier takes action

Premier John Brumby says Victoria may need to review its bushfire policy of  ’stay and defend or leave early’ in light of the state’s death toll.

He said the government and authorities’ long-standing approach of advising people to have a bushfire plan ready to either stay to defend their homes or leave well before the fire became a threat had in many cases not saved people at the weekend.

‘I think when the time comes to examine in-depth all of the issues that occurred on Saturday, obviously fire policy will be one of those areas,’ Mr Brumby told Fairfax Radio Network.  more …