Stay or go in a bushfire?

Ming65

Ming65

Joined
Sep 4, 2002
Messages
2,177
This weekends horrors in Victoria have got me thinking. For a while now the policy in Oz has been to commit one way or the other early. Either decide to evacuate a bush fire or have a good fire defense plan prepared, stay and defend the property.

This strategy came out of extensive statistical analysis of deaths in bushfires over the past 100 years and the understanding that most fatalities in bushfires are when people try to flee a fire at the last minute; where people who stay and defend their property have a high survival rate. In recent years this policy has served well but not this time...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25027389-421,00.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wildfires3-2008aug03,0,1422284.story

I live in the bush, but close to the ocean so evacuation would be a simple matter for me. But I'm going to make sure my place is a fire proofed as possible that's for sure. Anyone else live in a fire prone area who is re-considering their fire plans?
 
News seems to be getting worse by the day. For all those affected, our thoughts are with you.

Ming, I live in suburban Melbourne and I'm thinking of an evac. plan. Really makes you think.
 
G'day Ming

My thoughts are with all those effected.

If the proposed Royal commission is given the powers to fully investigate this tragedy, much can be learnt that will hopefully prevent future loss of life.

One can only wonder what role a more active hazard reduction burning regime would have had in reducing the severity of the fires.


Kind regards
Mick
 
SouthernCross said:
G'day Ming

My thoughts are with all those effected.

If the proposed Royal commission is given the powers to fully investigate this tragedy, much can be learnt that will hopefully prevent future loss of life.

One can only wonder what role a more active hazard reduction burning regime would have had in reducing the severity of the fires.


Kind regards
Mick
Click to expand...

Yeah what ever happened to controlled burning? I haven't seen so much of it in the past years.

Makes me feel a little guilty too - I was involved in the vollies a few years back but dropped out. The reasons were good at the time but aren't there any more. Reckon I'll join back up.

This is small bickies in comparison I know - but I was in Cottesloe beach in the days after the first fatal shark attack there since the 1930's. You could feel the collective shock in the community - as if the humans all there collectively lost there assumption that they rule over nature.

The trauma in those communities in Victoria will run deep and take years to get over...
 
SouthernCross said:
If the proposed Royal commission is given the powers to fully investigate this tragedy, much can be learnt that will hopefully prevent future loss of life.
Click to expand...

I reckon they'll set the bar a bit higher for people who want to stay and fight -make sure they have a very good fire fighting capability in place.

I reckon giving people the option to stay is fundamentally sound but I think these fires have set a new benchmark for when people start measuring 'destructive force'.
 
This is definitely a problem. I grew up in the southwest and now live in Perth, and remember just last year when our house was under threat (it was a small slow moving fire thankfully). There needs to be a policy change. I think anyone who decides to stay and has kids should either face jail time or the possibility of their kids taken away. That being said, it seems in Victoria as if there wasn't much time.

Me, if I lived in the bush I'd have photo albums all ready to go year round and get the hell out of there. Arson to me is a crime worse then murder, there is no motive except for selfish satisfaction. I really hope that some good can come out of this, whatever it may be.

Controlled burning is also a good point. I've heard some of the forests in the southwest have over 20 years accumulated debris on the forest floor. Unlike other parts of the world our bush is BAD. That characteristic blue haze over eucalypt forest is all the oil that volatilizes off the leaves.

Chris
 
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Your fires Down Under are front-page news here in Canada, where we regularly have huge forest fires--many of which burn in uninhabited areas, but sometimes hit populated urban and even suburban areas.

I've done some reading about fire, namely a book about the death of some US forest fire fighters, Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean, and The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945 by Jörg Friedrich.

So to address your core question: the wisest course of action would be to flee. The Friedrich book, in particular, contained stories of canals getting so hot that the water boiled, killing people who sought refuge in them, and bomb shelters that became ovens (yes, I know the irony in this point, Germans in WW2 dying in 'ovens') they were so heated by the fires burning around them.

Too, poisonous gases are released by fire, especially from manufactured materials like home construction materials.

Furthermore, the Maclean book explains how fast a bushfire can spread, especially when fueled (as they almost always are) by high winds--a man can't outrun the flames.

My thoughts are with you all,

Matt
 
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