On Sunday 18th March 2018, the weather in Bega and nearby coastal Tathra was forecast to be a very hot 38 degrees Celsius, low humidity and high westerly gusting winds. So a Total Fire Ban was appropriately declared the afternoon prior by New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. The Fire Danger Rating was set locally to just “High”.
Around midday a fire started on or near the rural property at 580 Reedy Swamp Road, situated about 8km SE of Bega on the western edge of the Tanja State Forest, with the outskirts of Tathra situated on the eastern edge just 4km downwind.
When will the ignition source be published so devastated Tathrans learn the truth?
It was a simple fire in bushfire terms. It started adjacent and upwind of state forest bushland in hot windy conditions and kept going in the same direction as the wind blew it until the wind dropped. It was wholly predicable, not rocket science. So the circumstances are indeed suspicious, but we expect a cronyistic cover up.
The nearest bushfire brigade is the Tarraganda Fire Shed on Tarraganda Lane about 6km NW of the ignition site, but government expects local volunteers to respond on standby, under-resourced to defend their community last minute with no financial compensation.
Four kilometres east is the outskirts of Tathra along Thompson Drive across the Bega River. This is locally referred to as the Tathra River Estate – a Bega Council approved satellite suburb invading remnant native habitat.
The Chronically Avoided Questions
There was no lightning, so what was the ignition source on this day of declared Total Fire Ban?
How long did it take the RFS to discover the fire after its estimated ignition time?
How did the RFS learn about the ignition? Proactive real-time geo-stationary low-orbit satellite with infrared camera or just a reactive public call to ‘000’?
How long did it take the RFS to arrive on site to suppress the fire? We’re talking mum and dad volunteers here, apparently arriving on the fire ground at 12:43pm to do squat.
What is the point of having fire trails throughout the Tanja State Forest if when there is a bushfire emergency, they are too dangerous to use?
When did the RFS realise that the gusty winds would spot embers over the Bega River and impact Tathra? When the embers spotted over the river?
What bushfire preparations and asset protection zones had been in place for Tathra, if any?
Given that Tathra was obviously bushfire prone, which homes were Bushfire Attack Level assessed and compliant?
Where was the RFS Erickson S-64 Air-Crane purpose designed helicopter Elvis with its 9,500 litre water dumping capacity?
Where was the RFS C-130 Thor with its 44,000 litre water dumping capacity? It cruises at 540kph, so from its base at Richmond it could have been deployed and effective over the active fire edge imminently set to impact Tathra within an hour – 360km as the crow flies! – if they were military standard professional.
The under-resourced pre-1939 volunteer model for the bushfire fighting is a repeated failure
Another Promised Wildlife Sanctuary Goes Up In Smoke
So the fire was left to burn into the Tanja State Forest because, according to the RFS cultural scarce resource mindset, it was not immediately threatening property. She’ll be right. A bit of unauthorised hazard reduction wouldn’t go astray. What habitat?
The fire was only incinerating the flora reserve which provides habitat for one of the last Koalas communities along the Sapphire Coast. The RFS dubbed the fire the Reedy Swamp Fire or the Tarraganda Fire. Residents were only advised to “Watch and Act”, whatever that means.
Then mid-afternoon the wind picked up as per the usual diurnal wind variation profile. So with 38 degrees Celsius and 30 kph plus nor-westerly winds, the fire raced out of control through dense bushland toward the western outskirts of Tathra on the coast. At no time did the fire front change direction. It was heading towards Tathra from the outset.
Incident logs from Sunday show Fire and Rescue NSW, a state government agency, offered additional emergency brigades and assistance at 12:34pm in response to a flood of Triple Zero calls from the area. Those offers were declined before the agency attempted to offer more crews again at 12.58pm – again being rejected.
RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said while the fire was burning in remote mountainous terrain, “it would have been dangerous to have [Fire NSW] there”.
The purpose of fire trails? Habitat reduction.
Rural Firefighting Dysfunction
She’ll be right. It was only at 3.40pm that authorities from the Rural Fire Service did request extra help, issuing a priority request for all available assistance, as the fire front rapidly approached Tathra.
Shortly after 2.30pm the bushfire intensified as winds picked up. By 4pm the fire had hit Tathra and NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers warned residents it was too late to leave.
But it wasn’t the 7km bushfire front misreported by the media. The early spread of the bushfire started at around 500m wide and then spread to about a 1500m wide front, spotting ahead as it was fanned by the gusty WNW winds. The bushfire front tracked from the ignition near Reedy Swamp downwind 7 km toward Tathra Head at the coast. The only thing seriously stopping the bushfire was the weather or the sea.
RFS deputy fire commissioner Rob Rogers said the bushfire quickly got out of control after it started yesterday afternoon. “It jumped very quickly to a place called Thompson Drive and that was where the first home was impacted and it just really quickly ran then into the main part of the town,” he said.
By 4:38 pm the RFS was reporting: “EMERGENCY WARNING – Reedy Swamp fire (Bega LGA) – Fire impacting on #Tathra. Seek shelter. It is too late to leave.”
What is the point of having a Catastrophic rating if it isn’t used?
Deputy Commissioner Rogers said dealing with nature was not always “an exact science”. “There has been dozens of hazard-reduction activities in that area,” he said. “There was one that was only two or three years’ old and the fire went straight through that burn as well.
This time 65 homes, 35 cabins and caravans destroyed, and dozens more damaged. Only last January the Tathra Launderette caught fire and destroyed the premises as well as the adjoining Bliss Stylists hairdresser and Little Bottler Tathra Cellars.
But criticism is taboo because the government sends in volunteers, who are automatically beyond reproach. The politicians are very quick to remind us at every bushfire aftermath.
Different Fire, Same Incompetence
The RFS in hindsight are reporting it as “catastrophic” and “a perfect storm”. It’s frankly a bit late Shane Fitzsimmons and are they now furiously shredding their communication records?
“It will never be the same again,” said Renata Boulter, a Tathra resident of 26 years.
Trust government’s used and abused volunteer force with your livelihood?
The insurance damage bill will be in the hundreds of millions, again, and that ignores the human, livestock and wildlife cost ignored by a sound bite media. Ina few weeks the ghoulish media filming amongst the ruins in their shiny hi-vis wear will have packed up and moved on.
It’s another Dunalley (Forcett bushfire) (2013), another Yarloop (2016), another Mundaring (2018), another Marysville (2009), Canberra (2003), Cockatoo (1983), Anglesea (1983), Hobart (1967), Leura (1957). On each occasion, the bushfire had been not threatening houses and so wrongly left to burn in some cases for days, then the wind picked up in the afternoon as it usually does and it was all too late.
And the lawyers will no doubt be getting in for their pound of flesh, just like Maurice Blackburn profited $100 million in fees out of the victims of Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Tathra victims would be well advised to read up on Garry Angus, Kinglake victim, who suffered $4.2 million in economic losses. But after six years trustful waiting, Maurice Blackburn offered him a compensation cheque for $120,000. He sent it back to them in disgust. The lawyers also exposed the victims compensation to a $20 million tax liability – so the government to a cut from the victims compensation as well.
“The whole thing was flawed right from day one. The $494m (for Kilmore East-Kinglake victims) that they settled on was never going to be enough to help people. It needed to be three times that amount.”
(Read Postscript below).
Disaster Waiting to Happen..again
The western outskirts of Tathra, known as Tathra River Estate, bore the brunt of the bushfire. It was subdivided and developed and built out from 2013. The NSW Government Department of Planning and Infrastructure and the Bega Council happily approved the ‘Planning Report: State Environmental Planning Policy No. 71 (Coastal Protection) Master Plan: Tathra River Estate, dated June 2012.
Concerns over the current inadequacies of bushfire access was raised during submissions, as the well as the cumulative impact of additional dwellings and the need for emergency access in the event of a bushfire.
Many of the residential houses decimated by the fire were built between the 1960s and 1980s, in cheap and nasty asbestos. No bushfire tolerance. She’ll be right.
The provision of Asset Protection Zones, connection to the fire trail network and emergency access around the edge of the development apparently addressed many of the concerns. It was then up to Bega Council “to consider other matters in a bushfire emergency strategy.” What did Bega Council do or not do? We suspect cronyistic developer corruption.
The NSW RFS raised no objection to the Master Plan. Yesterday, Tathra River Estate (Thompson’s Drive or Estate) as well as similarly recently approved housing subdivisions extending into the native bushland such as Wildlife Drive and Sanctuary Place, bore the bushfire frontal attack.
It’s called ‘Wildlife Drive’ for a reason.
The residential development encroaches upon Tanja State Forest – established in 2017 to protect wildlife
There is shared culpability here, and how did they get home and contents insurance?
Tathra River Estate/Thompson’s Estate (bottom right of image) – juxtaposed next to Tanja State Forest
(This is an old image – more development has been allowed since)
It costs $20,000 a day to keep the Elvis air crane on stand-by and an additional $11,000 a day to operate. This extrapolates to $11 million a year to have Elvis ready and able to seriously suppress bushfires. Sounds like a lot of money but the economic loss and emotional cost besetting Tathra residents?
In 2015, the NSW Rural Fire Service unveiled its latest fire fighting weapons, including a monstrous-sized former RAAF C-130 Hercules converhuman ted water-bombing tanker capable of dropping up to 44,000 litres of water on any bushfire any time. It costs a bomb, but what cost Australian livelihoods?
