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Sections in this issue outline (in order):
1. What they said. 2 The issue at a glance. 3 Background. 4 Internet information links. 5 and 6 Arguments for / against. 7 Further implications on this issue. 8 Newspaper items used in the compilation of the outline.
Conservationists, state and local governments: should more have been done to prevent the 2003 bushfires?
What they said ...
'You could have lined up the whole United States fire service and they couldn't have stopped these fires. Once it gets to that level there is nothing anybody could do'
Phil Cheney, of the CSIRO's bushfire behaviour and management unit, commenting on the Canberra fires
'They (the ACT government) were in a state of denial. Blind Freddy could have seen what was about to happen'
A senior News South Wales fire service source commenting on the Canberra fires
The issue at a glance
On the third weekend in January, Canberra was threatened by major fires that attacked the city on its 'bush suburbs' western perimeter. Hundreds of houses were lost and four people died. Some days later similarly virulent fires broke out in north-eastern Victoria. These fires are still not under control at the time of writing this outline.
These disasters, especially that in Canberra, have provoked many accusations and recriminations as various individuals and special interest groups try to apportion blame.
Canberra emergency services have been accused of being under prepared and of not giving residents adequate warning. State governments have been accused of being in the thrall of the conservationist lobby and of leaving their states vulnerable to bushfires by allowing an excessive number of national parks.
In the midst of this melee of accusation and counter-accusation the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has suggested that an inquiry may be set up to investigate the causes of the Canberra fires.
Background
Accustaions were first made against Canberra firefighters while the fires were still raging. Canberra's chief minister, Jon Stanhope, was so distressed by what he saw as the injustice of such attacks that he suggested that those who were looking for someone to blame should blame.
There was no shortage of letter writers to state papers ready to do so, blaming inadequate building regulations, poor urban planning and local by-laws which restricted tree trimming.
The Federal Territories Minister, Wilson Tuckey, weighed in blaming the New South Wales Government and its national parks service for the fires.
In Victoria the Government has also been held account, especially for what many have seen as inadequate back burning. The government and local authorities have also been accused of not giving adequate support to Country Firefighting Associations, which are voluntary organisations. One commentator has suggested that the federal government should pay those who currently give their firefighting services for nothing.
Both Canberra and Victoria are protected by a combination of metropolitan and rural fire fighting services.
Victoria's main fire fighting services are the Country Firefighters Association (CFA), which is responsible for rural private property, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), which is responsible for properties within metropolitan Melbourne, and the State Government's Department of Sustainability and Environment.
These groups work together to a set of operating procedures. The CFA and the MFB have a mutual aid policy, which means they help on each other's boundaries.
Internet information
On January 23, 2003, Australia's National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI) issued a media release calling on the Prime Minister 'to launch a National Inquiry into fire mitigation in National Parks'. The release is titled 'NAFI calls for national Inquiry'.
It can be found at http://www.nafi.com.au/media/view.php3?id=169
NAFI is a lobby group acting for Australia's timber industry.
On January 16, 2003, prior to the outbreak of the recent fires, NAFI issued a press release in which it accused the New South Wales Government of adopting policies that increased the likelihood of bush fires. The release is titled 'Carr's Green policy fuels forest fires'.
It can be found at http://www.nafi.com.au/media/view.php3?id=168
On the ABC National Radio's AM program, the leader of the Greens, Senator Bob Brown, claimed that no member of the Federal Government should blame the establishment of national parks for bushfires. Instead, Senator Brown criticised the Government for its policy on green house gas emissions, claiming that it promoted global warming which in turn created conditions that caused fires.
A full transcript of this interview can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/am/s767575.htm
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO's) Bushfire Behaviour and Management site has a series of media releases dealing with various aspects of its work to better understand and control bushfires.
An index of these releases can be found at
http://www.ffp.csiro.au/nfm/fbm/publications/media.html
Arguments suggesting that more should have been done to prevent the 2003 bushfires
1. There has been insufficient fuel reduction burning in national parks
The Victorian opposition environment spokesman, Tony Plowman, has claimed that the Victorian government has not adequately funded fuel reduction burns. He has suggested that inadequate fuel reduction burns have been a response to pressure from the conservationist lobby. Mr Plowman has stated, 'We've been under the pressure of environmentalists to continue to reduce the amount of fuel reduction burning, and this has exacerbated the bushfire problem.'
The same point has been made by Cherie Arnistead in a letter published in The Herald Sun on January 22. Ms Armistead states, 'The greenies have a lot to answer for with the bushfires in Victoria and Canberra.
If they had allowed controlled burning of bush at the right time of year, the fire trails would be clear and the bush would not be as dense.'
