Fire refuges still a long time coming
Fire refuges still a long time coming
28 August 2010
published by www.bbc.co.uk
Australia – FIRE refuges will be built only in a very small number of communities in Victoria, and not for a number of years, despite a recommendation by the Bushfires Royal Commission that the state give the issue high priority.
Premier John Brumby has also ignored a plea by the bushfires commissioners to change the clumsy name of neighbourhood safer places to bushfire shelters.
While the Premier said on Friday he supported all the commissions recommendations on the stay or go policy, the fine print suggests the government is still reluctant to make the deep cultural changes recommended.
In their final report earlier this month, the commissioners called for a fundamental change in the states attitude towards bushfires, and for agencies to differentiate between ordinary fire days and ferocious fires.
They also recommended fire agencies take a much more active role in managing people in the path of a fire, by evacuating them from the teeth of the blaze if necessary.
They said people should be given options of going to shelters, which would provide a relative degree of safety, or refuges, which would provide a higher degree of safety. They were disappointed the state had made so little progress on a refuge policy.
The government revealed on Friday that it would put $11.5 million towards accelerating the identification of new neighbourhood safer places.
But Mr Brumby insisted that the royal commission had found the policy framework is right but the community needs better information, better warnings and more choices.
He said there would be no refuges built in Victoria until the development of an Australian design standard.
The commission has said we should examine this, thats exactly what were doing. But there is no standard … and the last thing youd want to do is build a building that doesnt save people, Mr Brumby said.
University of Melbourne bushfire ecologist Kevin Tolhurst said this area of policy should not be so hard to implement. He said the domestic standard for building in bushfire-prone areas could be adapted for public buildings.
Youve got to ward against making it overly difficult and complicated. Places like schools, hospitals and nursing homes should be automatically considered because they are so dangerous to evacuate, Dr Tolhurst said.
While the government has put a large amount of effort into providing better emergency warnings on bushfire days, it appears to be backing away from the royal commissions strong recommendation on evacuation.
After its interim report, the commissioners complained that the government did not go far enough in recommending emergency evacuation, noting that it should reassess its approach and make it an integral part of the response to a fire.
It has never suggested that evacuation be compulsory, only that those who want to leave can be instructed and guided by incident controllers and police during the fire.
In Fridays release, Mr Brumby said the government would undertake further work to provide the community with advice, and that Victoria Police was working on a policy.
Fire services commissioner Craig Lapsley said he was working with police to get a good plan at the community level.
He expected this to be in place for October.