EARLIER this year the suffering from the Victorian bushfires, and that video of the fire fighter giving a koala a drink of water in a burnt-out forest, captured the imagination of people around the world.
At the time some media outlets blamed the ferocity of the fires on global warming and this assessment was supported by some authorities at reputable institutions including Melbourne University, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology. Others disagreed and claimed inadequate controlled burning as a key issue.
The Premier of Victoria promised a Royal Commission into the fires and preliminary hearings started this week.
In response to the news that experts in bushfire mitigation and management, in particular Forest Fire Victoria Inc and the Bushfire Front Inc, will not be given leave to appear before the commission, David Ward commented, with some sarcasm at this blog earlier this week, that given we already know that the Victoria fires were caused by global warming and arsonists and that the purpose of the Royal Commission is to confirm this, of course the Royal commission won’t want to hear from practical bushfire experts.
There has been much sympathy for this assessment.
Since this comment, a list of those organizations that have been given leave to appear before the Royal Commission has been released and interestingly it also excludes those likely to push the global warming agenda.
Indeed it appears, at this early stage, that the commissioners may be seeking to sidestep all issues relating to causes of bushfires and what affects their speed and intensity including temperatures, fuel loads, wind speeds etcetera.
While this will be extremely disappointing for many, it is perhaps a practical strategy. Indeed it would be impossible for the Royal Commission to find against the prevailing consensus on climate change and at the same time difficult to find evidence in support of this so-called consensus.
Given the commission has given leave to appear to organisations with expertise in communications and building codes this may be where they intend to focus their efforts.
This would accord with government instructions that the commission make recommendations on planning schemes, including the need for bushfire shelters, and communication systems, including the effectiveness of current public warning systems.
These are important issues and I wish the commissioners well at the hearings and in their deliberations.
Update/Clarification
The video of the koala was taken following a back-burning operation that preceded the worst of the wildfires including Black Saturday.
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Notes and Links
Applicants granted unconditional and conditional leave to appear can be found here
http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/getdoc/ecf8e7cb-0e42-4577-a01c-023c04dadc86/media_release_20_Apr09
Wise Men Excluded from Bushfire Royal Commission
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/wise-men-excluded-from-bushfire-royal-commission/
Victorian Bushfires: The Result of Human Folly
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/victorian-bushfires-the-result-of-human-folly/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
In other words, avoiding a lawyer’s picnic at taxpayer’s expense and focusing on those things that WILL save lives next time. Good.
Perhaps these answers on the Royal Commission web site might assist
“What is “Leave to Appear?”
In a Royal Commission “leave to appear” means an entitlement, granted by the Royal Commission, to be represented by legal counsel at the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission’s hearings are open to the public, but only persons who are granted leave to appear, may be represented by legal counsel and make oral submissions at the Commission’s hearings.
Who is likely to be given Leave to Appear?
Leave to appear may be granted to a person or organisation whose conduct is to be scrutinised or questioned as a consequence of evidence lead before the Royal Commission.
It is unlikely that a person whose conduct is not under potential scrutiny would be granted leave to appear before the Royal Commission.”
Perhaps the Commission is to ask questions of those listed on why they failed to take the advice of experts in bushfire mitigation and management, in particular Forest Fire Victoria Inc and the Bushfire Front Inc.
“Others disagreed and claimed inadequate controlled burning as a key issue.”
Ask that koala about it. The vid and pics are of a DSE prescribed burn, not the Feb bushfires.
Of course global warming and the drought won’t be the focus. It’s trivial to say that increased hotter drier weather, if it continues, will result in more fires of greater intensity. Hardly worth bothering a royal commission with too much.
Questions about the policies and procedures of people and institutions are the only ones a Royal Commission can hope to answer. It’s their job.
Whilst the media has been known to use file pictures and footage on forest stories, perhaps FDB would like to re read the News story at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25038828-5006785,00.html
The 11 Feb report seems pretty convincing that “Sam became the most famous koala in the world when firefighter David Tree stopped to give him a drink amid the devastation of the Victoria fires. ”
Perhaps FDB might like to share the details of the DSE prescribed burn.
