Chapter 4 - Warnings - 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission—Interim Report
4 WARNINGS
4.159 Ms Karen Ward of Mudgegonga was aware of the weather forecast and predictions. She heard a message
on ABC Radio in the evening, which was helpful because ‘it let us know that it was going to be us that was
directly affected’. Ms Ward also sought more information about warnings and suggested it would be useful
if fire was rated so it was clear if the approaching fire is going to be extreme. 209
4.160 Mr John Williams of Yarra Glen noted that on Friday ‘the tempo of the warnings certainly increased’ and
recalled seeing the warning given by the Premier. 210 He took this as a trigger to commence preparations to
defend the winery. He said, however, that the warnings he heard on ABC Radio were difficult to understand:
There were warnings issued from time to time in a very sort of performance type language, ‘a warning
is issued to the people of such and such that you may be about to endure an ember attack,’ this sort
of language, and I had to concentrate very carefully on each one of these messages just to see to whom
it did apply. If I missed the beginning of the statement, the rest of it was of no consequence whatsoever.
These messages went on, very lengthy, using up a lot of valuable time and I kept mumbling to myself,
‘get on with it, give a short, pithy messages that are up to date.’ They were out of date. I can see more
going on here than what’s being told over the radio. 211
4.161
He emphasised the need for short messages and suggested the following model:
‘A message for the people of Timbuktu. A message is issued at 1:35pm. You may be enduring an ember
attack within the next hour. This is a message for Timbuktu timed at 1:35pm’, and then move onto the
next one. 212
4.162 Ms Jillian Kane of Bendigo, gave evidence on the death of her disabled brother in Long Gully. She noted
that given his vulnerability he, and those like him, require ‘a more effective warning system’ and advance
notice to be able to arrange to relocate. 213
conclusions on the construction and content of BUSHFIRE warnings
4.163 Changes should be made to the content of bushfire warnings. Many of the warnings used by the fire
agencies on 7 February were deficient in the following respects:
■■
many warnings did not indicate the likely severity of the fire; this is a significant shortcoming
■■ the warnings rarely identified the window of time during which the fire was predicted to reach
certain towns or communities; this information is vital to the community
■■ some warnings were imprecise in their description of the location of a particular fire or the direction in
which the fire was spreading; again, this information is important to those preparing to meet the threat
■■ the advice in many warnings was lengthy and confusing, sometimes even contradictory; it was difficult
to identify the important information
■■ the terminology used in some warnings was vague and euphemistic; it did not serve to grab the
audience’s attention.
4.164 On the particular language to be used in bushfire warnings, as Mr Rees agrees, terms like ‘going’ and
‘out of control’ — though they have meaning to fire specialists — fail to convey sufficient meaning to the
public. 214 In his evidence, Mr Lawson agreed that the use of a term such as ‘extremely dangerous bushfire’
would be in keeping with the desire to use plain language. 215 Mr Pearce agreed that using the term ‘severe’
would improve communication about the severity of fires. 216 Terms which convey clearly the severity and
intensity of bushfires should be used.
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