IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE bushfires that burnt through Australia's
south-eastern state of Victoria during February 2009, a review of
the location and planning of many of our regional country townships
positioned in and around state and national forests is deemed
critical.
So much guilt, anger and sorrow; what went wrong on Saturday,
February 7, 2009? How did Victoria come to burn at a speed and
ferocity that took everyone by surprise? There were warnings: all
week prior to the so-called 'Black Saturday' the government and
Country Fire Authority (CFA) warned the public of the worst fire
day to come since Ash Wednesday in 1983, however there was no
previous experience to prepare the community for the onslaught and
speed of the fires that were to explode across Victoria on this
day. This tragedy caused 173 deaths, 1800 homes to be lost, and
left over 7000 people homeless throughout the state.
The CFA stated it had never seen fires of this ferocity before,
with ember attacks up to 14km ahead of the fire front, which was at
times over 100km wide. There is no escape in situations like this
and no way of fighting such fires, particularly in temperatures
that exceeded 46ºC with wind gusts of up to 93km/h. Communities
fought ember attacks from distant fires that then, in turn, became
ferocious bushfires, igniting scrub land and housing from all
directions. Fireballs hurtled down valleys at speeds that left
evacuation impossible.
The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission heard victims from
the township of Flowerdale state that there were only 10 minutes
between seeing the smoke cloud approaching and having the bushfire,
estimated to be travelling at around 200km/h, surround the town.
From previous bushfire experience, it may have taken an hour for
the fire to travel the same distance. No one understood how little
time there was to prepare for safety.
Fire warnings changed from "if you see smoke, you could
evacuate" to "evacuate early", however, "if you see flames, you
have to stay and fight". In fact, many barely had minutes from the
awareness of the fire being close to when it was upon them.
Evacuation warnings were lost in the speed with which the bushfires
overtook so many. In some regions where there was only one road out
through thick forest, early evacuations were hindered by the number
of vehicles leaving, reducing their speed to 10km/h, while late
evacuees were hindered by zero visibility due to smoke.
Gary Morgan, chief executive of the Bushfire Cooperative
Research Centre, an organisation that manages bushfire research
efforts in Australia, says that although Australia has always had
wildfires, "climate change, weather and drought are altering the
nature, the ferocity and the duration of the bushfires".
What are the lessons to be learnt from this? A myriad of
approaches is being considered with some already implemented:
- Building regulations have been amended in order to achieve more
fire resistant housing and bunkers have become an option
- The CFA and Department of Sustainability and Environment are
reviewing the use of warning systems and operational
procedures
- A Royal Commission was instituted to hear from experts and
victims of these fires in a process of listening, healing and
implementation of changes intended to thwart a recurrence of the
enormity of this bushfire disaster
- A white paper titled Land and Biodiversity in a Time of Climate
Change is being prepared by the Environment Protection Authority
(EPA) on the impact of drought, bushfires, river health and air
quality to help strengthen resilience of our key natural assets to
climate change.
The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre has assembled a group
of researchers from various state fire agencies and research
organisations to look at key issues arising from the February
fires. Research teams are looking at the following areas:
- Fire behaviour including strategic fire behaviour, how fires
move across different landscapes, different vegetation, and under
variable weather conditions;
- Human behaviour and community safety issues including behaviour
and decision-making by residents community responses to bushfire
warning messages, and the implications of these events on
policy;
- Building (infrastructure) and planning issues, including
patterns of loss and patterns of survival of buildings and
structures, the notion of defendable space, and planning and
building controls and their impact on patterns of building
losses.
The international community watches closely the outcomes of the
research and review process into the Victorian bushfires. While the
fire plan approach of stay and defend is now under review locally,
Californian fire chiefs have amended their fire plan approach from
"stay and defend" to their alternative "ready set go" for their
coming fire season.
But are we missing something - something more difficult to
address as it affects the very heart of who Australians are? Is
there a bigger picture we need to understand? We are living through
a significant change in our environment, where forested regions
previously considered habitable due to good annual rainfalls and
consistent weather patterns have become tinder dry. With the
longest drought on record and future diminishing rainfall
predicted, the flammability of the Australian country has never
been higher and yet our communities continue to exist in areas that
are not only bushfire prone but have become firetraps.
The attractiveness of the country lifestyle in close proximity
to cities has meant that the number of people living in these areas
has far exceeded early town planning visions. Some regional
communities, such as Kinglake, have become trapped by the very bush
lifestyle that attracted them. Surrounded by forest, with only
three roads in and out, the tinder dry forest and sloping terrain
surrounding the community fuelled fireballs and ember attacks.
Not only does the drought stretch behind us, it is predicted to
continue into the future with extreme weather patterns becoming
more frequent with the increasing climate change affects being
witnessed globally. Of course, the impacts of anthropogenic climate
change on bushfires in south-east Australia, or elsewhere in the
world, are not new or unexpected. In 2007, the IPCC Fourth
Assessment Report concluded: "An increase in fire danger in
Australia is likely to be associated with a reduced interval
between fires, increased fire intensity, a decrease in fire
extinguishments and faster fire spread." In south-east Australia,
the frequency of very high and extreme fire danger days is likely
to rise 4-25 per cent by 2020 and 15-70 per cent by 2050.
