‎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

So I gather that the people who lost their lives in Black Saturday were unintelligent and had no self respect unlike your fantastic self and so their lives don't really mean that much.

Nice to know you think yourself more responsible and worthy than someone like Brian Naylor.

Seriously, the self righteous indignation being displayed on this thread and now degenerating into straight out narcissism is sickening.

One thing I'm sure of, John started this thread as a commemorative gesture with respect to the victims of Black Saturday, the terrible extent and intensity of the disaster and how it impacted on the psyche of an entire state.

It's a pity it has degenerated to such nonsense. It would almost be a good idea to close the thread before the personal insults towards Black Saturday victims and survivors become even more outrageous.

If you guys are so responsible and intelligent, why don't you run for your local council, or even state parliament if you're that brilliant. Better still provide me with evidence that you would act perfectly responsibly when it comes to the crunch, i.e. faced with a natural disaster yourselves.

Humans are fallible, but by the way some of you guys are carrying on it seems that some of us must be perfect.

Actually Coldsnapill. You have taken that in the wrong way. What I was aying is that by putting all the blame on somebody other than those that were affected you are taking away their self respect. By saying that those that were affected had absolutely no control over their own fate you are demeening them and their actions by suggesting they they did not have any ability whatsoever to affect the outcome of the situation whether they showed intelligence or not. Their is no self rightousness in my comments(I am as fallible as anyone else). What I am saying was as a direct response to someone else 'passing the buck', which seems to be a sign of the times. Untill this attitude departs our society forever then these sort of tragedies will keep repeating themmselves while peoople kkeep sitting back and waiting for a hand out as opposed to a hand up.

ROM, I would never recommend that the army head out into the rugged bush to try to stop the fire there, I agree the conditions would be just too severe there. Only to protect the boundaries of a few of the main towns, and the houses within, I do believe that would be successful to a large degree.
Brett I also fully agree with you that we all need to take the appropriate steps to protect ourselves and our property. If I lived in a flood zone then I should not blame anyone for getting flooded that is for sure. If my house cannot stand up to a wind then its only my fault for not taking steps to build it correctly.
Coldsnap11, all we want is to be better prepared the next time and make the right decisions.

CSIII, we cannot absolve the dead from blame and we cannot sweep what happened under the carpet, never to be critically examined again. We have unfortunately been witnesses to one of the most devastating, catastrophic fire events since European settlement (and in all likelihood since Aboriginal settlement) the least we can do is to sit back, analyse what happened and learn from it to try and prevent a repeat in the future.

If this process involves justified criticism of those who lost their lives then so be it. The worst thing that could happen out of all of this would be to continue to hold those who died on some sacrosanct pedestal and let their deaths be in total vain. To do so would be gross disrespect.

how can there be justification in criticizing those that died?
from having personal experience of living in the kinglake west area i know what it was like, the majority of the people who died simply would not have had a chance, the street where i lived was one way in and one way out.....and it only took about 10 mins from the fire being at Whittlesea and the bottom of the range to being at kinglake west.
Being a Saturday most people would have been inside doing the normal family things, so by the time you would have noticed there was a fire comming in most instance it was already to late.

So your only option was to either "stay and fight"/seek shelter inside your house from the approaching fire or flee.... and with the distances involved and the amount of smoke that would have been around for some it would have been impossible to escape ( on average it used to take us 4 mins to get from our house to the end of the road and that was travelling at 80 ks....)


Even those that were as well prepared as they could have been for a possible fire event still had problems while they were fighting the fire, their pumps either stopped running because of the thick smoke or the fuel in the lines of the pump just evaporated, hoses melted due to the radiant heat.
Our old neighbours house was well setup with sprinklers on the roof and a Davey firefighter pump hooked directly to their pool so they could drain the water from the pool to protect their house, yet their house was also destroyed.
I personally know a number of people who died on that day and 4 of them were from the one family, as well as many more families that lost everything.

Put yourself in someone else's shoes... if you and your family were faced with a raging fire and only minutes to either stay put and seek shelter or try and escape what would you do?

Remembering the heroes...

Because if we don't face up to reality and look at exactly what those victims did wrong then we will never learn. Sticking your head in the sand achieves nothing. It is no different to critisizing a drunk and speeding driver that has killed himself. We are not saying these were bad people and we are not denying the heroism and bravery that undoubtedly went on that day. Your dead right too YShack. It WAS a saturday which meansmost of those people were NOT at work. You say most were probably inside relaxing. That would have been the worst mistake anyone could have made. Everyone knew that Victoria was going to burn. They shoulld have been prepared for it but were not. If we do not face up to these sort of errors as a society then the next time these events take place(annd I guarantee there will be a next time), the same mistakes will be made annd the same tragedie will take place. People have to stand up annd take responsibility for themselves rather than just trying to blame someone else or nothing will ever change.