Paul Gray, writing in The Herald Sun on January 21, 2003, has summarised this argument. 'Green pressure against back-burning, against building vegetation-free firebreaks, against maintaining vehicle-friendly fire roads and even against people taking firewood from parks has increased the risk of conflagration.'
Howard McBeth is a fire expert commissioned in 1995 to report on the fire risk to Canberra. Mr McBeth has stated that his report's recommendations were ignored and that there remained to few access roads into surrounding national parks and too little strategic burning to reduce fuel loads.
2. Reducing the number of forests that can be logged has increased the fire risk
Kate Carnell, the executive director of the National Association of Forest Industries, has claimed, 'the current practice of simply locking up national parks and forgetting about them must stop.'
This point has been made at some length by Mark Poynter, in a letter published in The Age on January 23, 2003. Mr Poynter states, 'Activities such as timber production provide both funding and a motive for roads and tracks to be kept open and maintained. This ensures firefighters have good access and a ready network of fire control lines, and that men and equipment that can assist if required are present in the forest.
3. Urban planning provisions that allow houses to be built in forest regions increase the fire risk
There are those who claim that poor urban planning has been a major contributing factor, especially regarding the fires that occurred in Canberra.
This point has been made by Tricia Moran in a letter published in The Herald Sun on January 23, 2003. Ms Moran writes, 'Perhaps the greenie bashers need to look at the fact that huge pine plantations within 20m of suburban housing. Howe are the greenies to blame for that?'
Colin Hall, in a letter published in the Herald Sun on January 23, 2003, also blamed poor urban planning for the fires; however, he suggested that conservationists influenced such poor planning.
Mr Hall wrote, 'The Canberra bushfires provide an example of bad urban planning ... I live in Chapman, one of the worst hit areas of the ACT. This is not bush, it is an urban area with a hard edge to large expanses of pasture land ... I am worried that hardline greens will achieve their aim of a hard urban edge and prescribed native tree planting.
This approach would significantly contribute to bushfire risk ...'
4. Local government restrictions that hinder the removal of trees from domestic blocks and do not require other fire precautions increase the fire risk
After the Canberra fires a range of changes has been suggested to local planning regulations. Houses backing onto bush may be required to have rooftop sprinklers and pine plantations may be removed from residential areas.
These proposed changes have been used by some to suggest that local planning regulations prior to the fire were inadequate and in some cases actually increased the fire risk.
This point has been made by Paul Torney, in a letter published in the Herald Sun on January 23, 2003.
Mr Torney wrote, 'I saw on television Canberra residents cleaning gutters and trimming trees in preparation for another firestorm.
What was not mentioned in the reporter's spiel was that prior to the fire, half of these residents would have been charged over tree trimming without written council approval. And those approvals are not always easy to get.'
5. The CFA is not receiving adequate financial support from state or federal government
This point was made in an editorial published in The Herald Sun on January 21, 2003. The editorial states, '... the Weekly Times has reported that, incredibly, the CFA is planning to cut its fleet [of fire trucks] because it lacks the money to replace old trucks. This must not happen.'
Similar points have been made in a number of letters to the editor published in The Age. In a letter published on January 21, 2003, Sue Hoffman of the Launching Place CFA wrote, 'Ironic isn't it? Recent media releases advise that the Country Fire Authority intends to cut back resources because of lack of funding ...
Volunteers cannot get pagers, protective clothing, boots, helmets, overalls, etc - lack of funding ... we need real resources where it counts - at local brigade level.'
John Cribbes wrote in a letter to The Age published on the same day, 'When the captain of the Licola Rural Bushfire Brigade starts screaming for help as he is engulfed in flames, perhaps the politicians will explain why it is that hospitals, education, roads and health services are more important than maintaining our natural areas properly.'
6. Those living in high-risk areas were not adequately warned
It has been claimed that many of those living in areas of Canberra that were burnt out were not given adequate warning prior to the fires. It has been suggested that despite weather bureau predictions that the ACT would be enduring ideal conditions for fires, high winds, high temperatures and low humidity, the ACT government had been trying to minimise the danger. A senior New South Wales fire service source has stated, 'They (the ACT government) were in a state of denial. Blind Freddy could have seen what was about to happen.
It has been claimed that throughout the Friday preceding the fires and up to noon on the Saturday, fire service chiefs in Canberra had played down the threat to suburban homes as 'slim'.
Many of the more than 400 families who lost their homes in the Saturday fires have claimed that the warnings to make preparations to defend their homes came too late. It has been suggested that radio broadcasts were telling them to clear gutterings, fill them with water, remove rubbish and hose down fences at a time when the fires were literally at their doorsteps.
