‎3 Years On... L'est we forget the 'BLACK SATURDAY FIRES' 7th Feb 2009. Honouring the CFA for their bravery and remembering all who lost their lives. Still so clear in the minds of all who were involved....

this youtube is a song my daughter wrote for the victorian bushfires and north queensland flood at the 15 year of age she ended up raising $3000 for the two causes with this single

Yes, one of the nastiest fires I have had to attend in my 35 years of volunteering with the NSW RFS :o( .

Jeff

I remember watching it on tv being worried sick about friends because they where in the fire zone. On the same day as the fires they where flooding really bad up north, I would have hated to be anywhere near those fires. It turned out to be a very sad day black saturday.

There is a show on the ABC tonight that will be worth watching.
Then The Wind Changed

lindsay i will watch it what time is it on

8.30pm

Lost a colleague during this disaster. Only saw him three days before he died trying to protect his poperty. RIP Rob and others :-(

thank you lindsay i won't miss it, i had close friends in the fire one lost there home and the other one came out pretty good just some scorching to the paint on there house but they felt blessed that they got out with there lives so many were not that lucky . I hope you took the chance to listen to the youtube i posted, the song was wrote that saturday while watching the whole event unfold. it is from the heart.

How is Marysville now?. I have never been back since before the fire, I am too scared what I might find, might be too depressing to see. Even Lake mountain still looks like a nuclear holocaust on the web cams.

The mountain ash forests will take about 20 years to regenerate properly. Messmate and other eucalypt forest types should have well and truly sprung back to life by now but most of the forest out there is E. regnans and will look pretty ugly for some time.

5% burning policy a result of the fires.....on RN radio now.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-02-19/3829372

I cannot understand why there is not a policy to be ready for fire when the risk is high. Models were so obvious that Black Saturday would happen a week out, it was making me worried a week ahead of the event. What should have happened is that the army should have been mobilized for that day at least around towns like Marysville and Kinglake and a few others. They could have had 1000's of personnel ready with tankers and heavy machinery and stopped the destruction at least of those towns. I put the largest blame on BOM for what happened because they were the ones who were suppose to be making correct forecasts and they were the ones who were suppose to be contacting the government for action and help for that day. Yet their forecasts were consistently wrong right up to the day. BOM are to blame and so is the government for not having a communication policy with BOM where they would act on their advice.

BoM were making the correct forecasts about black saturday. In case you don't remember there were warnings all over national television. I live in far north queensland and even I knew the place was going to go up like a torch. Putting thousands of army personell infront of the fire would have accomplished only one thing. The deaths of many of them. Nothing was going to stop those fires. Not reducing fuel load or putting a million people on the ground to fight the fires. Anyone with any real thought on the matter could work that out. The only thing that could have been saved were lives and the only way that could have happened was if people woke up to themselves and.stopped being so complacent. People could have been ready to get out and instead of seeing a bit of smoke on the horizen and watching it they could have left immediately and saved theirs and their families lives.

Brett, perhaps you do not remember the forecasts in the days leading to the event, BOM were still forecasting a very silly 37 for Melbourne only 2 days before. It was not until the night before that their forecast suddenly changed to something closer to the truth although still too conservative. Yet this event was like a freight train with a railtrack right through Melbourne for nearly a week, there could not have been more warning if you tried, yet there was not because the forecast was wrong.

As for the army, they do have the equipment and ability to survive a bushfire, they have equipment to combat enemy attack which can be even worse. They have tanks and machinery to protect themselves from bombs and fire bombing. I am sure that they could have saved those towns if they were there. However it would have taken a few days of preparation to get mobilized. The thing is that the warning could have been there had BOM done their job and had the communication channels been in place for government to act in BOM's warnings. The government is equally to blame for this for not being ready.

Another point mentioned in the story above is that the real risk to property and lives only happens in the most extreme conditions. This may happen only once in a decade, these are the days for which we need to be prepared at any cost.

The only thing that could have prevented the loss of life experienced on that day Peter, would have been the early and expedient evacuation of those towns that were razed (and I don't necessarily mean an "official" evacuation but equally self-evacuation). No amount of man-power would have been able to prevent the destruction and in all likelihood sending 1000's of personnel in would have achieved nothing other than an increased death toll.

I also don't think you can solely blame the Government and the BOM. We cannot expect total absolution of personal responsibility. Certainly there is a role for the Government and BOM to play, but the bulk of this role is in the education of people who choose to make the bush their home.