So instead of delivering real solutions like vegetation removal prior to the arrival of a wildfire, each rural resident will get to pay a “fire management incompetence tax” of about $40,000, to be collected by the building industry. So instead of spending a busy hour and a litre of fuel for the chain saw dropping the high risk trees as the fire approaches, rural residents will pay through the nose for urban green incompetence, again.
What case to answer does the Building Standards Authority have? They are the proponents of a set of measures they claim will reduce the cost of damage and save lives. That makes them the same as the Streeton Group who also propose a set of measure that are proven to do the same but have been refused leave to appear.
Certainly Cinders, I’d be only too happy to accede to such a polite request.
And I will stand corrected, it was a CFA backburning operation in the wake of the Mirboo North fires a week before Black Saturday.
As it says on the relevant page at youtube.
Ian – perhaps the BSA are “under potential scrutiny”, rather than (or as well as) offering a submission.
FDB,
Well isn’t that interesting. Just goes to show the “a picture never lies” might not apply to modern journalism.
All reports seem to agree that the Koala was photographed/filmed during back burning at Mirboo North.
As can be seen from this graphic of the Churchhill fire on 8 Feb 09, http://www.aus-emaps.com/fires/vic_090208_Churchill.jpg Mirboo north is about 30 km away.
The Herald Sun had already reported on the Mirboo north back burning on 2 February at http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24995003-661,00.html
The Herald Sun defended its footage, photo on 12 February at http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25046404-661,00.html
But then the following day a web site states it was a week earlier http://on-walkabout.com/2009/02/13/truth-koala-sam-picture-revealed/
So, another example of the need to question the media.
I thought the media might of taken note of the ABC apology when they used “current” footage of scallops being caught in Bass Strait on a story about the approved pulp mill only to be caught out when official reports showed that no scallops had been caught in the area for more than ten years, see http://www.tca.org.au/index.shtml
“Now the problem is that we can all understand that climate affects fire. What has been not understood is that fire can affect climate through the feedback mechanisms of releasing atmospheric pollutants, changing the reflectants of the earth’s surface, changing the way ecosystems behave and committing very large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
We have got to understand increased bushfire activity as a direct consequence of uncontrolled climate change. This is a very good reason for Australia to do everything we possibly can to bring down the global temperature, to control carbon emissions and other gases which are resulting in the warming of the planet.”
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2552131.htm
Thanks FDB and Cinders for the point of clarifiation. I’ve just posted an update at the original blog post.
You really are one very sick puppy, Festival. Ideology before common sense every time. And completely off-focus and off-task. Just chant your stupid mantra and next time 200 people get killed just blame it on our collective lack of carbon constipation. Pathetic.
uncontrolled climate change must be a fearful spectre for any one burdened with a deep seated anally retentiveness.
“You really are one very sick puppy, Festival. Ideology before common sense every time. And completely off-focus and off-task. Just chant your stupid mantra and next time 200 people get killed just blame it on our collective lack of carbon constipation. Pathetic.”
Says the man who sneered at men who died doing a fuel reduction burn.
What a load of rubbish, to scared to face the truth, you man made climate change people hide behind anything and anyone to stop the truth from coming out, wake up and take reasonability for your irresponsible ideals that come straight out off All gores butt and into you simple brain.
Speaking of Socratic and other ironies – it would end up being an Exocet right up the Jacksie for the right wingers, greenie bashers, and AGW denialists if the class action from degraded power line infrastructure gets up.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/huge-fire-class-action-launched-20090214-87pg.html
Think of what a really big angry green – negative “carbon-copy” of an Ian Mott – a Tttom Nai could make of that.
The ACTUAL source of the incident arising from unmaintained infrastructure delivering AGW energy from the COAL INDUSTRY.
AND of course with greedy guys aka right wing scum shareholders demanding maximum return in that free market that brings you so many global benefits (choke choke ) – that skipping maintenance is seen to be cost effective. Anything for a dollar eh?
Now if you were a very very pissed off green person – you could make a lot out of that.
But that would be nasty wouldn’t it – you know demonising parts of society in such disasters.