The official economic cost of the Dunalley (Forcett) bushfire was $100 million, the Yarloop bushfire $45 million, Marysville $300 million and Canberra $300 million.
Melbourne University’s follow up study into the human aftermath of Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires reported a quarter of survivors still experiencing serious mental health problems six years later, including affected children. (Read report below under Further Reading’)
“The reality of the disaster and its aftermath formed the ongoing backdrop of children’s daily lives. Children from a very young age through to older youth experienced anxieties and upheavals at home, in school, in sport, in friendship groups and in the community.
“She had so much trouble going back to school. She couldn’t think, concentrate at all. Everything seemed irrelevant that she was doing and they tried so hard. They were very helpful but she had a lot of trouble with just fitting in with the kids that she knew before there. They weren’t understanding her and she just felt that all their problems were very trivial.”
(Parent)
Photo by Ngaire Walhout
Lessons To Be Blocked by Cronyism..again
Of course there will be another government enquiry, so the government is seen to given a damn. There are the same number of government enquiries as there have been bushfire tragedies since the Black Friday back in 1939. It concluded – “Mistakes We’re Made”, and then the report gets filed and bushfire fighting returns to business as usual and set to repeat history.
The 1939 Black Friday fires in Victoria burned almost two million hectares, claimed 71 lives and destroyed more than 1,000 homes, including entire townships. In adjusted terms, these fires cost some $750 million.
On 1983 Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria and South Australia claimed 75 lives, more than 2,000 homes and over 400,000 hectares of country. Total property losses were estimated to be over $400 million. Between 1967 and 1999, bushfires in Australia resulted in 223 deaths and 4,185 injuries, and a total economic cost of more than $2.5 billion. Victoria’s Black Saturday in 2009 cost $4.4 billion and 173 lives.
For Tathra yesterday, it could and should have been responsible, militarily heroic, and quite beautiful – professional fire suppression like Sydney gets, where emergency professionals have proper resources at their disposal, are properly remunerated, and so residents entrust the firies to save their homes and family.
Where was it parked this time?
In 2017 the NSW Government delivered a $4.5 BILLION surplus, so they are not exactly struggling.
Tathra is a microcosm of Victoria’s bush-enclosed Mornington Peninsula coastal residence west of Rosebud; timber and fibro shacks enveloped in a tinder dry tea-tree forest – in a bushfire Forest Fire Danger Index scary scenario – another catastrophic crematorium waiting to happen.
What does the land manager National Parks Service say about Tanja State Forest? It is part of the Murrah Flora Reserves which encompasses 4 areas covering nearly 12,000 hectares and include Murrah, Mumbulla, Bermagui and Tanja flora reserves along the New South Wales Sapphire Coast. The Murrah Flora Reserves were created in March 2016 and are significant to the local Aboriginal Yuin People who own neighbouring Biamanga National Park. They also provide an important conservation role, as habitat for the last significant koala population on the NSW South Coast and other threatened species, such as the long-nosed potoroo, yellow-bellied glider and the powerful owl.
Of course it was “overgrown”. It’s called wildlife habitat. And firies, it’s scarce and valuable and worth defending. It is not expendable. yet another 1200 hectares of native habitat set aside for supposed sanctuary has been incinerated. It was a defacto RFS hazard reduction again gone wrong.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service:
“The national and state forests within the Sapphire Coast are home to some of the most iconic views and breathtaking landscapes in Australia. The South Coast’s outstanding national park system offers visitors a wide choice of opportunities to discover spectacular landscapes, from dense forests to quiet, solitary beaches; from cool, silent rainforests to colourful, alpine wilderness wildflowers. The national parks a diversity of unspoiled habitats and ecosystems which offer refuge to unique, and often ancient, plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth.”
Hypocrites!
Koala in the Murrah Flora Reserve, probably incinerated. Photo by David Gallan.
Source: Far South Coast Conservation Management Network
“I’ve lost the value of my business, I’ve lost everything.”
Garry Angus and Anne Salmon on a block they own outside Kinglake. Photo by Stuart McEvoy
‘As cheques from the record-breaking Black Saturday class actions finally began flowing to bushfire survivors in December, many of the victims welcomed the payments as the end of another chapter in their emotional and financial recovery.
Not Garry Angus. He, with an unquantified number of the thousands of claimants who joined the lawsuits, remained angry about Maurice Blackburn’s handling of the cases. The accountant from Pheasant Creek, just outside Kinglake, decided to put his money where his mouth is and sent back his cheque for $120,000.
Now he is launching a website for fellow survivors to register their complaints about Maurice Blackburn’s administration of the settlement scheme. He hopes support from other aggrieved claimants will bolster his bid for a judicial review of the $494 million Kilmore East-Kinglake settlement and the $300m settlement for the Murrindindi-Marysville fire, announced in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
“The only winners out of this have been Maurice Blackburn,” Mr Angus said. “The whole thing was flawed right from day one. The $494m (for Kilmore East-Kinglake victims) that they settled on was never going to be enough to help people. It needed to be three times that amount.”
Like a number of other bushfire survivors who have spoken publicly, Mr Angus is angry at the fees Maurice Blackburn has stripped from the settlements — more than $100m — and the Australian Taxation Office’s claim that the firm has acted unusually to expose the funds to a tax liability of about $20m. He is also furious at how his case was personally handled, claiming that the firm was lax in communicating with him, and only junior staff dealt with him (even misspelling his name on his formal assessment notice).
Before the February 2009 bushfires, Mr Angus owned and managed an accounting firm that employed eight people. He owned four investment properties around the Kinglake area, losing two completely to the blaze.
He brought a 2000-page tome of his financial records with him to his meeting with assessor Neil Rattray, and says the barrister was clearly overwhelmed and admitted he might not be the best person to handle this complex case.
Mr Angus’s claim for $4.2m in losses — largely based on future earnings from his firm, which he closed while struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder in the fires’ aftermath — was dismissed by Mr Rattray. The barrister did not accept he would suffer from any future loss of earnings or earning capacity, arguing that his business had been struggling and there was “no real suggestion” the company would be successful in the future.
In a submission to Supreme Court judge Jack Forrest, who oversees the Kilmore East settlement scheme’s administration, Mr Angus has accused Maurice Blackburn of failing in its duty of care, and asked for an independent review.
Maurice Blackburn has stood by the assessment, saying Mr Angus missed his chance to formally request a review (for which the firm charges $3800 if the finding is against the claimant).
“Given Mr Angus never objected or asked for a review during the assessment process, it’s an odd protest to now hand back a substantial cheque because of a desire to obtain more money,” a spokesman said.
Mr Rattray told The Australian he could not comment on Mr Angus’s claims, but in the reasons for his assessment, he noted that Mr Angus had treatment for depression and panic attacks before the bushfires. Since the fires, he has been suicidal at times, needing extensive medical treatment and occasional hospitalisation.
“It has psychologically scarred me for the rest of my life,” Mr Angus said. “I’ve lost the value of my business, I’ve lost everything.’’
The entire Sydney basin is currently blanketed by thick smoke haze as this photo by Nick Moir in the Sydney Morning Herald today shows. The source of the smoke is trees burning in native bushland south and west of Sydney, this time specifically in at Ripple Creek near Warragamba Dam and the Bargo State Conservation Area south of Picton.
“Bargo State Conservation Area is a great place in NSW Southern Highlands for birdwatching, hiking, and swimming at Little River or Moore Creek.”
But not at this moment, it has been burned out.
The government-tasked arsonists call it “hazard reduction”, because they see native forest only as a hazard. So in the off season, that is outside the “bushfire season, government arsonists set fire to forest habitat to justify their existence. They choose a time when the weather is calm and there is a cold air inversion layer so that the smoke is trapped at ground level and lingers around longer.
This year, because there hasn’t been much rain over winter, the Rural Fire Starters (RFS) and their Victorian counterparts the Country Fire Arsonists (CFA) plan to commence their Bushfire Season early.
Proudly on its Facebook page the RFS boats “almost 100 hazard reduction burns are scheduled to take place in the coming week, weather permitting.”
Why?
“Hazard reduction burns are part of a planned bush fire fuel reduction designed to protect life and property from intense wildfires. These are important controlled burns which will reduce the risk to people and properties from bush fires.” And to back up their rationale, the RFS calls on Professor Ross Bradstock of the University of Wollongong to support them. Not surprisingly, Professor Bradstock believes warm temperatures and low rainfall indicate the state should brace for a “significant” bushfire season.
Professor Ross Bradstock’s self-appointed Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the university gets funded out of the RFS annual budget. Why would he not wish to encourage a fully engaged RFS in the off season and on season?
Such wanton destruction of remnant wildlife habitat doesn’t stop the annual bushfire destruction during the ‘on season’. It’s just that the naming is different – “hazard reduction” becomes “bushfire”. In fact most wildfires are caused either by escaped hazard reductions or over enthusiastic head burning to counter a wildfire front , but the head burn then becomes the wildfire. Most RFS trucks use petrol to start fires than water to put fire out. The cultural motto is ‘Burn it before it burns, it’s only bush’. It is a culture of bush arson.
A full list of planned bush arson was posted on the RFS website covering the state of New South Wales (this list is reproduced at end of this article).
Is it no wonder that Australia leads the world in wildlife extinctions and threatened species?