Arguments suggesting that sufficient was done to prevent the 2003 bushfires
1. Fuel reduction burns are limited by the available weather conditions
The Victorian Environment Minister has claimed that all that reasonably could be done in the way of fuel reduction burns has been done. He has claimed that adverse weather conditions are a major factor restricting when and where back-burning can be done.
Mr Thwaites has stated, 'The fire reduction back-burning effort in 2001-2002 was 30,000ha around the Alpine National Park, compared to 11,000ha in 1998-99. To say that ... this back-burning issue would have solved the fire situation is just not true.
We would like to do more, but there are restraining factors ... in very high drought situations like we've had, it limits your ability to do it safely.'
2. National parks are not significant contributors to bush fires
It has been claimed that in Canberra most of the homes that were burnt were set alight by embers coming from grasslands and pastures, normally thought of as buffers to bushfires.
Mr Jim Gould, head of the CSIRO's bushfire behaviour and management division, has stated, 'We have been hard stretched to find evidence of flame contact coming out of the forest fires. It was coming out of grassland. We were surprised at how much of the embers came out of the grassland fuels ... The issue of hazard reduction and fuel loads in national parks is another debate altogether.'
The same point has been made by Mick Fendley, of the Victorian National Parks Association. Mr Fendley has stated that national parks were the source of only 10 percent of bushfires.
3. Logging may increase the risk of bush fires
It has been claimed that the dense regrowth that occurs post logging may actually increase the likelihood of bushfires.
Mick Fendley of the Victorian National Parks Association has claimed that logging creates a greater fire risk than nature reserves. Mr Fendley has stated, 'Contrary to popular opinion, the majority of fires start outside parks and burn in - the Ash Wednesday and Black Friday fires were mostly in regrowth forests.'
Mr Fendley has further stated, 'The facts are that dense regrowth post-logging increases fuel loads and grazing reduces more succulent, fire-resistant vegetation and promotes woody, flammable shrubs.
Also, extending 4WD tracks will not reduce fires. About 75 per cent of fires are started by humans, either through arson or by accident and increasing the already extensive track network merely extends the opportunity for such acts.'
4. Those who are seeking to log national parks are commercially motivated
It has been claimed that the logging interests who have claimed that national parks increase the fire risk are not motivated by a concern to reduce bush fires. It has been suggested that they are merely seeking commercial advantage from the current spate of bushfires by using them as a justification to extend the areas where logging can occur.
This point was made by Andrew Cox in a letter published in The Age on January 22, 2003. Mr Cox stated, 'Loggers and cattlemen are typically portrayed as the only decent, clear-headed types who can understand the bush. This perpetuates the great lie that those who seek to pillage our last few remaining wild areas for their own economic gain are somehow doing it for the good of all of us.'
Mick Fendley, of the Victorian National Parks Association, has made a similar point. 'We must resist the unprincipled who seek to use the human tragedy of the current Canberra fires to further their bash the bush agenda,' Mr Fendley stated.
5. Those living on the urban fringe are given as much assistance as is feasible to reducing the fire risk to their properties
Police Minister Andre Haermeyer has claimed that the CFA ensures that people who move from inner suburbs to the urban fringe are aware of the higher risks and the precautions they need to take in terms of reducing the fuel load and preparing a fire plan.
It is further claimed that those living in high-risk areas have to be prepared to assume responsibility for managing their own safety. This point has been made by Roger Jones in a letter published in The Age on January 21, 2003. Mr Jones states, 'There can never be enough fire suppression vehicles available to provide one for every house. So if we live in a wild-fire prone area, the responsibility for taking reasonable efforts to protect our family and our property is ours and ours alone.'
Similarly, Mr Jones claimed that on days of high fire risk 'the responsibility for listening out to public radio/TV warnings is ours and ours alone.'
6. Some fires cannot be prevented
It has been argued that the Canberra fires, in particular, were freak events that it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to prevent. Ian McPhedran, writing in The Herald Sun on January 21, 2003, notes, 'How do you protect a leafy community bordering forests from a one in 100 or 200-year bushfire holocaust? The answer is simple: you can't.'
Regarding fire prevention strategies, the ACT Planning Minister, Mr Simon Corbell, has claimed that the unique conditions that occurred - very high winds and temperatures, together with low humidity - at a time when vegetation was very dry because of a prolonged drought created a situation where no amount of forward planning would have reduced the fire risk.
'The fact that the fire was able to spot 10 to 15 kilometres ahead of the actual fire front shows that it wouldn't have mattered if there was a huge fire break around Canberra or not. There would still potentially have been significant damage.'
