Wise Men Excluded from Bushfire Royal Commission
Posted by jennifer, April 20th, 2009 - under News, Opinion.
Tags: Bushfires
WE were all appalled by the death and destruction that was the Victorian bushfires early this year. On Black Saturday nearly 200 people died. The number of koalas incinerated probably runs into the thousands, the number of native birds dead in the millions.
A Royal Commission was established with the Victorian Government promising an inclusive process with the broadest possible terms of reference. Preliminary hearings by that commission begin today in Melbourne, but already many experts with local knowledge and experience have been advised their tesimonies won’t be heard; that they will not be given leave to appear before the commission.
After Black Saturday, there was a memorial service, broadcast nationally and attended by many dignitaries’ including Princess Ann. It was opened by a representative from the local aboriginal tribe. She commented that the land was once burnt every seven years by her people. But not like these fires, she said, they tortured the land, our fires cleaned it.
Foresters have also advocated controlled burning recognising that debris quickly accumulated on the forest floor and that the best way to manage this is through regular burning, or risk uncontrollable and much more destructive wild fires.
But this advice has not been heeded either.
Because of the conversion of large areas of land to national park, a reduction in resourcing along with policies underpinned by the assumption that active land management is not always compatible with wilderness values, fuel loads have generally increased.
In 2004, so concerned about the situation, a group of men whose professional careers had been dedicated to understanding forest ecology and/or bushfire behaviour formed an association called Forest Fire Victoria Inc. In short the members of this new association all had proven records in the area of bushfire management; that is they had held important positions and/or published in the best journals. Furthermore, they were mostly Victorians – with a deep knowledge of the local forest environments.
The stated purpose of the association is to:
• Provide and promote independent and expert opinion on forest fire management;
• Ensure that Victoria’s forest fire management policies and practices are based on science, experience and accountability; and address social, economic and environmental values of natural ecosystems;
• Ensure that the long-term well-being and safety of forest ecosystems and their surrounding rural communities are protected.
Today, the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission begins its preliminary hearings, but so many important persons have been excluded; they have already been notified that the requests they lodged to appear before the commission have been rejected, including Forest Fire Victoria Inc.
That’s correct, I have been informed that Forest Fire Victoria Inc. has been refused leave to appear before the Royal Commission.
The government had assured the people of Victoria that:
• The Commissioners will have extensive powers to call for any papers or persons relevant to their inquiry.
• This commission will have the capacity to examine every aspect of the bushfires – no stone will be left unturned.
• The Commission has been asked to make recommendations on a wide range of aspects including fire preparation, planning schemes, response measures, communication systems and strategies, and training and resourcing.
• The Government has approved $40 million for the establishment and operation of the Royal Commission.
Much has been said about government’s paying lip service to consultation particularly as it relates to land management – not only in Australia, but across the English-speaking world. But to actually exclude testimony from the recognised local experts within a community … we indeed appear to be entering a new error of rule by political bureaucracy.
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Links and Notes
Bushfire Royal Commission website
http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Leave-to-Appear
FIRES ROYAL COMMISSION TO HAVE WIDE TERMS OF REFERENCE
http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/premier/fires-royal-commission-to-have-wide-terms-of-reference.html
Forest Fires Victoria Inc website,
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~frstfire/aboutus.htm
Members of Forest Fires Victoria Inc,
Peter Attiwill, PhD, BScFor, AssocDipFor, is Principal Fellow in Botany, and Honorary Fellow, The Australian Centre,The University of Melbourne. He has researched in eucalypt ecology over 40 years, with a concentration on soils and nutrient cycles, and on bushfires and ecosystem recovery. He is a member of editorial boards of a number of Australian and overseas journals. He has published extensively in the international journals, and his latest book is Ecology: An Australian Perspective (co-editor BA Wilson, Oxford University Press 2003).
Phil Cheney, FIFA, BScFor, DipFor, is Senior Principal Research Scientist, Division of Forestry, CSIRO. He was head of CSIRO’s Bushfire Research from 1975 to 2001. He has forty years of experience in research into bushfires including bushfire behaviour, prescribed burning, mass fires, fire ecology, aerial and ground suppression, fire-fighter physiology, fire-fighter safety, heat transfer, home protection and water catchment hydrology. He was awarded the CSIRO Medal for outstanding research achievement in the application of fire science for safer fire-fighting and safer communities.
Brian Gibson, AM, BScFor, BA, began his career with the Forestry Commission, Victoria. He then moved to the private forestry sector, and was Managing Director of Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd from 1980-1989, and President of the National Association of Forest Industries from 1987-1991. He was a Liberal Senator for Tasmania from 1993 to 2001. Mr Gibson is a director of several companies.