Bushfire is a threatening process, more so when it is widespread which is what hazard reduction sets out to achieve. A threat may be listed as a key threatening process under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 if it adversely affects threatened species, populations or ecological communities, or could cause species, populations or ecological communities to become threatened. Fire kills wildlife.
Yet there is no independent ecological assessment of target burns, no thought given to ecologically threatened populations of flora and fauna, or to threatened ecological communities, to critical habitats or to endemic species.
In the entire state of New South Wales, the only locations officially declared “critical habitats” are that of Gould’s Petrel out in the distant Tasman Sea, the Little penguin population in in a secluded cove in Sydney’s North Harbour, Mitchell’s Rainforest Snail on tiny Stotts Island Nature Reserve in the Tweed River, and a remote grove of Wollemi Pines in the Blue Mountains, with no current draft recommendations being considered.
In the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, with the direction of the custodian, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, over the weekend arson crews set deliberately fire “West of Warragamba Dam” inside the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. This area is called Kanangra Boyd National Park, an iconic wilderness gem within the World Heritage estate, was deliberately incinerated by the very government authority charged with its care and protection.
We know the real reason why this vast wilderness region was listed as the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Are on 29 November 2000 – a drinking water catchment for an ever growing Sydney.
And so yesterday and today the thick smoke from the burnt forests has descended over Sydney. That strong smoky smell has everyone breathing in dead habitat.
Air quality in parts of Sydney have hit dangerous levels with health alerts for people with lung conditions and asthma.
And it’s as if no-one cares about pollution any more.
Toxicology of Smoke Inhalation
Wood smoke is harmful when breathed in and prolonged exposure can be carcinogenic. The airborne smoke particles vary in size from PM10 to PM25, which is a fine particulate matter each with a diameter between 1.0 and 2.5 micrometers, which is between 1% and 3% the diameter of a human hair. It means that wood smoke can be suspended in air and easily inhaled.
These are all a toxic cocktail to humans and animals alike. Fine particles in the air are able to travel deep into the respiratory tract and cause shortness of breath or worsen pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma. Woodsmoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways.
People who are exercising or doing an activity that causes them to breathe more rapidly and deeply are at a higher risk for health issues – including the volunteer firefighters sent in to do the damage. The long term health consequences can be serious and latent. Children, elderly people, others with pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema are also at a higher risk since they are more susceptible to the harmful effects of smoke inhalation. Long term exposure to air with particles has been associated with increases in risks for cancer, lung disease, and cardiovascular disease. Short term exposure typically only causes throat, eyes and nose irritation.
Carbon monoxide present in wood smoke can cause throbbing headaches, nausea and confusion. Twenty minutes of active burning may be required to develop sufficient concentrations of CO to reach lethal levels. But once exposed, 40 percent of those with severe poisonings will have long-term neurological impairment, including cognitive (emotional/behavior) dysfunction, short-term memory effects, and sensory motor (vision) problems.
Mix wood smoke in with exhaust fumes from traffic and industry and the dense smog can be lethal with prolonged exposure, such as currently in Sydney.
Wood smoke exposure’s long-term effects are less clear, and scientists say more study is needed. Firefighters are susceptible to “camp crud,” colds and viruses that attack immune systems. Wildfire-smoke exposure to mice has been linked to aggressive drops in blood pressure and may cause hardening of the arteries and development of plaque in the arteries.
Firefighters can wear devices called dosimeters that detect high levels of carbon monoxide. Compare the safety kit the professionals receive to what the cheap volunteers have to put up with.
Wood heaters have been phased out because of the polluting adverse health effects of wood smoke. But hazard reduction is wood smoke on steroids; government sanctioned. Are they trying to kills us?
The RFS and CFA pompously dismiss public smoke inhalation concerns saying “consult your asthma action plan”. It’s the same cop out as them saying “trigger your bushfire survival plan.” They seem to presume this relinquishes government’s responsibility another notch. The first notch being government hiding behind volunteers, thinking by doing so somehow provides government with impunity from its emergency performance accountability and public criticism. Image if that attitude was used in the real professional emergency services like police and ambulance. Would we be told “trigger your home defence”, “take the law into your own hands”, and “trigger your first aid kit”?
The following Air Quality Index chart for Bargo shows the heightened air pollution on Monday 14th August 2017, caused predominantly by the government’s hazard reduction activities. Note the pollutants shown being O3 (ground level ozone), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), SO2 (sulfur dioxide), and CO (carbon monoxide).
Where are those concerned about greenhouse gas emissions?
There seems to be this culturally higher ideal of mitigating bushfire risk which entails burning forest habitat in case it burns.
Hazard Reduction Advisory for 10th August 2017 to 18th August 2017
The following hazard reduction burns are planned by NSW land managers (such as National Parks and Wildlife Service, Forestry Corporation NSW, Crown Lands and Local Government Authorities) and fire agencies (NSW Rural Fire Service and Fire and Rescue NSW) over coming days, weather permitting.
Due datesort
LGA
Location
Tenure
HR by
10/08/2017 to 10/08/2017
Cootamundra-Gundagai
Rail Corridor Dirnaseer Road to Olympic Highway, Cootamundra
Australian Rail Track Corporation
Rural Fire Service
10/08/2017 to 10/08/2017
MidCoast
Bushland between Follies Road and Warwibo Creek Trail, Khappinghat National Park, Old Bar
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
10/08/2017 to 10/08/2017
Kyogle
Thompsons Road, Cawongla
Private
Private
10/08/2017 to 10/08/2017
Port Stephens
North of Dowling Street, Nelson Bal
Department of Primary Industries (Crown Lands)
Fire & Rescue NSW
10/08/2017 to 10/08/2017
Lake Macquarie
In the vicinity of Eucalypt Close and Summerhill Drive, Wangi Wangi
Local Government Authority, Private
Fire & Rescue NSW
10/08/2017 to 11/08/2017
Clarence Valley
In the vicinity of Riverbend Road, Kungala
Private
Rural Fire Service
10/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
MidCoast
Oak Lane, Shallow Bay
Private
Rural Fire Service
10/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Kyogle
In the vicinity of Cattle Camp Road, Richmond Range National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
10/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Clarence Valley
Bushland between between Northern Boundary Trail and Centre Road, Yuraygir National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
10/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Clarence Valley
Bushland between between Centre Road and Through Road, Yuraygir National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
11/08/2017 to 11/08/2017
Clarence Valley
West of Fortis Creek Road, Fortis Creek
Private
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Rural Fire Service
11/08/2017 to 11/08/2017
Central Coast
Peats Ridge Road, Peats Ridge
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
11/08/2017 to 11/08/2017
Gunnedah
Black Jack State Forest, Gunnedah
Forests NSW
Forest Corporation of NSW
11/08/2017 to 14/08/2017
Richmond Valley
Bushland between The Gap Road and South Gate Road, Bundjalung National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
11/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
MidCoast
Bushland west of Eastern Fire Road and Palmers Trail, Khappinghat Nature Reserve, Wallabi Point
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
11/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Port Macquarie-Hastings
South of Honeysuckle Road, Bonny Hills
Local Government Authority
Local Government Authority, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Bellingen
McDougall Place, Fernmount
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Campbelltown
Corner of Victoria Road and Katanna Road, Wedderburn
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Coffs Harbour
Old Coast Road, Korora
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Hornsby
Bushland between Peebles Road and Ben Bullen Road, Glenorie
Department of Primary Industries (Crown Lands)
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Inverell
Corner of Taylor Ave and Yetman Road, Inverell
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Lismore
Fernside Road, Fernside
Private
Private
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
The Hills
Bushland north of Dargle Trail, Lower Portland
Private
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Warrumbungle
Hawkins Lane, Coonabarabran
Local Government Authority
Private
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Lake Macquarie
Bushland north of Kimbul Road and west of Porowi Road, Brightwaters
Department of Primary Industries (Crown Lands)
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Lake Macquarie
In the vicinity of Park Street and Westcroft Street, Killingworth
Local Government Authority
Fire & Rescue NSW, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Lake Macquarie
Bushland south Of Sackville Street, Killingworth
Private
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Northern Beaches
West of Namba Road, Duffys Forest
Other
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Wollondilly
Bushland south of Scroggies Road, Lakesland
Private
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Wollongong
Between Princes Motorway and Pinces Highway, Helensburgh
Private
Catchment Authority, Fire & Rescue NSW, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Penrith
In the vicinity of Mayfair Road, Henry Cox Drive, west of Mulgoa Road, Mulgoa
Private
Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 14/08/2017
Wingecarribee
Bushland in the vicinity of Sackville Street Fire Trail, Hill Top
Private
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 22/08/2017
Lismore
Fox Road, Rosebank
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
12/08/2017 to 12/08/2017
Penrith
Carrington Road, Londonderry
Private
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Bellingen
South of McDougall Place, Fernmount
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Coffs Harbour
Dairyville Road, Upper Orara
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Coffs Harbour
Lower Bobo Road, Ulong
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Clarence Valley
Boundary Road, Kremos
Private
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Central Coast
Kellynack Road, Mangrove Mountain
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Kempsey
Ridge Lane, Deep Creek
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Kyogle
Thompsons Road, Cawongla
Private
Private
