This is the informal and punchy expert advice that Cr Graham Walkom submitted during the Council public meeting of 2013.02.13 as support to his eight motions on community fire risks. Despite the advice, all motions were voted down.

The expert, Roger Fenwick, a specialist fire forensic scientist ( http://www.bushfire-consultant.com.au/ ) who was an expert witness at the extensive legal proceedings which followed the Canberra Bushfires (that raged into Canberra just 10 years ago, killing four and destroying 500 homes), was visiting Kangaroo Island on the weekend preceding the vote. It was his second visit to the island, which he has been watching with a keen eye as a bushfire expert. Mr Fenwick was commenting on the “island’s standard 5m fuelbreak”.

RF: “A 5m clearing is less use than a flyscreen in a submarine.  Nothing under 10m from forest or tall woodland is considered to be of any value at all.  Firefighters have no business getting within 10m of trees or structures that have been subjected to fire, and so a 10m setback is the least acceptable clearing to allow mopup.  Forget fire-fighting – they need 10m so they are not in danger after the fire.  If the fire in the bush has lit the house, they should have 20m so that they are not within 10m of vertical surfaces that are radiating heat, throwing embers, or dropping stuff on them.  Firefighters are not expendable, even though they are only volunteers trying to fix a problem that poor or inadequate planning &/or failure to impose suitable construction controls by Council &/or State Government, caused in the first place.

There is these days a growing push to concentrate on close-in protection as large-scale defensive measures have failed so spectacularly.  These clowns argue that there is no problem until the fire gets up to the house edge – look at Canberra.

Right.  Look at Canberra.  A fire front 40 kilometres wide hit the burbs more or less simultaneously, after travelling across about 5km of paddocks supposedly so bare they would not support fire at all, and took out 500 houses.  Fire trucks waiting at the edge got trapped when the air intakes on the pumper motors sucked in embers, and the filters burnt, choking the engine.  So drive away?  No, ditto for the truck engine.

Thus, if broad-scale village protection measures are not going to be implemented, you need adequate protection around each house (front back & sides) so that each will survive without any assistance from a Brigade.  If you have general broad-scale protection, then a limited fire width will hit the outskirts, and there may be enough tankers to go round to do some supplementary structure protection – probably making sure that the houses that did ignite don’t torch their neighbours.  If they are set far enough apart, and have properly tended gardens and fuelbreaks around them, that can work.

I’m all for protecting native vegetation, and one of the ways to do that is not to allow people to clear large tracts of bushland (such as National Parks, Reserves and the like) for residential development.  I am also all for protecting the people who build houses in these centres called towns and cities, such as by not having large tracts of flammable vegetation right up to them and scattered within.  Everyone inside a designated built-up area, meaning residents, owners of vacant lots, and mangers of open areas, has to take part in protecting the entire area against fire damage.  If you are going to allow retention of substantial areas of unmanaged flammable vegetation, why restrict the operation of businesses storing flammable liquids, for example?  (I know the answer to that one, it’s because flammable liquids are dangerous.)

Please, feel free to quote me to your heart’s content.  I have been in the bushfire protection business since 1970, protecting life and property from damage by bushfire.  To me, the bush is also part of ‘property’.  There are some trade-offs – a bit of damage now may prevent a lot of destruction later, without getting all emotive over what constitutes ‘damage’, ‘destruction’, etc.

But if those responsible fail to take reasonable precautions or allow reasonable actions to prevent large-scale loss of life and (built) property, I will take delight in assisting a Court in its endeavours to find if someone should be hung out to dry, and to compensate the victims.  Negligence requires failure to exercise a duty of care, and that failure to have caused something that results in loss or damage.  If a body with the exclusive right to exercise controls over fire protection matters, for example, fails to exercise those controls and fire damage results, that body can be found to have been negligent.  If the same body has ignored warnings and advice on the matter, there may be findings of higher levels of negligence and consequent higher levels of action against those bodies.  Bad faith is worse than lack of good faith.