RC (Bob) Graham, AFSM, DipForCres, has more than 40 years experience of fire prevention, suppression, and prescribed burning. He was a principal (Level 3) Controller and Operations Officer at major fires in Victoria including Ash Wednesday fire, 1983, the North-East fire, 1985 and the disastrous north-east fires, 2003. He has led task forces to South Australia and to the Blue Mountains fire, 1994. He is currently a Managing Director and consultant on wild-fire behaviour and suppression in both native forests and plantations, and in planning and conducting prescribed burns.
Athol Hodgson, BScFor, DipFor, has more than 50 years experience in fire management and forest fire research in Australia, USA, Canada, France and Spain. He was formerly Chief Fire Officer and then Commissioner for Forests, Forests Commission of Victoria. He was a Member of the Board of the Country Fire Authority and a Member of the State Disaster Committee. He was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study fire management in North America, and is a graduate from the National Advanced Fire Behaviour School, Marana, Arizona.
Rod Incoll AFSM, BASocSci, GradDipBus, DipFor, developed fire management skills as a forester from 1960. Rod set up the Commission’s fire training 1971-1972. He was District Forester, Toolangi 1976-1984. From 1984 he was an SEC divisional manager, a role that included fire protection of electricity production assets. From 1990-1996 he was Chief Fire Officer for public land in Victoria, a director of the CFA Board, the State Emergency Services Council, and the Australasian Fire Authorities Council.
AD (Tony) Manderson MEnvSci, DipFor(Cres) has 43 years experience in natural resource management including native forests, plantations and agricultural land. His fire experience covers all roles from front line fire-fighting to control and logistics at major forest fires over many years. He managed fire control training for the Forests Commission, was Resources Manager for the Victorian Plantations Corporation, and developed the Regulations that formed Industry Brigades within the CFA. He is currently a farmer and consultant on rural environmental issues.
WGD (Bill) Middleton, OAM, DipFor, has some 50 years experience in management of forests, of nurseries and of vegetation habitat in rural areas. He is a broadcaster, public speaker, lecturer and adviser on gardening, natural history, forestry and conservation. He has served on many scientific and community-based boards and committees concerned with wildlife research and landscape conservation, and is an Honorary Life Member of Birds Australia. He is a Board Member and Supervisor of the innovative Potter Farmland Plan for ecologically-sustainable agriculture, and a Board Associate and consultant for the Trust for Nature.
David Packham, OAM, MAppSci, worked for 40 years in bushfire research with CSIRO, Monash University and the Australian Emergency Management Institute. He was responsible for fire-weather services in the Bureau of Meteorology. His extensive research concentrated on the physics of bushfires, and he applied this research to practical issues including the development of aerial prescribed burning, non-evacuation of properties, modelling of fire behaviour, and forensics. He consults extensively on survival of people during bushfires, on fire risk and on coronial inquiries into deaths during fire-fighting.
Kevin Wareing, BScFor, DipForCres, is a forestry consultant and co-author of the narrative of the 2003 Alpine fires in Victoria. He was employed for some 40 years in the Forests Commission, Victoria and its successors in native forest management, plantation expansion, forest education, timber harvesting and industry development policies. He was manager from 1988-1995 of commercial forestry in Victoria’s native forests and plantations. He was awarded a national medal for forest fire fighting service.
Still can’t buy that argument. Some of our most extreme weather conditions happened before we started on our current ‘warm’ period around 1979. Hottest temps, longest and more devastating heat waves, worst cyclones, low rainfall (just do a check).
I just did a check on Melbourne’s hottest temps for each month and found that only 2 months come up in the present warm period, 1982 and 2009. The period from 1938 – 1940 have Jan, March and April as the hottest one day records (and as we know, 1939 would be the 2nd hottest for Feb).
Are the higher temps caused by CO2 or are they a natural occurrence after the LIA? We’ve had the Minoan, Roman and Medieval warming periods approximately 1000 years apart – and now another warming period.
Maybe CO2 is only a passive insulator that may have a small warming effect on temperature, particularly nighttime temps. By the way, I agree that pumping loads of pollution into the atmosphere is not the smartest thing to do (environmentally speaking) and I support an all-out push for green, sustainable energy technology.
Anyway, Jim Hansen says we have are only 4 more years to save the planet so if we are all still around in 2012, we’ll might well know the answer.
I suppose there is a challenge for a statistician or someone with too much time on their hands. It would be interesting to look at all weather records available and see how many have been broken in recent years.
My instinct is to suggest that I’ve witnessed a cluster of new records in the last twenty years or so but that might be one of those tricks of the mind. My recollection is that falling records have been a frequent occurrence in recent years. It shouldn’t be too hard for a statistician to provide an analysis?
I’m find it hard to believe that the weather/climate records and near records of the past decade are not statistically significant.