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Lismore
Pinchin Road, Goolmangar
Private
Private
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Wollondilly
Bushland boarded by Ryan Street, Close Street, Campbell Street and Lakes Street, Thirlmere
Department of Primary Industries (Crown Lands)
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Wollondilly
Corner of Lakes Street and Campbell Street, Thirlmere
Department of Primary Industries (Crown Lands)
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Queanbeyan-Palerang
Tomboye Road, Tomboye
Private
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Queanbeyan-Palerang
Foxs Elbow Road, Warri
Private
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Tamworth
Goddard Lane, Westdale
Local Government Authority
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 13/08/2017
Shoalhave
Curvers Drive, Manyana
Private
Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 14/07/2017
Wingecarribee
Bushland between Boilins Road Fire Trail and Wilson Drive, Balmoral
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Rural Fire Service
13/08/2017 to 14/08/2017
Central Coast
South of the Pipeline Trail and west of Peats Ridge Road, Calga
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
13/08/2017 to 15/07/2017
Blue Mountains
West of Warragamba Dam, Blue Mountains National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
11/08/2017 to 11/08/2017
Port Stephens
Bushland north of Aquatic Close, Salamander Bay
Local Government Authority, Private
Fire & Rescue NSW
14/08/2017 to 14/08/2017
Dungog
Parishs Road, Hilldale
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
14/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
Wingecarribee
Sackville St, Hilltop
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
14/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
Ku-ring-gai
Bushland between Albert Drive and Fiddens Wharf Road, Lane Cove National Park, Killara
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
14/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Wollondilly
Bushland between Macarthur Drive and Fire Trail No 12, Cataract
Catchment Authority
Catchment Authority
14/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Sutherland
South of Sir Bretram Stevens Drive, Royal National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
14/08/2017 to 21/08/2017
Tamworth
Back Kootingal Road, Nemingha
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
14/08/2017 to 23/08/2017
Armidale Regional
Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, in the vicinity of Castle Doyle
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
15/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
Parramatta
Sophia Crescent, North Rocks
Local Government Authority
Fire & Rescue NSW
15/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
Dungog
Martins Creek Road, Paterson
Private
Private
15/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
Bellingen
Darkwood Road, Darkwood
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
15/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
Coffs Harbour
In the vicinity of Heritage Drive and Pacific Highway, Moonee Beach
Private
Private, Rural Fire Service
15/08/2017 to 15/08/2017
The Hills
Bushland southwest of Sophia Crescent North Rocks
Other
Fire & Rescue NSW
15/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Lake Macquarie
Burwood Road, Glenrock State Conservation Area, Kahibah
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
15/08/2017 to 17/08/2017
Mosman
Bradleys Head, Mosman
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
15/08/2017 to 18/08/2017
Kempsey
Bushland boarded by McIllwains Trail, New Tower Road and Power Line Trail, Kumbatine National Park, Kundabung
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
15/08/2017 to 18/08/2017
Wollongong
East of Princess Highway, Helensburg
Catchment Authority
Catchment Authority
15/08/2017 to 19/08/2017
Central Coast
East of Woy Woy Road and between Wattle Crescent and Gabagong Road, Phegans Bay
Private
Rural Fire Service
15/08/2017 to 19/08/2017
Central Coast
Bushland between Olive Street, Monastir Road, Phegans Bay
Local Government Authority
Rural Fire Service
16/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Hawkesbury
Scheyville National Park, Maraylya
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Rural Fire Service
16/08/2017 to 16/08/2017
Central Coast
Sydney Avenue, Umina
Local Government Authority
Fire & Rescue NSW
16/08/2017 to 18/08/2017
Wingecarribee
Nattai National Park, north of Wombeyan Caves Road, High Range
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Rural Fire Service
16/08/2017 to 18/08/2017
Hawkesbury
Bushland between Drip Rock Trail and Bob Turners Trail, Colo Heights
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
16/08/2017 to 18/08/2017
Ku-ring-gai
Bushland east of Bobbin Head Road and south of the Sphinx Trail, Ku-ring-gai National Park, North Turramurra
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
16/08/2017 to 19/08/2017
Warrumbungle
East of Albert Wright Road, Garrawilla National Park, Rocky Glen
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
17/08/2017 to 17/08/2017
Coffs Harbour
North of Pine Road, Bindarri National Park
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service
17/08/2017 to 17/08/2017
Cootamundra
Rail Corridor between Burley Griffin Way and Olympic Highway, Wallendbeen
Looks natural, but decades of cattle have toxified the riparian zone’s soil and flora co-biology
From 12th-14th May 2017, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service has planned to set fire to 9km2 of designated wildlife habitat in the Abercrombie River National Park south of the town of Oberon. It’s about 150km west of the Sydney GPO as the crow flies.
NPWS Area Manager Kim de Govrik has contracted a helicopter to indiscriminately drop incendiaries into the remote and steep wilderness valleys and ridgelines around Silent Creek, west of Abercrombie Road. It will blanket burn vast swathes of remnant forest within the national park.
“NPWS will use a helicopter and ground crews in the steep terrain in the south-east corner of the Park,” Mr de Govrik said.
Any wonder how Abercrombie’s Silent Creek got its name?
Two generations ago, American marine biologist and author, Rachel Carson in 1962 launched her seminal book ‘Silent Spring’ telling how all life—from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children—had been “silenced” by the insidious effects of DDT on Cape Code, Massachusetts.
DDT stands for Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a hazardous agricultural synthetic pesticide developed in the 1940s that also contaminated food crops and ecology and caused human cancer and Alzheimer disease. Its use wasn’t banned until 2001.
Hazard Reduction policy is finishing the extinction job across New South Wales and Australia. Originally termed ‘prescribed burning’, it too has been used since the 1940s originally by US foresters.
A camp stay in Abercrombie River National Park will disturb any informed conservationist of how silent the birdlife is in the region. No dawn chorus like in healthy forest habitats. And try camping at Silent Creek after the hazard reduction.
“People are advised that smoke from the burn may impact upon the local area and they should close their windows and bring their washing indoors. Those with asthma or people who are susceptible to respiratory problems should avoid the area or remain inside with windows and doors closed. Motorists are reminded to drive to the conditions, observe all warning signs and follow directions from fire crews,”Mr de Govrik said.
It is another contribution by government to hazardous and unnecessary smoke, toxic air pollution, greenhouse gases, and human global warming that governments complain about. Yet in contradiction, this burn is part of the NSW Government’s $76 million package of what it calls hazard reduction over six years.
Hazard Reduction Fallacy
To protect the scarce Australia’s remaining national parks, hazard reduction arson is run by state governments each in turn cut funding and otherwise set fire to the wildlife habitat, in case it burns. In New South Wales, the misnamed National Parks and Wildlife Service brings in its petrol-laden trucks and with the the firie-eyed enthusiasm of the Rural Fire Service sets fire to these ‘national parks’ every time the bush has grown back.
‘Hazard reduction’ is spin for habitat reduction. Habitat is deemed a hazard, and its forest a fuel risk. It is a policy of perpetuating inadequate fire fighting funding to responsibly and quickly detect, respond to and put out bushfires, like their urban professional counterparts are tasked to do. Instead, the cheap and ecologically destructive approach is to burn the habitagt in case it burns, so less to worry about. It is self-defeating. Like setting fire to ones home to stay warm in winter. Read up on the demise of the Rapa Nui on Easter Island.
The government’s hazard reduction Managing fire-prone NSW national parks requires a three-pronged approach, including fire planning, community education, and fuel management. When it comes to fuel like dead wood, NPWS conducts planned hazard reduction activities like mowing and controlled burning to assist in the protection of life, property and community.
So the $76 million claims “to boost bushfire preparedness and double hazard reduction in the State’s national parks“. Many such hazard reduction operations undertaken by NPWS across NSW each year, many with the assistance of the RFS, who relish the opportunity. Yet when bushfires occur, the same slow response ensues and the same widespread destruction often results, with or without hazard reduction. Ember attack in high winds travels kilometres beyond any hazard reduction ground.
But the government arson cult is entrenched. The lack of responsible funding is chronic.
No flora species has ever been made extinct because it has not been fire ravaged, yet how many species of fauna are on the edge of extinction because they continue to be?
Anyone with respiratory problems or suffering from Asthma is urged to visit NSW Health or the Asthma Foundation. Remnant native wildlife like the locally indigenous Black Pademelon, not so Common Wombat and Ringtail Possum, will just have to suck it up. Each of these species is territorial which means that they don’t relocate when fire devastates their home range.
What about the locally indigenous Echidnas, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Emus, Platypus, Goannas, Eastern Water Dragons, Broad-headed Snakes, Wedge-Tail Eagles dependent the habitat and the more than sixty species of native birds?
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Abercrombie a habitat island within a logged landscape
Abercrombie River National Park is situated surrounded by a logged landscape to the horizon. The Park was gazetted in 1995 as part of a nature conservation strategy supposedly aimed at maintaining the state of New South Wales’ biodiversity. It claims to protect an important part of remnant bushland within the south-western central tablelands.
By incinerating it?
Actually, the truth is that the region has been too steep for pastoralists to trash, so it was left. Then the 19th Century gold prospectors got in and dig a lot of it up, before it was abandoned and surrounding farms let their pigs escape and go feral. Sadly, Abercrombie has become a play zone for weekend hoons.
When did the Parks Service last do a wildlife survey in Abercrombie? Back when the park was gazetted in 1995 when ecologist Christopher Togher wrote his Report on the Biodiversity and Land Management of the Abercrombie River Catchment.
Booroolong Frog (Litoria booroolongensis). Locally indigenous to the Abercrombie River region, an endangered species
How many left in Silent Creek?