As a professional fire fighter it is really starting to give me the irrits when people interchangeably use the term backburn and prescribed burn or use them incorrectly.. or dont understand the basics of fire behaviour…Can i take this opportunity to enlighten you in a class of fire operations 101…. then some of you might have a chance at adding something useful to the debate.
Through experiments and operational practice we know that we can directly attack any part of the fire with a machine (dozer) when that fire has an intensity of less than 2000kW/m….By direct attack I mean putting in breaks against the fire edge to contain the fire.. A fire of higher intensity means that we have to employ parallel attacks (creating breaks away from the fire edge) ..which involves chugging along with the fire on the flanks waiting for suitable conditions where the ROS drops due to evening humidity or the fire runs into areas of low fuel (prescribed burning areas) thereby allowing direct attack and pinching off the headfire.
The basic equation used in operational fire control to determine fire intensity is: I=WR/2..
The fire (I)ntensity (kW/m)=(W)eight of fuel (tns/ha)* (R)ate of Spread (m/hr)/2
Rate of spread (ROS) is determined by moisture content of surface fuels, soil dryness and wind speed…NOT temperature…temperature is only involved in drying fuels prior to a fire.
Ok…so now we know that the intensity of fire is a direct result of fuel quantity… therefore reducing that quantity must help me as firefighter by reducing the intensity and allowing me to more actively attack the fire…Thus Prescribed burning (PB) or Hazard reduction burning (HRB) is fire used primarily as a fire hazard reduction tool in reducing the quantities of fuel available to a wildfire during the fire season. It is generally carried out under conditions of our choosing (spring/autumn) to produce a mild fire to remove just the understory and ground surface fuels and optimally produces fuel loads of around 6-8tns in WA.. Lets look at the result of using the equation above in combination with PB or HRB on my ability to control a fire in the bush in summer…
Say the predicted Headfire ROS(from WA redbook or McArthurs meter) for any given day of 25kmh/hr winds (Very High Fire Danger) under typical summer conditions is 185m/hr in forest.. With 7tns of fuel on the ground, the intensity of any headfire will be 647.5kw/m….which is controllable using machinery directly on the headfire.. On the same day but in a long unburnt forest block containing fuels in the vicinity of 20-30tns/ha.. the intensity becomes approximately 2300kw/m which is then not able to be directly attacked with amachine..I believe from colleagues who assisted in Victoria that fuel loads they were seeing were regularly 40tns/ha or more..For those that believe in Air Attack with waterbombers (i am a qualified AAsupervisor)..waterbombing can only be effectively used for direct attack on intensities similar to those which for which machines are used (i.e 2000km/m)…its just that they can be used against fires in remote locations until ground crews are able to access the fire or be used to knockdown fire edges in advance of machines or crew making the job of tracking a fire quicker.
So if a headfire is so intense that it cant be directly attacked my options are then to conduct parallel (back from the fire edge) or defensive strategies…and this is where backburns may be used…
To clarify…A backburn is a defensive strategy used in the attempt to control a wildfire NOT a longterm hazard reduction strategy and, as mentioned before, is conducted under conditions where a direct attack on the headfire is not possible. Firefighters choose a defendable position some distance away from the fire and burn out a pocket or line of fuel. This strategy is very risky and needs to be very well planned (it takes hours to put in an effective backburn) so that there is sufficient time for a wide enough break that will halt the headfire but also capture any spotting. Last ditch efforts to backburn in the face of an oncoming wildfire are almost always unsuccessful…
The other thing about rrescribed burning is to be effective it must be on scale that allows fuel loads across the forest estate to be strategically reduced to reduce connectivity and therefore fire travel BUT must also be done at a sustained level that provides enough overall area of lower fuels so that wildfires are effectively contained prior to becoming large infernos bearing down on urban populations or other assets…As mentioned elsewhere it is not good enough to burn a strip around a township and say that prescribed burning has not worked..when the depth of the burn was not sufficient to capture spots travelling long distances from very large forest areas of heavy fuel. It must be viewed as a broadscale strategy in combination with other preventative measures.
Hope this helps the debate.
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