On the AGW question, I don’t think that pumping a few trillion tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, and significantly raising the concentration of that gas to unprecedented levels (in human scale) in a short period of time, is a trifling matter.
As with the Olympics, at any time records can be broken.
The present ‘warming’ trend since 1979 should have seen heaps of records broken in all categories described by Glikson in your post as temps have been some 0.5 above the 1961-90 norm. What others fail to mention is that cooling climate can cause their own extremes. Here’s a few that should have been broken.
Highest temp in Aust – Oodnadatta 50.7 C (123.3 F) on the 2nd January, 1960 (if you disregard Cloncurry’s 53.1C in the 1889).
Worst cyclone – Mahina, 4 March 1899. Mahina was a Category 5 cyclone (889hPa) – 400 killed.
Heatwave longest – Marble Bar 1923/24 162 days of 100C+ temps.
Drought – Federation or present day (depends on where you live) but both 100 years apart.
Note – from 1900-1908 (incl) there was less rain than 2000-20008(incl) Australia-wide.
Worst heatwaves – 1895 and 1939 with 400+.
Bush fires – Possibly Victoria 2009 but 1851 would have to be at least as bad but we can’t compare the data. 1939?
Floods – Gundagai 1852 89 lives lost
Some of the worst floods in NSW and Qld happened in the mid 50’s and 70’s (Maitland 1955 and Brisbane 1974). Some others may know what other floods were extreme.
The problem we have in Australia is that we only have records going back some 150 years and some of the earlier records are not reliable. The BOM starts the rainfall record from 1900 and temp records from 1910 so the hot summers of 1906 and 1908 are not part of the record. I believe that we warmed from 1910-1940, cooled from then to around the late 70’s and then warmed again to now. 2005 appears to be our warmest year ever so if the 30/40 year cycle continues, we should start to plateau and cool from 2008.
When you start quoting death tolls we’re way off track. Fatalities cannot be compared. Comparing a toll from one event to another is comparing apples with oranges. It’s subjective.
What we need is thorough analysis of the cold, hard empirical data. E.G. heat, cold, rain, drought, etc. It might even be seemingly insignificant measurements like humidity or cloud cover at certain times of day or in a season that reveal changes. The anomalies could be the outlyers of the trend.
It’s possible that climate change means that Marble Bar is unlikely to experience a record heat wave now.
The 3 day heatwave in January which preceded the 2009 fires by 8 days had temps of 43C, 44C and 45C. Winds were from 50-60kmph at 9:00am with winds dropping to +40kmph by 3:00m.
Humidity was measured in the 50s at 9:00am for each day, dropping to 10, 10 and 9 by 3:00pm.
Feb 5th, 6th and 7th had temps of 29C, 33C and 46C. Winds on the 7th were 83kmph at 9:00am dropping to 39kmph at 3:00pm. Humidity was 23 and dropped to 6 with levels 58-75 on the preceding days.
The hot, windy conditions and low humidity of the Jan heatwave period, (and given there had only been 0.8mm of rain that month), did not trigger the bushfire yet the conditions on 7th did. What was the difference? A 1.3C rise in temp on one day, a slightly lower humidity reading on one of the three days (45.6C triggered the 1939 fires).
It will be interesting to read the findings of this inquiry. Improving communication systems and better building practices could be the main thrust of the findings but blaming AGW would be drawing a long bow.
Do you have a reference or link for those figures Kasphar? I seem to remember the initial 3 day >43°C heatwave as having very little wind (another mind trick?).
On the issue of AGW, I’m more interested in confirming whether or not there is any climate change, anthropogenic or not. If the past 12 years are not part of natural variation within a reasonably stable climatic system but are indicative of new climatic patterns, we’re deep in it.
RWFOH
Yes Daily observations for Melbourne at
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/200901/html/IDCJDW3050.200901.shtml
As far as the past 12 years are concerned, temps have been higher but so has rainfall. The recent 12 year drought seems centred mainly in the SE of Australia. I ran some rainfall figures for the period 1897-1908 and compared them with 1997-2008. Whereas Melbourne has had lower rainfall between 1997-2008 than 100 years ago, Deniliquin had slightly less rain in the earlier period. I remember viewing a photo taken in the early 1900s (I think in the NSW State Library), of horses and buggies using the dry Murray river bed to travel along.
Despite the extreme summer temps in SE Aust during the 2008-2009 summer, the national av max temp was 0.03 below average due to the cooler weather in the north (however av min temps were the 13th highest on record).
Records will always be beaten and we really only have about 150 years or so of data. Is the present warming caused by natural GW or AGW? According to NASA, the earth warmed from 1910-40, cooled until 1975 and then rose again, consistent with trends after ice ages, albeit a mini-ice age during the 1600s and 1700s.