The ‘Parks Service’ thinks it knows best, and has atrophied to presume it exists to facilitate anthropocentric tourism and recreation. So the tourism arm of the ‘Parks Service’ has set the region aside for exploitation for four wheel touring, fishing, camping, canoeing and bushwalking with two toilets.
The National Parks Service website hypocritically states:
<<Abercrombie River National Park is a special place..This is an environment built for adventure. One of the most popular activities in the park is 4WD touring (and trail biking). Some of the trails running along gorges and ridges can be pretty challenging, even for the experienced driver. For those with plenty of energy, you can also explore these trails on mountain bikes..>>
Near Bummaroo Ford Abercrombie River (hoon park), 19th May 2015
On the same page, Parks Services recognises that Abercrombie River National Park is a special place for nature and wildlife conservation. Then it recommends people “get out into the national park and have an adventure!” It’s all about the experience see.
Oberon Council, home of lumberjacks, claims it is:
<<surrounded by a number of national parks and is the perfect base to experience these enormous sanctuaries of pristine bushland and all they have to offer. Our national parks are a haven for adventure seekers, with bushwalking, mountain biking, canyoning, camping, abseiling, rock climbing, fishing, 4WD touring and so much more.>>
But you have to drive through vast areas of clear felled forest and plantations around Oberon to get there.
There are four camping sites within the Abercrombie River National Park at Bummaroo Ford, The Sink, The Beach and Silent Creek – all overused.
Feral pigs run riot throughout the region, happily destroying the riparian zones of the watercourses with impunity. Over the decades, cattle and now feral pigs have dug up the riparian vegetation causing bank erosion. They have toxified the soil biology causing weed infestation and facilitating the spread of flora diseases such as dieback – so destroying the region’s native ecosystem.
Feral pigs thrive in the Australia bush and cause immense environmental damage especially to watercourses.
In the 1960s there were about 50,000 pig farmers across Australia, and many escaped. The Abercrombie River National Park has been left to become a haven for feral pigs. Yet the Plan of Management states: “Within the Abercrombie catchment is an extensive amount of remnant riparian vegetation which is extremely important in maintaining water quality and habitat for threatened aquatic ecosystems.” (Source: ‘Abergrombie River National Park Plan of Management 2006, 2.2.2. Significance of Abercrombie River National Park, page 2).
<<Feral pigs are opportunistic scavengers and prey on invertebrates, bird eggs, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and soil invertebrates. Their selective feeding habits also affect the biodiversity of vegetation and creates competition for food resources of native species. Feral pigs have negative impacts on native ecological systems including changing species composition, disrupting species succession and by altering nutrient and water cycles. Impacts can be direct or indirect, acute or chronic, periodic or constant, and may be influenced by changing seasonal conditions. Feral pigs tend to congregate around water as they are highly susceptible to heat. The impact of the pigs wallowing in wetlands and watercourses totally destroys these finely balanced ecosystems. They also prey on ground dwelling mammals, reptiles and birds, in some cases putting extensive pressure on rare and endangered species.>>
Then there are the feral rabbits, feral goats, feral deer and feral recreational hoons. The absence of park rangers is conspicuous.
How Australia treats its national parks
The ‘Parks Service’ website promotes “rivers and creek systems within the park provide habitat for trout cod and Macquarie Perch, which are totally protected species. River blackfish, silver perch and the Murray cray are also found which are regionally rare. Introduced trout may only be caught during the trout season from the October long weekend to the June long weekend.“
So it encourages people to fish protected species?
In Sunday 7th January 2014 (hot mid-summer), campers abandoned their camp fire without extinguishing it. Their haphazard campsite, situated on Macks Flat near a pine plantation about 1km north of The Beach, was not approved It burned around 50 hectares including within the Abercrombie River National Park. It was not a designated camping site and the campers went unpunished.
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service is legally responsible under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 to to protect and conserve areas containing outstanding or representative ecosystems, natural or cultural features or landscapes or phenomena that provide opportunities for public appreciation and inspiration and sustainable visitor use.
<<Under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act national parks are managed to:
Conserve biodiversity, maintain ecosystem functions, protect geological and geomorphological features and natural phenomena and maintain natural landscapes;
Conserve places, objects, features and landscapes of cultural value;
Protect the ecological integrity of one or more ecosystems for present and future generations;
Promote public appreciation and understanding of the park’s natural and cultural values;
Provide for sustainable visitor use and enjoyment that is compatible with conservation of natural and cultural values;
Provide for sustainable use (including adaptive reuse) of any buildings or structures or modified natural areas having regard to conservation of natural and cultural values; and
Provide for appropriate research and monitoring.>>
This environmental law applies to Abercrombie River National Park.
Yet strategic under-funding, under-resourcing and under-staffing forces the service to neglect these core responsibilities. Hoons run riot and the park is abused. What a disgrace! The environmental law is weak because there are no standards, measures or breach penalties. It was drafted to be a motherhood statement to appease malleable conservationists.
Since being gazetted in 1995, Abercrombie River National Park has been treated as a recreation park, not as a wildlife sanctuary in any way, except on paper to pretend the government actual has a conservation bone in its body. It’s called ‘Greenwashing’. NPWS works very closely with the Upper Lachlan Tourist Association, and the Rural Fire Service.
In 2010, National Parks and Wildlife staff carried out a 520 hectare hazard reduction burn in the north of Abercrombie River National Park, with the RFS in tow. Kanangra Boyd area manager Kim de Govrik said at the time the burn off took place in the Felled Timber Creek area.
<<The park is now open and ready for the influx of eastern campers,” Mr de Govrik said. “The operation was a great success thanks to the assistance of the local RFS brigades. RFS volunteers from Jerrong/Paling Yards, Gurnang and Black Springs helped in putting in the 11km of fire edge.>>
During 2009, National Parks and Wildlife completed a record 230 burns, covering nearly 80,000 hectares of native habitat.
NPWS is targeting the state’s 225 national parks and reserves for programmatic habitat reduction under its current $76 million programme:
[6] ‘The Story of Silent Spring – How a courageous woman took on the chemical industry and raised important questions about humankind’s impact on nature‘, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, ^https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring
While holidaying in the Megalong on the weekend of 10-11 May 2014 for my 50th, in the late morning of the 10th my wife alerted me to a large bushfire smoke cloud billowing in the Blue Mountains to our east.
Cripes! was my first thought when I looked east seeing smoke plumes billowing beyond the western escarpment in the direction of our upper Blue Mountains family home. I got out my topographic Katoomba map and my Silva compass (being a weekend bushwalker) and aligned the bushfire smoke plume to my map . The billowing smoke was scarily in line with a bearing to the upper Blue Mountains where our house was. Distance was the uncertainty.
So I immediately rang friends to check. They said the smoke was south of Woodford. It was fortunately far away from our house. But how could such a large bushfire start on a still, cold autumn day? My mind clicked – Hazard Reduction!
I recall seeing NPWS bushfire labelled vehicles parked in Katoomba the previous week. I hadn’t seen these specialised vehicles before, so this must be a NSW Government capital investment in ongoing National Park arson. Is it to sadistically drive wildlife extinctions? There has been no public announcement of such, so the sadistic strategy must be pre-conceived and signed off.
So on return to home, our house was fine and no-one was the wiser about any bushfire. The bush arson had been deliberately and “strategically” lit farther east and deep south into the Blue Mountains National Park, many kilometres from housing. The bushfire was lit by the entrusted custodians of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area: NPWS. They call it ecological burning so suggest that burning vegetation habitat is good for it.
Down along the Great Western Highway the scorched canopy blanket become obvious south of Lawson. Unravel the map and the southern ridge is Williams Ridge from Kings Tableland east to Mount Bedford. The access is Ingar Fire Trail. This was the access route for the government bush arsonists. The gate is locked to hide the slaughter.
Is this the new sadistic/fatalist management of National Parks and Wildlife Service? Incinerate forest habitat in Blue Mountains World in case in burns? Spend millions in exploitative tourism cost recovery? As for wildlife, what wildlife. Is this NPWS new sadistic motto for the Blue Mountains World Heritage, following the demise and exploitaton of of the Barrier Reef and Kakadu?
Burns to humans do recover in time despite the short term pain. Humans do recover from trauma in time. If trauma goes unpublished, few in the community know about what happened anyway. So it is morally acceptable then to inflict burn trauma upon ecological communities because no-one knows the wiser? Yet week after week, ecological massacre repeats like the Australian Frontier Wars. Read More: ^Aboriginal Massacres,^Australian Frontier Wars.
All the government website media release 8 May 2014 can say is a dismissive massacre as usual:.
“Smoky weekend for the Blue Mountains as 5,500 hectares of hazard reduction burning gets underway”
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[Source: “Smoky weekend for the Blue Mountains as 5,500 hectares of hazard reduction burning gets underway”, official government media release by Susie Summers, NPWS (Environment Department so-called), 20140508, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/media/OEHMedia14050801.htm]
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<<NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) plans to take advantage of a window of favourable weather to get two major hazard reduction (HR) burns completed in the Blue Mountains this weekend. Following a wet start to the season, it has been very difficult to complete burning operations, NPWS Regional Manager Alan Henderson said.
Weather permitting the following HRs will go ahead: • Friday, 9 May – 3,000 hectare Little Crater burn, south of Glenbrook and west of the Warragamba Dam; • Saturday, 10 May – 2,500 hectare Mt Bedford burn, 3km south east of Wentworth Falls, Bullaburra and 2km south of Lawson, Hazelbrook and Woodford.
