Adam Watkins working with friends to save his home near Lancefield, north of Melbourne, earlier this month. Photo: Justin McManus
Victoria faces another long and potentially difficult bushfire season. It is right to reflect upon last week's fires, but a more pressing need for all Victorians is to make sure they are prepared for the summer ahead. Bushfire conditions have arrived earlier than expected in several parts of the state. Victoria's fire and emergency agencies are more than adequately resourced to deal with this.
The predictions for a drier than usual spring are sobering. By the end of this coming week, significant fire weather conditions will again affect the state. This is the new normal. As a community we need to adapt and learn to live with the changes ahead.
People often seek absolute guarantees about bushfire. There are none, except that if you are not there when a bushfire comes you won't be harmed by it. If you are caught in the middle of one, there is a risk you will be killed. Every other course of action, no matter how well planned, carries a greater or lesser degree of risk. That was the harsh lesson of Black Saturday.
A bushfire that started as a controlled burn destroyed four houses in Lancefield in early October. Photo: Justin McManus
This simple reality underpins the fundamental message in Victorian over recent summers, that leaving high-risk areas early on days of severe fire danger and above will always be your safest option. That does not mean that your responsibility ends there. If your plan is to leave on days of high fire danger, there is much you can do to prepare your property to help ensure it is still there when you come home. If you plan to stay, there is much more to do. The fire agencies have a wealth of detailed information, available both online and in printed form. Your local brigade can help with advice too.
Victorians are still learning to live with bushfire more than 180 years after European settlement. Most people will never experience a fire first hand. Yet increasingly, those who have not grown up with fire are moving into areas on the edges of our cities and towns and even deeper into the bush where bushfire is a threat every year.
Our community is still learning that deliberately putting fire into the landscape, even with the best of motives, can have unintended consequences.
There has probably been more early uncontrolled fire in the Victorian landscape this year than in any previous year, certainly within memory. In the rush to apportion blame, let's not forget the intent of these burns – to reduce the risk of uncontrollable fire in the landscape.
A number of burn-offs escaped – from both private and public land – leading to property losses and significant community impacts. Whether it be a property owner trying to minimise the risk on their own property or the fire and land management agencies trying to achieve this in the public estate, the intentions are good.
The precise circumstances of the largest escape, at Lancefield, are now subject to an independent review. Speculating further upon the event now is unfair and deflects attention from the pressing task at hand.
Even in the best possible circumstances, with the benefit of experience, the best information and adequate resources, things don't go to plan when fire is deliberately put into the landscape. No matter how conservative the approach, things can go wrong. Even when lit by the hand of man, fire remains a natural force.
Fire is also an essential part of the Australian environment. The challenge in the context of Victoria's modern fire landscape, in which more and more people are choosing to live, is to find a balance between using fire to fight fire and protecting both people and the environment.
After the 2009 bushfires, enormous pressure was placed upon the state to reduce risk through increased planned burning of public land. A target of 5 per cent was recommended by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. In 2014-15 fuel reduction works were carried out on 234,000 hectares. Since July 1, 2015, a further 16,456 hectares has been burned. Less than 2 per cent of planned burns escape.
Clearly how we use fire in the Victorian landscape as a preventative measure must more closely involve the community at a local level. Only then will communities be both informed and share responsibility for targeted planned burns – and own both their consequences and benefits.
Even more importantly, Victorians must take time to review how they live with fire. Since the 2009 bushfires, there has been significant research into how people plan to respond to the threat of bushfire and what they actually do. The findings have been remarkably consistent and alarming. Only a small proportion of people actually plan what they will do in the event of a bushfire. An even smaller proportion stick to their plans.
The stark reality of seven major recent fire events across Australia is that on average only a tiny proportion of people left early – in other words, before a fire started. The first response of many people who remain is to "wait and see" even when a fire has broken out. After the experience of Black Saturday and successive summers of significant bushfire activity since, such community inertia – especially in areas where fires are known to occur – presents significant social challenges.
It's time now for another conversation – with family, friends, the local fire brigade – about what you are going to do when a bushfire threatens. That conversation needs to occur regularly and long before the flames are licking at the end of the street.
Fundamentally, there are still only two options in a bushfire. You either leave or stay. Leaving early is not always easy but it remains the safest option. For those who do not have adequate bushfire survival plans, it is the only option that guarantees your life.
Craig Lapsley is Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner.
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