Although impossible to tell where a fire will burn in relation
to specific housing, fire experts know when a region is in grave
risk through topography, weather patterns, environmental
conditions, road access and clear areas surrounding a township. In
heavy forested areas we understand how a bushfire can annihilate
everything in its path.
Do we need to evaluate the suitability of these regional
communities and potentially relocate them away from bushland which
is no longer defendable against extreme bushfire? This is a
question not just for our government, but our urban planners, fire
experts, and communities. If we can no longer stay and defend our
properties in the instance of recurring bushfires, can we in fact
justly allow a community to operate full-time within these
areas?
Already the regional and national community contributes to the
cost of rebuilding in areas that may no longer be defendable from
bushfire. Risk Frontiers is a not-for-profit research organisation
sponsored by the Australian insurance community, based at Sydney's
Macquarie University. The scientific research conducted on bushfire
risk ratings concentrates on properties at risk at the
urban-bushland interface. How long will it be before insurance
companies refuse to insure housing that is located in bushfire
prone regions that may be burnt out on a frequent basis?
Is it a reminder of our ignorance of this land, when the
community of Kinglake was not evacuated but allowed to stay and
defend their region in what has now clearly been identified as an
area that could not be defended? A Google Earth search of this
region and its three access roads through heavily bushed landscape
indicates, at the very least, that this community should be
evacuated prior to a day of extreme bushfire conditions.
Have we learnt nothing from the changing weather patterns, and
seasonal bushfires of these lands?
We have seen assistance offered, including pro bono services,
for the design, engineering and planning of homes in bushfire prone
zones, education seminars and support for the families that have
been affected.
The priority, however, should not be to race into rebuilding
homes in the same location but to review the lessons learnt from
the conditions of the land, development type and position prior to
these fires, and the way in which the fire burnt through these
communities. A review of regional communities' location,
surrounding topography and environment, vehicle access to
townships, town planning and community access to underground
fireproof shelters is required. With no foreseeable end to the
drought in Victoria we can expect to experience this firestorm
ferocity again in the near future. Is it not time to rethink our
regional community planning, in order to avert a bushfire disaster
of this enormity ever happening again?
The Royal Commission will, we hope, highlight new approaches not
just for the fire prevention systems and design and construction of
buildings for these areas, but new approaches to community planning
in regional areas that incorporates an assessment of existing
communities, a re-evaluation of their location, access, size, and
permanency. This way we might ensure that, in future, if homes are
not saved, then at least the lives and spirit of our communities
will be spared.
Through an evaluation of the defendability of regional
communities and the surrounding topography, habitat and climate
change we can address the issues of providing safer defendable
communities as one of the many needed responses to this recurring
natural disaster.
The fireproof house
Dr Ian Weir earned his PhD at the University of Western
Australia on research that resulted in a bushfire-resistant house
he designed in the south-west corner of the state, between Albany
and Esperance.
Now lecturing in architecture at the Queensland University of
Technology in Brisbane, Weir was horrified at the destruction and
loss of life from the Victorian fires. Yet he notes that the number
of Australians living in areas where the suburb meets the bush is
expected to double over the next 10 years.
He has a message for the Victorian government and the Royal
Commission conducting an investigation into the fires: "We're not
just talking about people re-building burnt out homes but whole new
subdivisions and lots of people living in bushfire-prone
landscapes. I'm flabbergasted when people build suburban-type homes
in these places because the problem is far greater than just adding
ember-proof mesh on openings and putting sprinklers on roofs - or
even fire-shutters on windows."
Weir's house in WA was completed in August last year at Bremer
Bay, south of Albany, and has already won two design awards. He
says the idea developed from research for his PhD into ways of
creating site-specific architecture for biodiverse landscapes
without having to clear the land.
The house has bushfire-rated reflective glazing in the windows
that reach down to the floor so that on one side the low heath-land
vegetation grows close to the home. It also has perforated roller
shutters tested by the CSIRO that can be remotely controlled and
which allow only the tiniest embers to penetrate.
The ceilings and floors are protected by fibrocement sheet while
the roof is designed to prevent embers from getting caught. A
sprinkler system operates on the timber decks and a safety zone
inside the house has dedicated fire-fighting and safety
equipment.
Dr Weir says he does not see his design as a model for houses in
other fire-prone regions, where the forests are different and the
fires more intense, but as a methodology that he hopes architects
might adopt. With the Bremer Bay home and three others he is
designing, he works with bushfire risk consultants and botanists,
experts who are highly knowledgeable about fire and the native
plants in a region.
"What I'm envisaging is that architects working in that
landscape would be looking at buildings that could handle
structural fires within them. Now, that's a costly exercise and the
solution might be to look at a refuge within the house, a laundry
or bathroom that might have a two-hour fire separation, two-hour
fire-resistant doors, fire-resistant walls, ceiling, doors and so
on."
Geoff Maslen