“For the safety of crews and neighbours, and to the ensure these burns are effective, they can only be undertaken when the weather is right – it cannot be too wet, cold or windy – making scheduling them very tricky,” Mr Henderson said. “The proposed burn area for the Little Crater burn is remote and bounded by the Warragamba and Nepean River to the east, Erskine Creek to the north, Big Crater Creek to the west and Erskine Range (W5 management trail) to the south.
“It will protect private property to the east of Warragamba River by reducing fuel loads to minimize the risk of wildfire spreading from Blue Mountains National Park into Warragamba and Silverdale townships.
“This is a joint operation with the Rural Fire Service (RFS) which will also help to protect Sydney Catchment Authority assets to the south east of the burn including the Warragamba dam wall and its associated structures. “There is the potential for smoke from this burn to drift towards the western and southwestern suburbs of Sydney. “Meanwhile, the 2,500 hectare Mt Bedford HR is planned to begin on Saturday (May 10) and will also be conducted in partnership with RFS. “In the interests of visitor safety, Ingar Road, Andersons Trail and Bedford Creek trail will be closed for the duration of the burn, which is designed to limit the potential for wildfire to spread west to east and impact on life and property throughout the Blue Mountains.
“Smoke will be visible between Katoomba and Springwood and smoke drift may impact the Great Western Highway, the Oaks Fire Trail and lower mountains townships. Both operations and associated closures are likely to continue for a number of days. Updates regarding National Park closures may be found on the national parks website:http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/safety/fires-and-park-closures “People with asthma or those susceptible to respiratory problems are also advised to keep clear of the immediate area or stay indoors.” You can subscribe to air quality alerts from the Office of Environment and Heritage here ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/aqms/aqialerts.htm.
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‘The NPWS has undertaken 895 hazard reduction activities covering 70,000 hectares in total,
including 160 hazard reduction burn operations for 2013-14.’
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In 2012-13 the NPWS achieved a record 208,000 hectares in 1300 separate fuel reduction activities. This was 83% of the total hazard reduction effort for NSW, demonstrating a clear commitment by NPWS to manage fire in accordance with its Living with Fire 2012-21 strategy. [They must be proud custodians of World Heritage.]
Under the Enhanced Bushfire Management Program (Strategic Broadacre Incineration), NPWS will pursue its plan to treat an average of over 135,000 hectares per year in 800 or more planned hazard reduction activities. Achieving this will be highly dependent on the suitability of weather conditions given the narrow window of opportunity that exists in NSW for burning safely and effectively.>> .
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[ ‘If wildlife isn’t exterminated and made locally extinct, then we have failed our purpose.’ ]
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Eco Hazard Reduction now means starting a bushfire so hot and fierce that the entire tree crown is incinerated so that nothing can live and so that it causes a smoke plume that puts the pollution effort of industrial Sydney and its traffic to shame.
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Prevent Prepare Protect what?
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Incinerate disappearing World Heritage habitat so that timber bush properties approved for build in dumb indefensive slopes can have hope in bushfire hell? Or to hell with it, just burn the lot, like the old Blue Mountains bush firie adage: “Hazard reduce Katoomba to save Leura.” Sounds like what Queensland is doing to the Great Barrier Reef.
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What wildlife? What habitat? What World Heritage? .
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Prevent Prepare Protect what?When a wildfire starts, they have no idea anyway.
Abject failure by emergency MANAGEMENTBuena Vista Road, Winmalee, Blue Mountains, 18th October 2013 In anyone’s assessment, except for those in charge, 193 homes lost with 109 damaged is not a firefighting success for the unlucky Blue Mountains communities of Springwood/Winmalee, Yellow Rock and Mount Victoria.
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How often do bushfire fighters have to watch on in frustration from their fire trucks on a road towards a bushfire, knowing they are helpless with the tools they have to extinguish it?
In the case of a single house fire in an urban setting, the fire truck is the tried and tested appropriate appliance to respond. Fire fighters can readily drive up to and park right out the front and hose down a house fire. But applying this classic firefighting method to wildfires in expansive and rugged bushland with steep and often inaccessible terrain is all but useless, like square peg in round hole thinking.
Yet whenever government announces pre-election funding to bushfire fighting it is kneejerk unimaginatively more fire trucks, costing millions and fixing nothing.
It comes down to political value judgment.
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Water, water, in fire trucks everywhere, nor any drop to douse the fires
with apologies to English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his 1798 poem, ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’.
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Many wildfires spark from lightning strikes in remote terrain and spread into hilly bushland with few access roads. More so these days, the disturbing arson fetish has become more deadly.
The consequential wildfires in inaccessible bushland country logistically render the fire truck ineffectual as the prime bushfire fighting response. Fire trucks despatched down along fire trails that are surrounded by bushland on RFS maps provide a false sense of access and ability, but they are death traps for firefighters in fire trucks during a wildfire in extreme conditions.
Just last September during the Londonderry grassfire in outer western Sydney, a fire truck along an outer urban road was overcome by flames and destroyed. It wasn’t even a fire trail.
This is where fast targeted airborne response within the first hour of ignition is more effective. The application of large quantities water bombing of a fire front is surely the preferred lead bushfire fighting response strategy. This is not to say that ground support is not needed, but the evidence is that traditional truck based ground support as the lead response strategy is simply not cutting the mustard.
But such strategy requires considerable investment and planning and requires expertise. It demands a military standard realignment of the emergency response co-ordination end-to-end from early warning systems monitoring, to ignition detection, to fast airborne response with all the latest communications technology available. Clearly this is well beyond the volunteer business-as-usual bush firefighting model that governments have lackadaisically drip fed since colonial times.
On Thursday 17th October 2013, at around 2pm, a bushfire started upwind in Springwood in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. The fire was purportedly ignited by arcing of touching residential overhead powerlines in strong wind conditions. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story a few days later on Sunday 20th October, that preliminary investigations had found that a tree with cables running through its branches is believed to be the seat of the fire that jumped a road then engulfed houses in Springwood, spotting over to Winmalee and Yellow Rock.
Coincidentally, a few days prior to the wildfire tragedies of Thursday 17th that separately impacted Winmalee, Yellow Rock and Mount Victoria, on 15th October New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell had publicly announced the arrival of an additional large firefighting Air-Crane helicopter to be leased from of all places, impoverished Greece.
Nicknamed the ‘Gypsy Lady‘, this lifesaving Erickson S-64 Air-Crane has deserved fame for its massive water bombing ability beyond any Dad’s Army Isuzu truck.
O’Farrell apparently immediately deployed it to fight bush fires according to government propaganda and photos are offered of it in action at Winmalee. But did it? So where was it and a second leased Air-Crane, ‘Elvis’, deployed on the critical multiple wildfire afternoon of Thursday 17th October?
Such government performance facts are kept secret from the public. The government’s promotional photo below of an Air-Crane water bombing bushland over Winmalee was dated Wednesday 23rd October, extinguishing left over spot fires a week later. So where is the smoke? Where there is no smoke there is probably no fire. Was this photo for the media’s benefit? The caption for this photograph reads verbatim as follows:
“A firefighter looks on as Air-Crane Elvis drops water at the Linksview Road fire near Faulconbridge, in the Blue Mountains (sic) 23/10/2103 (AAP: Lukas Coch).”
It was reported two days after Blue Mountains residents tragically lost over 200 family homes to the bushfires, that a crucial water bombing Erickson S-64 Air-Crane had been grounded at Bankstown Airport during the two day bushfire crisis, because authorities claimed they needed an American engineering and flight crew to operate it.
But then still without such American crews on Saturday 19th October, the Air-Crane was authorised to fly to Springwood, despite the absence of the US crew.
While it will now be used to assist in combatting ongoing fire hazards, the water dumper was forced to sit idle while bushfires ravaged the state on Thursday, Friday and most of yesterday. The craft is believed to be the same chopper, nicknamed ‘Ichabod‘, which was flown over on a cargo plane with the previously mentioned helicopter, ‘Gypsy Lady‘ since has been put to use – from Greece to Sydney Airport.
Previously, a qualified American team arrives with the helicopter, enabling it to operate, however the team for the Ichabod were only due to fly to Australia at a later date. As bushfires started earlier than expected, authorities were caught off-guard and forced to scramble without the use of the second craft.
The Erickson S-64 Air-Crane helicopters are able to waterbomb a fire with 10,000 litres of water and are frequently brought to Australia from the United States for the bushfire season and hot weather. But due to the Erickson Air-Crane’s absence from the fire front, ordinary choppers used by the RFS were mobilised. However it’s understand those replacement craft can only dump 300 litres of water, just 3% of that of the Erickson Air-Crane.
Springwood, 17th October 2013Evacuate to where? We’re at work in the city so how can we save our valuables in time? We have no alternate accommodation as the bloody government presumes. We can’t afford insurance.
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So on the 17th October the Blue Mountains bushfires escaped ground control, leading to at least 193 homes lost and at least another 109 damaged and 3,500 hectares of bushland burnt with uncounted wildlife incinerated. The wildlife cost is always ignored.
No facts are forthcoming from the New South Wales Government about the performance of the firefighting. Why not?
What was the estimated time of ignitions respectively at Winmalee and Yellow Rock?
How was each wildfire reported and detected by the authorities?
