Professor John Handmer is the Program
Leader, Community Self Sufficiency for Fire Safety, at the Bushfire
Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and RMIT University in
Melbourne.
On community:
“Our research has shown that fleeing at the last moment is
the worst possible option; this is where most people have died or
been injured. Sadly, this message does not seem to have been
sufficiently heeded this weekend with truly awful consequences in
Victoria. History and research both show that in past fires this
has not been a safe option.
No decision is risk free – any decision a resident makes
in a bushfire involves some degree of risk. This fire shows that
leaving late can be the worst decision to make. Alternatively, many
people made the perfectly acceptable decision that their house was
not defendable and decided to leave early. They may have lost their
home but they kept themselves safe.
The key thing to remember is that late evacuation is extremely
dangerous. You are safer in your house than in your car or out in
the open.
At this stage, it is too early to judge the application of the
Prepare, Stay and Defend, or Leave Early policy but it will be
properly reviewed along with the normal review of all policies and
practices after a major fire event.”
Professor Mark Adams is the Program Leader,
Fire in the Landscape, Bushfire CRC and University of Sydney
On the environment:
"We live in a land shaped by fire but as a society we are still
learning about the full impact of major bushfires across a whole
range of ecological and biological systems. I have spent more than
30 years in the forests that are burning in Victoria this week,
including being there during the Ash Wednesday bushfires in 1983.
But I have never seen weather and other conditions as extreme as
they were on Saturday. The fire weather was unprecedented.
We do not have all the evidence yet to fully explain this day in
terms of climate change. However, all the science to date shows
that we can expect more extreme weather in the years to come - that
includes hotter days and drier landscapes across southern
Australia.
The science also suggests that an increase in the carbon in the
atmosphere will promote a more vigorous growth of our forests
potentially increasing the fuel loads in years to come."
Gary Morgan is the CEO Bushfire Cooperative
Research Centre
On the bushfire threat:
"This weekend's fires highlight the importance of scientific
research in order to improve our understanding of the multiple
impacts of bushfires.
Climate change, weather and drought are altering the nature,
ferocity and duration of bushfires and an ageing and declining
volunteer population are challenging the way fire agencies are
going to be able to manage these events.
These issues are being made worse by the expanding rural-urban
edge in our cities and regional towns. The fires on the suburban
outskirts of Bendigo and Narre Warren on Saturday, for example,
show that many communities need to rethink the notion of who lives
in a bushfire zone and who needs to be educated and prepared.
Today the fires are still burning and many communities remain
under threat. We need to be watching closely for what goes right as
well as what goes wrong - so as a nation we can learn to better
deal with this ongoing threat of bushfire."
Dr Mary Omodei is Bushfire CRC Project
Leader Safe Behaviour and Decision Making and from La Trobe
University’s School of Psychological Science in Melbourne.
She has worked in bushfire research for a number of years with a
focus on how humans (eg: emergency services) exert decision making
control over complex systems.
On decision making under duress:
“Although it remains unclear what factors cause such a
decline in decision-making ability, our own research findings
suggest that such factors range from inherent limitations of
cognitive processing abilities (limitations that are further
aggravated by cognitive overload and physiological and
psychological stress), to the communication and coordination
challenges faced by teams of people having to exercise decision
making control over such situations.
The weather situation predicted for Saturday and the fire
situation that actually occurred on Saturday would have placed
decision makers in situations which exceeded the limits of human
decision making abilities on many levels.
It is especially important to note that fire behaviour research
internationally has not been able to develop robust fire danger
rating scales that cover the conditions predicted for Saturday.
This resulted in the need for urgent decisions to be made under
extreme uncertainty. Firefighters in both incident control centres
and on the fire-ground would have had to make such decisions in the
face of fire and weather conditions outside their knowledge and
experience.”
Andrew Sullivan is a fire researcher with
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and works with the Bushfire CRC Fire
Behaviour project, working on bushfire behaviour, combustion
dynamics, and firefighter safety.
“In south-east Australia, bad fire days are associated
with the presence of a 'blocking' high pressure system in the
Tasman Sea. This brings hot, dry strong wind from the centre of the
continent to the south-east.
The high temperatures and dry air experienced throughout
Victoria on Saturday resulted in very low fuel moisture content.
Combined with the extended rainfall deficit for much of the state,
this resulted in tinder-dry fuel that was very easily ignited and
very difficult to extinguish. In addition, very strong winds
resulted in fires that spread very rapidly with the wind and were
practically unstoppable until the weather moderated following the
cool change.
Saturday's fire weather conditions were similar to those
experienced on Black Friday in January 1939 and Ash Wednesday in
February 1983.”
Justin Leonard is Bushfire CRC Project Leader
Building and Occupant Protection, an urban design and bushfire
research scientist with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
"The fire weather seen on Saturday in many areas of Victoria
with a few exceptions, is likely to be experience by a house at
least once during its design life.
Historically, most of Victoria’s house loss has occurred
under similar hot, dry and windy conditions. These conditions that
promote fire spread are the same conditions that dry out
combustible elements in, on and around the home, leaving them more
vulnerable to ignition and fire spread."
Professor Ross Bradstock is Leader of Bushfire
CRC Project Fire Regimes and Sustainable Landscape Risk Management,
and the Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of
Bushfires at the University of Wollongong. His expertise is in fire
science, fire ecology, climate change and risk management.
“From what we’ve seen the weather conditions in
Melbourne were almost unprecedented on Saturday, probably a record,
so it looks as if it’s off the top of the scale. The weather
has a huge effect on the intensity of the fires including the rate
of spread. Conditions are at least equivalent if not worse than
1939. You couple that with a whole range of other factors, plus
some of these fires have broken out very quickly so people have
been caught by surprise.
The other disturbing thing is that probably a lot of the deaths
are on the roads, in motor vehicles. The authorities have been
pushing a policy of trying to encourage people to stay with their
property, not to evacuate, especially at the last minute, so it
will be interesting to see what the breakdown of fatalities are in
terms of whether many people have been killed actually staying with
their buildings or not but we just don’t know. But it looks
as if there’s a hell of a lot of carnage on the road.
There’s pretty concrete evidence that you’re much
safer staying with your building. A lot of these houses actually
burnt after the fire front had passed because while they do catch
fire, it takes a while for them to burn down, so even if
you’re in a house which is on fire in the early stages,
you’re actually safer than being outside. But it’s too
early to assess things like that; we just don’t have the
data.
Many of these towns like Kinglake and Marysville have been burnt
out before, it’s a very dangerous environment, the tall
forests of Victoria are a pretty dangerous place to live. Under
these sorts of conditions it really does make you think very
carefully about urban planning.
It might be the sort of conditions we can expect more of in the
future under climate change, there’s certainly a fair bit of
evidence of that kind around.”
Dr Judy
Putt is General Manager Research, Australian Institute
of Criminology and leader of the Bushfire CRC arson
project.
“Arson costs the Australian community $1.6 billion each
year. The vast majority of vegetation fires in Australia are caused
by people with around half – some 20,000 to 30,000 each year
– deliberately lit.
Most arsonists are young, male and, although unlikely to have had a
previous recorded conviction for arson, are likely to have been
convicted of other offences. They are rarely dedicated arsonists or
pyromaniacs but general offenders who happen to light fires. Their
various motivations include excitement, recognition and attention,
revenge, material gain, vandalism, or for no reason at
all.”