Commenting on the firefighting procedures, as opposed to fire prevention strategies, there are many who claim that nothing more could have been done to combat a fire of the intensity suffered by Canberra. Bushfire authority chief, Peter Lucas-Smith, has stated, 'This fire was unique. It's not something I've seen in 30 years of firefighting.'
Phil Cheney, of the CSIRO's bushfire behaviour and management unit, has made similar claims. Mr Cheney has explained that bushfires are ranked on a severity scale ranging from zero to 100,000. Anything over 3000 is considered beyond control by human hands. In Canberra on the Saturday when most houses were burned and lives were lost there were almost perfect fire conditions. There were temperatures in the high 30s, winds over 70 kilometres and low humidity. This meant that the fires that occurred were ranked at the top of the scale.
'You could have lined up the whole United States fire service and they couldn't have stopped these fires. Once it gets to that level there is nothing anybody could do,' Mr Cheney has claimed.
Roger Jones, in a letter published in The Age on January 21, 2003, stated, 'Fires develop so rapidly on extreme fire-risk days that even the most sophisticated communications systems can't guarantee that everyone will be warned.'
Further implications
Major bushfires in the national capital are not just human tragedies; they also have significant political implications. In these circumstances the Prime Minister has avoided the temptation to apportion blame; however, he appears to have given his support to an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the fires.
Others, however, have been keen to find fault, making a variety of suggestions ranging from the supposed under-preparedness of Canberra's emergency services, through to criticisms of urban planning regulations and the conservation movement which is blamed for having 'locked up' large areas in national parks, where it is claimed by some, they are particularly prone to fire.
Accusations and defences have flown thick and fast and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that many of those involved in this 'debate' are speaking out of self-interest or prejudice. This appears to be particularly the case with the forest industry, but may also help to account for the position adopted by some conservationists who do indeed appear to want to protect forests from most human contact.
What a number of media analyses suggest is that causal factors for major fires are quite complex and may involve a combination of under-management, excessive human intervention and simple misfortune.
It is to be hoped that in the readiness of some groups to defend entrenched positions that a search for the full causes of these disasters is not neglected. Without such a full analysis it will not be possible to take appropriate preventative action in the future.
Sources
The Age
21/1/03 page 1 news item by Michael Gordon and Annabel Crabb, 'Bid to curb fire peril'
21/1/03 page 1 news item by Murray Mottram, 'There is nothing anybody could do'
21/1/03 page 3 news item by Michael Gordon, 'Bush capital faces changes for safety'
21/1/03 page 14 letter from Sue Hoffman, 'Firefighters need money, not parades'
21/1/03 page 14 letter from John Cribbes, 'A question of priorities'
21/1/03 page 14 letter from Roger Jones, 'Wildfire code: be prepared and accept responsibility'
22/1/03 page 2 news item by Annabel Crabb, Richard Baker and Melissa Fyfe, 'Green groups blamed for fuel build-up'
22/1/03 page 3 news item by Suzanne Carbone, 'Dangerous times ahead for the fringe dwellers'
22/1/03 page 12 letter from Michael Fendley, director, Victorian National Parks association, 'This is no time to score points in a cynical blame game'
22/1/03 page 12 letter from Andrew Cox, 'The "benevolent logger" myth'
23/1/03 page 2 analysis by Melissa Fyfe, `A necessary part of the natural landscape'.
The Australian
20/1/03 page 5 news item by Dennis Shanahan and Megan Saunders, 'Howard shaken by worst he's seen'
The Herald Sun
21/1/03 page 14 four letters to the editor under the heading, 'Bushfire strategy requires a rethink'
21/1/03 page 15 cartoon by Warren Brown
21/1/03 page 16 editorial, 'Summer terror'
21/1/03 page 17 comment by Ian McPhedran, 'Blame it on nature'
21/1/03 page 17 comment by Paul Gray, 'Bush lifestyle requires hard decisions'
22/1/03 page 7 news item by Simon Benson, 'Ember attack to blame'
22/1/03 page 16 three letters to the editor under the heading, 'Did green path lead to a nightmare?'
23/1/03 page 1 news item by Mark Buttler et al, 'Maniacs'
23/1/03 page 7 news item by Danny Buttler, 'Alpine anger over lack of resources
23/1/03 page 18 letter from Nick Roberts, 'Blame game misses target'
23/1/03 page 18 letter from Colin Hall, 'Urban planning ripe for fire'
23/1/03 page 18 four letters to the editor under the heading, 'Praise for firefighters, true blue Aussies'
24/1/03 page 3 news item by Danny Buttler, 'Anger at lack of back-burns'
24/1/03 page 21 comment by Jill Singer, 'Due for a reward'
25/1/03 page 26 comment by Michael Harvey, 'Fire blame cold comfort'