What was the elapsed time from the estimated ignition times and the respective times the RFS became alerted?
What was the elapsed time from the estimated ignition times and the RFS response being despatched (leaving the depots)?
What was the elapsed time from the estimated ignition times and the RFS response arriving on site to suppress the respective wildfires?
What time was the first house impacted by wildfire?
What time did airborne water bombing on the wildfires commence?
What time did aircrane water bombing on the wildfires commence?
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Such facts are not in the government’s interest to publish because it well knows that its gross under-resourcing of bushfire emergency management exposes it to negligence and cost demands.
It comes down to political value judgment.
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3% water capacity airborne response simply too little too late
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Year on year wildfire and deliberately lit hazard reductions escape control and cause the incineration of vast swathes of the remaining natural landscape. Some years people and their homes are lucky, moreso a factor of mild weather than emergency management performance. In 2009 it was Victoria’s unlucky turn.
Across Australia, bushfire detection, response and suppression is repeatedly shown to be so woeful as to be incompetent.
Government avoidance of seriously effective investment into emergency management, sees it instead resort to credibility damage control propaganda and to playing politics. It hides behind the goodwill of the volunteers, since anyone who dares criticise the performance of noble volunteers can only be publicly vilified. The government resorts to defeatist attribution of the bushfire emergency to uncontrollable Acts of God – catastrophic weather conditions in which nothing we can do would make any difference. It runs public announcements of impending Armageddon, Declares a State of Emergency as if it were 1939 Black Friday every summer and its emergency services head are instructed to do supportive drama queen performances.
Now around where the fires started there is little bushland left and little reason to stay. House values are down and people are selling up and moving off Mountains.
Government’s think their shit never stinks. Paid ambulance emergency response have a service charter to arrive on site after a 000 call within 20 minutes. But bushfire fighting has no such accountable charter. Rather the government’s emergency response duty is delegated to local volunteers charged to do their best with what they’ve got.
Typically, Rural Fire Service bushfire fighters, except for a few government paid white shirts in Homebush, are invariably unpaid volunteer members of the local community. When an emergency 000 call from a member of the public is despatched to the local brigades, the volunteers pre-occupied with their paid day jobs and have to drop everything. They are not paid to be on standby at fire brigade depots like the NSW Fire Brigades, irrespective of heightened times of high bushfire risk. The volunteers are not paid by government at all, and have to rely upon local charities for food and even for bottled water.
The last resort of the under-resourced bushfire brigades is to fight fire with fire.
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Scorched Earthing has become the last sad firefighting bastion of second class firefighters denied effective resources. Forced to fight slaughter with slaughter, or cruelty with hate.
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The Greater Blue Mountains continues to be torched and scarred by its own custodian the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Its habitat and wildlife are being incinerated without measure or care.
Just like the mining and farming pollution impacts upon the integrity of the once Great Barrier Reef, the Greater Blue Mountains natural values are been irreversibly altered. Both the Great Barrier Reef and the Greater Blue Mountains need a cry for help and be added to UNESCO’s endangered list.
But putting Australia on an international ‘list of shame’ is but a small price. It comes down to political value judgment.
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[The author is a licensed commercial helicopter pilot]
It’s very wet. It’s actually soaking wet up here in the Blue Mountains. How welcoming are the rains? They took long enough. Poor bloody bush has been long parched out there; too parched, too tinder dry. Now the rains are over us and they are staying for while, and they can stay as long as they like.
Some dates stick in one’s mind. Friday 12th October 2012 is a date that I have personally etched into my memory. It was the day that constant snow suddenly blanketed the Upper Blue Mountains out of nowhere. The snow on the ground was a foot thick and we lost tree branches to the weight of it. It was a memorable Friday, as it no longer snows up here.
Apparently, it used to snow most winters in the Upper Blue Mountains. Living memory recalls that a few opportunistic locals even once skiied down Katoomba Street during Winter Magic.
Residents of the townships of Winmalee and Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains will now remember Thursday 17th October 2013, but not for happy times. It was an awful day. For those affected and involved likely the worst ever. Out of nowhere separate wildfires suddenly ravaged through their communities and took away many homes and memories.
I have happened to drive past Linksview Road involuntary over recent days. Passing by incinerated homes just off the side of the road feels voyeuristic and so immoral. Luck is perhaps a curse, like pretending routine life-as-usual between others’ total loss. No way.
None of it’s fair to anyone affected or not affected but no less it about Mountains folk not knowing what to say or do for the blackened ruins down the street. Nothing wrong with outpouring and I think it is a right.
Only the firies know it could have been worse.
And I shouldn’t have driven down St Georges Parade yesterday on the way home, but I wanted to just to know the trauma hidden off limits by the authorities. Now its incinerated street and homes haunt me. I walked this street just after the 2006 Grose Fires, observing the hazard reduction above Lawsons Long Alley. Many new homes on a no through road ridge nestled above Blue Mountains bush. Bloody lucky then.
I awoke very early this morning realising how lucky I am as one of the 99.9% of Blue Mountains residents with a home, just as per usual. For us it is life as usual and we have rain on our roof. It is because we have a roof and a house.
Over three hundred residents this time on the morning of the 17th October did too like me, but since then they no longer do. I can’t imagine the ravage and the total loss. But I write this because catastrophe needs to be said because it is just that. All Blue Mountains people need to be affected by the incinerated homes down sealed off crime scene streets that could have been theirs.
If I had lost my home, I expect that I would not be in a state to write coherently, but I am so I choose to because I take an active interest. I witnessed wildfire threaten my home in 2001, seeing my garden hose drizzle to a horrifying dribble rendering me castratingly helpless and useless. I have taken an empathetic very personal interest in bushfire threats ever since.
My father lost his entire family records in a garage fire when I was 18. He was probably devastated at the time, but I don’t recall him expressing or showing grief because he was probably brave facing to us kids and probably because of my immature age. Over time he realised that the now and family are most important to one’s life. He has re-affirmed this over the subsequent years, with time and with a strength of family to move on. Sounds easy and simple in hindsight, but hindsight is what the memories are about, and as part of our survival instinct we tend to recall in most detail the good times, and confine the bad times to snippets.
Now that today, three week’s hence the rains are over us, I can happily stand under them and get happily soaked quite eccentrically for all it matters. So what matters at the end of the day when the sympathy has packed up and move on?
It is about why we made the choice and it was a soul thing. We live for hope and so we should. We live in the Blue Mountains because we choose because the Mountains are a special place for reasons us here know.
“This will be as bad as it gets” So we kicked ass better than the Victorians in 2009, we only had two deaths
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The State Mine Bushfire
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On Wednesday afternoon 16 October 2013, government Defence Force recklessly over-indulged in a live munitions exercise at the Marrangaroo army range. The range is situated on the outskirts of the town of Lithgow, New South Wales, upwind of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. The exercised directly sparked a fire in dry grass on the range. Fanned by strong, hot, westerly winds it rapidly moved eastwards to the forested hillside on the northern side of Lithgow.
The fire spread into bushland and over the following week extended out of control burning out most of the northern region of the Blue Mountains National Park, parts of Wollemi National Park, and triggered the evacuation of most of the Lithgow region. The communities affected included Bell, Berambing, Bilpin, Clarence, Dargan, Hartley Vale, Lithgow, McKellars Park, Mount Irvine, and Mount Wilson. The fire burnt out more than 55,000 hectares (140,000 acres) between Lithgow and Bilpin.
Rural Fire Service Dad’s Army suppression delays meant that instead of waterbombing a small grassfire on the 16th, what was allowed to grow into a massive wildfire front saw fire bombing of vast hillsides in a multi-flank head burning response. Many more thousands of hectares of bushland habitat in and around the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area were incinerated. But the total area of fire impact has not been made public by the RFS.
During that week fighting fires across New South Wales, two men tragically died. A 63-year-old man suffered a heart attack while fighting a fire at his home at Lake Munmorah on the Central Coast. Agricultural Pilot David Black, 43, from Trangie in the Central NSW died when his Dromader aircraft crashed while contracted to the RFS to waterbomb the Wirritin Ridge Bushfire in the Budawang National Park.
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<< ”This will be as bad as it gets,” Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said. ”On days like [this], there’s a very real potential for more loss of homes and life. There’s is real potential for more homes and lives lost on Wednesday, says the NSW Rural Fire Commissioner.
RFS Armageddon
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Weather worse than the extremes already predicted, combined with large bushfires burning out of control, and the real potential for others to spark up, have prompted a very grim warning. The RFS had warned since the weekend about the potential devastation Wednesday’s weather could cause but the revised forecast on Tuesday was even more worrying, Mr Fitzsimmons said.
Wednesday would be hotter, drier and windier than the dire predictions previously forecast, posing a grave challenge to one of the largest firefighting contingents assembled in NSW history. They would have to battle an active 1500-kilometre fire edge in the Blue Mountains where three major fires, one at Bilpin now linked to the second at Mount Victoria and a third at Springwood, burned out of control. ”It’s a difficult, dynamic, dangerous fire-ground situation,” Mr Fitzsimmons said. >>
<< Two weeks after the worst of NSW’s bushfire emergency, the O’Farrell Government is refusing to say whether it will consider burying power lines in fire-prone areas or buy back properties razed in risky locations – key responses to the Black Saturday fires.
The Rural Fire Service says a power line started a blaze that jumped a road and then engulfed almost 200 houses at Springwood, Winmalee and Yellow Rock in the Blue Mountains on October 17.
