(no subject)

[catsidhe]

There is going to be a Royal Commission, and the question is being asked around the traps “How could this happen? The advice to run or hide is good, why didn't it work?”

I have a submission as to that, based solely on the descriptions of the survivors:



There was no time to run, and there was nowhere to hide.




There is no planning for something like this, beyond that of the CFA and other organisations wh have, through superhuman effort, prevented the tragedy, the disaster, the holocaust from being orders of magnitude worse.

Comments

[sjl.livejournal.com]

You're likely right.

I know that (based upon (a) what happened over the past week, and (b) the likelihood that this is going to be the norm, not the exception, in the future) if I were ever to buy or build in a high fire risk area, one of my acts would be to demolish, then build again - but this time with a very large sub-ground room, surrounded by multiple metres of concrete on all sides, and an escape hatch into a cleared area.

Expensive? Yes. But it would buy me time in the worst case scenario.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

It would be a valuable addition to plans for new houses, but I think you're underestimating “worst-case”.

It would be an excellent plan for everything up to very bad situations, but this was worst case, where they didn't know they were in danger until there were literally 40 foot flames at the back door. The fire was moving at 160kph, or more. They saw smoke (if they were looking in the right direction), then the building was on fire. Worst case is where the cellar does you no good at all, because you don't have time to get into it.

Like I said, you can't plan for that.

[sjl.livejournal.com]

Point.

[omnot.livejournal.com]

On days of "could be worse than Ash Wednesday, the fireys are putting on their brown trousers" weather, there is plenty of warning that lets people know that the bunker is a great place to spend the day listening to the radio and playing board games with the kids. I mean, can you imagine the difference that kind of facility and mind-set would have had if even every fifth house had a bomb-shelter to stash kids and non-fire fighting civilians in?

I'd rather have a bunker than not, but I suppose having a bunker might instill a false sense of security, causing more people to stay and (in your scenario where the people are going about their business above ground in 45 + degree heat and high winds instead of hiding out) cause more deaths on balance.

[(Anonymous)]

A bomb shelter is certainly something I would be considering if I was going to live out in the bush!

But for this fire I agree that it would not have saved many people. The fire just came through too quickly. How can you outrun a fire moving at 100km/h?

I've heard of a story where a father put his two kids in the car, went back to the house to get something else very briefly and by the time he turned around the car was on fire and his children lost. :(

-- mpp

[pearl]

Last night, at a dinner with the in-laws and their interstate friends, I was arguing that the action plans, and deciding beforehand if you're going to stay or leave (along with telling everyone your intentions) actually probably helped keep the number of deaths lower, because people had nominally decided beforehand what they would do, instead of evacuating at the last minute.

The thing, is that since Ash Wednesday 25 years ago, technology and planning both by the public and authorities has improved significantly. People now are aware that their beautiful bushland property is also dangerous in fire, know to maintain property, know to plan. Technology, especially websites, like the CFAs, or Sentinel mean that more people have greater opportunity to figure out where fires are, and what towns are on notice.

(I only know about this living in a family with a hard-core CFA member who was involved in Ash Wednesday, and being a botanist who has to study bushland-fire interactions. So, I wouldn't call myself an expert on this at all, this is just mostly a vaguely educated opinion.)

[enrobso.livejournal.com]

I agree. There was just no plan that was going to work with the fire moving that quickly.

[omnot.livejournal.com]

You are right. There is something that sometimes happens in Australian bush fires that takes them to a whole new level, a level beyond "bush fire". More like an airborne chain detonation. I think that intense heat, at a certain point presses the volatile oils out of nearby eucalypts, and the vapour ignites, making the wind into a kind of flamethrower. That is how I imagine it, anyway.

The key point is that it goes beyond being a bush fire. Even beyond being an overwhelmingly intense bush fire. It is something on a par with carpet bombing, or a meteorite strike, or the shockwave and fireball from a massive explosion. No sanctuary, no saviour, no warning and no chance.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

There is a chance. I've seen testimony of someone who survived having his house burn down around him, got out through a gap in the flame, then helped save his neighbour's house.

But it's not something you can plan for: it's pure chance: the luck of an opening, the balls to take advantage of it, and the further luck of it not turning out to be a trap.