So I really don’t see any climatic patterns that are not consistent with a natural warming trend (and how much does UH contribute to the higher temps?). It seems a paradox that while droughts seem to be more prevalent recently, there has been more rainfall nationally in the second half of the 1900s than the earlier half, and definitely more from 2000-2008 than 1900-1908. I also want to know what’s happening but sometimes outrageous claims from both sides of the debate cloud the issue.
On the question about the difference between the heatwave and BS, it appears that sustained higher wind speeds followed by a southerly wind change was the big difference.
There were going fires during the heatwave but the wind speeds were lower on average.
I don’t think the 9am and 3pm wind readings give a clear picture of overall wind patterns during the day. BS started with a stiff northerly and it built throughout the day reaching a crescendo just before the front. During the heatwave the winds were more flukey and wafting (from my recollection – and partially confirmed by BOM obs)
On a windy day you’ll notice gusts come in ‘waves’ so you could easily get a false impression by reading wind speed at one arbitrary point in time.
With the cold fronts, the winds build in advance and then there is often get a lull before the southerly blasts in. A couple of notable examples of the power of these cold fronts are the disasterous Sydney-Hobart race, Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday.
My reading of events is that Marysville (and possibly Kinglake) was hit by the southerly change. The first stage of a front is usually pretty dry winds before humidity comes up. You’ll also have a few hours lag before fuel starts to absorb atmospheric moisture. The fires run on the northerly and then the flank becomes a massive head being driven by gale force winds. It’s a shocking combination. It’s what hit around the Cockatoo, Upper Beaconsfield area on Ash Wednesday.
It comes back to the point I’ve been making all along, when the climatic and weather conditions come together, the number of people to fight the fire, the equipment available and the area previously fuel reduced are inconsequential. It always seems to be people who don’t live here who have the hardest time grasping the facts. These forests and a confluence of climate, geography and weather create the “perfect storm”.
RWFOH
The winds on 7th Feb were 40-55kmph prior to the S change at around 4:00pm which pushed wind speeds to 80+. Temps dropped from 46C down to 18C minimum overnight and only rose to 22C the next day. The southerly triggered the high winds by squeezing the isobars against the stable high in the Tasman and setting up the conditions for the bushfire.
In Jan, wind speeds were lower and the S change must have been weaker and dropped temps to a minimum of 22C rising to 30C the next day.
So, as you say, it was the strength of the change, plus the other weather factors (temp, humidity, low rainfall), that laid the foundations for the fire (+ suspected arsonists) and I’m sure similar conditions have happened before. However, they do not include those S changes into their MacArthur fire index – maybe they should.
Interesting post!
As a current professional fire fighter I would like to reinforce the importance of quantity of fuel as a predictor of fire behaviour (in addtion to moisture content/winds) and management tool…
Kasphar, you mentioned that McArthurs FFDI does not take into account fuel loadings. Well i have one here that has been recently rectified with an update to reflect this. In Western Australia we have long operated on our “redbook” which also provides an FDI in a manner similar to McArthurs prediction tool however it has always recognised the importance of fuel quantity (per hectare) as a major determinant in fire behaviour.. and this has now obviously been recognised in the updated FFDI meter.
Fire fighters here in WA are always cogniscent when attacking fires in the field of what fuel the fire is burning in and what the fire is likely to encounter in its path when developing strategies and objectives. When fighting a wildfire, I can tell you that we always are very relieved when a fire heads towards an area of prescribed burn containg lighter fuels. Due to the level of FRB in WA this is generally how many of the wildfires are finally contained as the fire behaviour drops to a level that is able to be directly attacked (or at least parallel) so that the headfire is pinched off. Without this strategic mosaic we would face much larger and destructive fires..
So in my mind the strategic benefit of FRBs in managing wildfires is a no brainer… However the resources and commitment to maintaing a reasonable proportion of area of lighter fuels in a manner that strategically disconnects forest blocks of heavy fuels must be maintained.
Our recent larger fires have nothing to do with climate but more with the reduced reduction in fuel management programmes associated with urban complaints about smoke and political interference.
Glad to say that the recent events in Victoria have spurred the WA state government to recently reaffirm a committment to prescribed burning and maintenance of a strategic, broadscale and rotational fuel reduction programme.
One point that seems to be missed in many of these fire related blogs is: If fuel quantity is not related to fire
WA Forester
Good to see that fuel levels are being taken into account in the fire rating equation. WA has, I believe, a better approach to hazard reduction and communications warning system than any other state.
Many believe hazard reduction does not make any difference (and maybe in extreme fires it may not be the be-all and end-all) but any firie will tell you it helps. If fuel levels are not taken into account then why do backburns work so well in controlling fires?