I watched the doco on ABC on the anniversary of Black Saturday and one thing that shone through (unintentionally I think) was the ignorance and naivety of the mechanics of fire ecology and of the relationship between the scrub and fire. This ignorance should take the brunt of the blame for those deaths.

As you say Peter, you knew a week out of the potential catastrophic fire conditions. I knew, my parents knew (they live in the Blue Mountains) and I would wager that most long term residents of fire prone areas knew of the potential that day.

When examining events you can split influences up into root causes and contributing factors. Root causes are those "things" that without having occurred the event would not have happened. Contributing factors are those things that influence the severity, frequency or any other variable.

If you want to solve a problem with a permanent solution then you must address the root cause. If you only address the contributing factors then you accept that the event will still occur (and this is perfectly acceptable for many events) and you will only ever alter the intensity, frequency, etc.

What you have described above Peter are contributing factors. In this situation I don't think it's acceptable to only address the contributing factors.

The root cause for the loss of life I believe was the "new" population.

The situation leading up to this awful event saw a large number of people move to these areas over a very short period of time. Many of these were from the city or the suburbs where they had had no experience with fire. This was the fundamental problem on that day. They either expected or thought they'd be warned of the impending danger and from what I gather expected someone to come in and save them. When it became apparent that the latter was not going to happen, this is when inexperience kicked in and they decided to flee and unfortunately this is where many lost their lives.

Well said Bigwilly. Untill people start stepping up and taking resposibilty for themselves instead of always waiting foor somebody else to do it for them then these sort of disasters will never stop. And I am not just talking about fire either. Just about everyone in this country lives in an area that is prone to some type of natural diasaster beit fire, flood, cyclone, hail storm, Tsunami, tornado etc etc. It is up to every resident to understand the risks and be prepared to act in an emergency annd if they could not be bothered to get off their lazy butts and do this then they have no right to complain that someone else did not hold up their end of the bargain so to speak. Given the conditions leading up to and on the day of the black saturday bushfires every single person across the state that lived in a potential risk area should have been ready too flee at the slightest signs of a fire in the distance. Because they were not they got caught unprepared in their homes or got caught trying to flee when it was too late. And again. A fire in those conditions does not get stopped regardless of how many people may be fighting it and anyone that thinks people should lay their lives on the line simply to save bricks and mortar is sadly mistaken IMHO.

I agree. Very sensible and well said Big Willy

I still remember the story of the guy who saved his house with cans of soft drink on that day up near Kinglake. The thing you need to remember is that a house can be saved if it is being attended to, its far from impossible. You just need to be there in those most extreme conditions when the ember attack would happen. This is where an army with the right equipment could have stopped the most of the disaster for the towns at least, and without loosing lives there.

Great STORY and I am sure he pored soft drink on the few embers that landed on his house. But seriously. Do you really think that a carton of coke would have saved all those other properties?
He got lucky thats it. Oh, and he may have been one of the few that were actually prepared. Ie clean gutter and such. Sorry but if you choose to live in a bushfire area then you choose to accept your house may be burnt down in a busfire. No different to mme in that I accept my house may get destroyed by a cyclone. If it happens I won't be blaming others. If my house gets flooded I won't be blaming the state goverment for ot building higher levies or BoM for not telling me excactly how high the water would get down to the nearest cm. I will deal with it. Why. Because I have self respect. I give myself the credit for having the intelligence to actually make and informed descision. Blaming others simply says that those who were affected did not have any level of intelligence or if they did they chose not to exercise it.

And if that "army" of firefighters got it ever so slightly wrong in those fast changing extreme situations in that heavily timbered forest areas with it's rugged terrain, a couple of thousand or so extra lives lost for no purpose whatsoever except to save some buildings and homes which can be rebuilt.

I've been very lucky and was too old to be called up by the CFA to fight the last couple of decades of major forest fires but when you see and then feel the unbelievable terrifying heat of an intense fast moving grass fire with it's 6 metre high flames racing down towards you at 15 or 20 kph or much, much more as has been now measured by the CSIRO, a bad fast moving forest fire in heavy timber with it's flames extending fifty or a hundred metres into the air must be a truly terrifying experience which only the strongest willed could and did face up to and mostly lost.

Unless you have seen and experienced an extreme fire of this sort, very few will actually appreciate the extremes of the conditions and the fear and panic they arouse and the puny abilities of men to face up to and try to control such fires