Rocket pad: Concerned Port Lincoln locals call on CFS for bushfire answers
15 December 2022
Published by: https://www.portlincolntimes.com.au
AUSTRALIA – A Port Lincoln group has called on the Country Fire Service to explain why it approved the Whalers Way test site for launches during bushfire season.
The group – Eyre Peninsula Environment Protection Alliance – said there had been a lack of transparency on bushfire management information at Southern Launch’s rocket launchpad, with two test launches planned for this month.
The alliance opposes the Whalers Way facility and wants the Country Fire Service (CFS) to explain how it came to sign-off on the fire readiness for the launches amid the risk of summer bushfires.
The group held placards outside Port Lincoln CFS headquarters on Tuesday, asking for answers and renewing calls for Southern Launch to release its emergency management plan, including its bushfire management approach.
“I really think the CFS has done an amazing job in the past, but I just cannot understand how they approved this upcoming rocket launch,” member Nikki Barns said.
Ms Barns, who had lived through three bushfires and lost structures on her property in the 2009 blaze, said she was “shocked and scared” when she learned of plans for a rocket facility at Whalers Way.
“Why hasn’t a bushfire plan been released to the public and surrounding residents, I’m concerned about the few people up on that hill,” she said.
Southern Launch said it was not practice to publish commercial operational documents because doing so might compromise security, but said the CFA had seen its plans and signed them off.
CFS speaks up
Adrian Parente, the CFS Region 6 Regional Prevention Officer, told The Times about how and why he had given Southern Launch clearance to go ahead with December launches.
Mr Parente said the CFS had been working with Southern Launch for more than 12 months on bushfire management.
“Their fire mitigation work that they’ve done in this place is fairly significant to ensure they minimise any risk of fire starting from the launch pad itself,” Mr Parente said.
Fire prevention equipment on the pad included a deluge system to cool rocket exhaust, water filled barriers, sprinklers, and earth moving equipment to create firebreaks.
Responding to questions about nearby vegetation, Mr Parente said a standard 10-metre exclusion zone was in place, and the makeup of the vegetation made the risk manageable.
“The site that they’ve got there is actually not a high vegetation site, in that space where the rocket launches from. And it’s not a continuous amount of vegetation, so that means it’s not all linked together. There’s groups of vegetation here and there,” he said.
“So if a fire was to start it would be a very low intensity one, and it would be something we could deal with fairly easily.”
“But we don’t expect that to happen because of the safety systems they’ve got in place and the work that we’ve done with them.”
Alliance communications material expressed concern that CFS trucks would be taken from other places in the community to attend rocket launches, leaving locals at risk.
Mr Parente said this was not the case, and that having a truck attend launches “does not take away from our capability to respond to another incident somewhere else across the Lower Eyre Peninsula.”
“The resources that we’re using are additional to what the Lower EP has got already,” he said.
Mr Parente sought to assure the community that Southen Launch had not been afforded any special treatment by the CFS, and that the organisation routinely issued permits for hot works like welding in total fire ban areas to other businesses and individuals.
“Community safety is paramount to us, but we also have to make assessments based on operations of businesses and companies, and that includes farmers etc,” he said.
“From our perspective, we don’t see ourselves doing anything different to be working with Southern Launch as we would work with any other organisation, that includes mining companies, farmers and any other company that sets up in the rural landscape.”
When rockets fail
If and when a rocket launch failed, the risk of fire was low, according to Southern Launch and the CFS.
Southern Launch CEO Lloyd Damp said the experimental rockets slated for December used a new fuel that meant they did not explode like a more conventional system.
“The anticipation with hybrid rockets is that should there be a loss of control on the vehicle, you actually don’t get that big explosion, that big fireball, that many people associate with a failed rocket launch.”
If a rocket were to break apart after launch, the risk of a bushfire on the ground was not high, Mr Parente said.
“The likelihood of starting a fire on the ground is going to be pretty remote as well because all the hot metals would be cooling down by the time they hit the ground, the fuel would already be burned off,” he said.
“We park a number of kilometres back from the launchpad itself, but saying that we could be onsite in a couple of minutes.”
Mr Damp said the CFS had the final say about whether to launch based on fire risk.
“We heed their advice as regulators for fire safety, and if they said to us, ‘look, it’s not safe to do a launch’, we wouldn’t be doing a launch,” he said.
Looking for answers
Alliance members remained adamant Southern Launch should release its bushfire management plan to the public, and the CFS should be more transparent about its approval.
Member Richard Lloyd said the group had been frustrated by a lack on information for 12 months.
“We want to know some basic information. Why have they allowed Southern Launch to launch in bushfire season? And why hasn’t their emergency management plan been released to the public,” he said.
A spokesperson for Southern Launch said there were complications with releasing its bushfire planning.
“The plan is an operational document and commercially sensitive in nature. Releasing it to the general public could compromise operational security. The CFS have reviewed and endorsed the plan,” the spokesperson said.
For bushfire victim Nikki Barns, no amount of risk mitigation at Whalers Way would ever be enough.
“Maybe change it to a different location and I’ll feel 100% satisfied, because these are experimental launches, so that makes it even more scary.”
