RSCH.016.001.1136 - 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

RSCH.016.001.1147
Bushfires 7
into pine plantations. The Parks Service provided hour by hour forecasts of fire behaviour
from its computer modelling. At subsequent coronial hearings, critics charged that the
absence of broad-acre hazard reduction burning had contributed to the losses by making the
fire uncontrollable. The Parks Service chronicled its computer modelling, which deviated
from actual fire perimeters by no more than 25 percent. It then projected bushfire behaviour
under various conditions of reduced fuels. It was shown that given the extreme weather,
any reduction in fuels would have reduced the time the pine plantation was burnt in from 17
minutes to four hours. The proponents of the NPWS program argued that as the computer
modelling was sustained both in the field and the laboratory, this effectively nullified the case
for broadacre fuel reduction burning. 18
Pyne noted that what most threatened the ‘Australian strategy’ was the argument that, under
the worst weather conditions, fuel-reduction burning failed to make fire control possible.
The case for controlled burning was clearly supported by evidence for Queensland and
Western Australia. However, for the fire flume of south-eastern Australia, it was not so
clear. The Victorian Forests Commission noted case studies that confirmed that hazard
reduction burning had, in local sites, diminished wildfire and protected houses and conifer
plantations. Pyne writes that what the Commission did not discover was a blanket
justification for wholesale fuel reduction. Where controlled burning succeeded, it did so in
special, intensively managed sites, typically near developments for which brigades could be
called in to fight the fire. The problem was that, in practice, controlled burning affected only
a fraction of the land under protection. Whilst even sites targeted along ridgetops and north
slopes were burnt, these amounted only to a program of enlarged fuel breaks. These
defences proved to be inadequate, as high intensity fires could easily spot across them. The
foresters’ solution, of course, was for more burning. However, critics argued that precision
burning should replace broadacre burning, and that the fundamental question became not
whether reducing fuels could help control fires but whether under Australian conditions fuels
could be reduced sufficiently to provide the desired protection at the desired costs. 19 As the
debate continued, more fires were to impact on the landscape.
Ash Wednesday
By February 16, 1983, there were a considerable number of fires burning throughout the
southeast fire flume of southeastern Australia. Drought in its third and fourth year had dried
out the moisture in fuels. On February 16, a double cold front intensified, and hot air from
the arid inlands was swept east. Bushfires broke out in the morning in South Australia, with
devastating effect. Fires started from multiple sources, and fierce winds supported massive
spotting. Firewhirls proliferated, with aerial photographs showing a pillar of flame towering
to 375 metres at Furner, probably one of several ‘fire tornadoes’ that crossed the region.
Wind instruments recorded mean wind speeds of 40-50 km/h, gusting up to 110 km/h. For
South Australia, one afternoon of fire storms resulted in 26 deaths, 196 houses burnt, and
25 to 30 percent of the State’s conifer forests burnt.
The fires shifted to Victoria, with 180 fires breaking out on February 16. The sheer volume
18
19
Pyne,S. Burning Bush. A Fire History of Australia. Allen and Unwin, 1991, at 392.
Pyne,S. Burning Bush. A Fire History of Australia. Allen and Unwin, 1991, at 395.