Fallen or damaged power lines caused most of the 173 deaths in Victoria’s Black Saturday disaster of 2009. After the royal commission on those fires recommended action to address overhead power lines, the state government announced a $1 billion plan to replace them with underground cables.
That royal commission also recommended the government buy back houses in areas at extreme fire risk, and Victoria has spent $25.6 million on 116 properties. Some of the land will be sold to surrounding neighbours, who will use it as a buffer between the bush and their homes.
On Tuesday, Fairfax Media sent specific questions about power lines and property buy-backs to Emergency Services Minister Mike Gallacher. The Planning Department responded but did not address the questions, instead saying NSW had the toughest bushfire planning approvals regime in Australia.
When pressed on the need for a ministerial response, his spokesman said: ”The priority of this government at this point in time is responding to both the uncontained fires still burning across the state and the high winds this afternoon.”
When the same questions were put to Mr O’Farrell’s office on Thursday, it responded with a statement the Premier made that day in Parliament. “After events such as these there are always lessons that can be learned and applied to the future and we are determined to do so,” Mr O’Farrell had said.
”There are several investigations under way into the fires. The government will closely examine the work of those investigations.”
The statement made no mention of the lessons of Black Saturday. >>
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Kilmore East Fire VictoriaStarted by Government neglect on 7th February 2009
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Comparative scale of the State Mine Fire (Lithgow, NSW)Started by Government neglect on 16th October 2013
..that diverted critical firefighting resources from Winmalee
Partners in crime: big ego Blue Mountains National Parks with even bigger ego Blue Mountains RFS, have jointly stuffed up big this time.
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A hazard reduction north of the Hawkesbury Road from the previous weekend was left abandoned. A few days later the forecast wind picked up and voila: HR come wildfire. Woops.Sound familiar? Warrumbungles (2013), Macleay River (2012), Grose Valley (2006), Canberra Firestorm (2003)
[Source: Fairfax, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/hazard-reduction-burn-started-major-sydney-bushfire-20130913-2tois.html]
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Hawkesbury Heights residents will recall last year’s escaped hazard reduction along the Springwood Ridge inside the Blue Mountains National Park. It was left for few days, then the forecast prevailing sou’wester picked up on 30th August 2012. The fire jumped containment lines then threatened the Bowen Mountain community to the nor’ east.
<<More than 30 firefighters from the NSW Rural Fire Service and National Parks and Wildlife Service have worked behind homes in the community of Bowen Mountain to contain this fire. Crews backburned to establish containment lines around the fire with the assistance of helicopters and earth moving machinery.>>
How much did that stuff up cost? This is where donations to the RFS are going.
The Habitat Advocate reconstructs that the HR folly at Hawkesbury Heights two weeks ago probably unfolded as follows:
Blue Mountains National Parks decides that its a good idea to set fire to the Blue Mountains National Park along Shaws Ridge. Shaws Ridge is over two kilometres from the Hawkesbury Road. It has nothing to do with ‘asset protection’ to private properties. So the Parks Service just calls it ‘strategic’ or an ‘ecological burn’ – good for the bush.
“Generally over an 8-12 year cycle it [vegetation] needs to be burnt, which allows it to regenerate.” ~ Blue Mountains RFS district manager David Jones, 20130918.
The bush and its wildlife likes being burnt. Parks Service’s gospel Fire Maps shows in bright red that this part of the protected Blue Mountains National Park (World Heritage Area) hasn’t been burnt for 8 years, so it must to be burned, just in case it burns!
So the fire cult’s mindset is fixated. Parks Service includes the area to its annual hazard reduction burning programme and checks the weather forecast. The Bureau of Meteorology forecasts low winds but with expected changes later in the week. She’ll be right. The job will be over in a day. Parks Service sees the low wind HR window and goes for it.
Parks Service musters up their fire friendly mates at the RFS down at Winmalee and Hawkesbury Heights and complicitous stations. The HR is on! So all the cracks had gathered to the fray. All the tried and noted firies from the stations near and far mustered along Shaws Ridge fire trails. For the firies love the smell of wood smoke along the fire trails and the old red Isuzu’s snuff the battle with delight.
Hazard Reduction: Reducing the World Heritage Hazard‘Cos see when there’s a real wildfire, Dad’s Army can’t cut the mustard
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The hazard reduction proceeds on the Sunday 8th September with hardly a breeze in hilly timbered terrain, using trucks only along ‘fire’ trails. We won’t need choppers. They’ll only blow the budget. Sunday night falls, job done and the vols go home. Monday a bit windy, then Tuesday really warm and the wind picks up, gusty to blazes.
The media reports as follows:
<<A hazard-reduction burn that got out of control sparked one of four major bushfires that ravaged western Sydney and the Blue Mountains this week, fire authorities have revealed.
NSW Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said the National Parks and Wildlife Service had been conducting a hazard-reduction burn near Hawkesbury Road in Winmalee last weekend, which flared up in Tuesday’s soaring temperatures and high winds. [Ed: Winmalee? Close, but try Hawkesbury Heights further north.]
Rob Rogers:
“Basically it was burnt on the weekend, it was patrolled on Monday, there was smouldering activity. That fire then jumped containment lines [on Tuesday].”
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The Parks Service and RFS secretively keep fire operational matters behind closed doors for fear of embarrassment and of being sued.So our research investigator conducted a post-fire inspection on Saturday 20130921 and has estimated the above impact and scenario. Perhaps those in charge can prove us wrong? We invited them to.
[Source: The Habitat Advocate, assisted with Google Maps]
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<<Just 10 minutes earlier the family had been told by firefighters to remain calm before a freak wind change sent the blaze roaring uphill towards their house. “Evacuate” was the order.>>
Tackling the Winmalee Hazard Reduction come Wildfire on Hawkesbury Road. Heroes extinguishing the neglect of their Parks Service cousins.
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<<A fire burning in the area of Hawkesbury Road at Winmalee has already claimed one property, with more than 100 firefighters working to contain the blaze. Five firefighters have suffered from smoke inhalation and two received minor burns battling the fire in Winmalee.>>
<< Firefighters have contained a blaze that has burnt through more than 1000 hectares of bushland west of Sydney. The fire, at Winmalee in the Blue Mountains, has been burning since Tuesday fanned by high temperatures and strong winds, plunging the region into emergency. Firefighters were still water bombing the burning bushland on Thursday.
The Rural Fire Service on Friday said the fire had been contained.
RFS spokeswoman Laura Ryan:
“It was brought fully under control last night just before a community meeting at Winmalee High School. Firefighters (unpaid) would today work to extinguish the blaze, but said it was too early to say how long that would take. Firefighters will be working hard to get every bit of that fire out.”
The RFS and NSW Police say they have launched investigations into the cause of the bushfire, with some locals raising concerns that recent hazard reduction burns in the area may be responsible. [Ed: NSW Police need not investigate far beyond the operational records of the Blue Mountains National Parks and Wildlife Service, with internal documents circulated to the RFS]
<< A Rural Fire Service organised community meeting held last week at Winmalee to discuss the fire situation in Winmalee and Yellow Rock was well attended.
Winmalee and Yellow Rock residents aired their bushfire concerns at a community meeting organised by the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) at Winmalee High School last Thursday night.
Despite the meeting only being publicised that day, the school hall was nearly full with 350 residents. At least 10 people in the room did not receive an RFS emergency safety warning text message to take shelter.
Blue Mountains RFS district manager David Jones said he would, “feed that back up the line … it may be a service provider issue, I’m not sure, that may be part of it” and that he would look further into the issue.
A Yellow Rock resident asked what hazard reduction burns would take place in Yellow Rock in the near future.
Supt Jones said the weather conditions last week hadn’t been suitable to maintain control of a backburn.
“It’s a one-way, one-road in and its never received the recognition it deserves on that basis in terms of protection,” the Yellow Rock resident said. “I would hate to see a real emergency situation develop here at Yellow Rock.”
Supt Jones said he’d look at the RFS organising a meeting with Yellow Rock residents in the near future to address these issues. Supt Jones said residents could have a fire mitigation officer assess if hazard reduction was needed in their area by lodging a hazard complaint with the RFS.
“Generally over an 8-12 year cycle it [vegetation] needs to be burnt, which allows it to regenerate,” he said.
National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Upper Mountains area manager Richard Kingswood said there weren’t many days a year suitable for conducting hazard reduction burns — only 10 days in the Upper Mountains and a few more in the Lower Mountains, although last autumn and spring had provided more opportunities. He said in the last financial year NPWS had initiated 38 burning operations over 50,000 hectares, which was more than usually occurred.
Another resident asked why, with safety concerns with overhead powerlines, they couldn’t go underground, especially as the highway was being widened. An Endeavour Energy spokesman said cost was an issue. “It costs about 10 times more to put mains underground.”
Others were concerned about issues around road blocks, where children as well as adults were allowed to walk past roadblocks to return home, yet people couldn’t get their vehicles through. It didn’t make sense from a safety perspective, the resident said.>>
<< More than 1200 firefighters were involved in battling the four major fires on Tuesday along Hawkesbury Road in Winmalee; in Marsden Park in the Blacktown area; near Tickner Road in Castlereagh; and Richmond Road at Windsor. Fourteen helicopters and 350 trucks from the Rural Fire Service, Fire and Rescue NSW and the National Parks and Wildlife Service were involved in the firefight.
Just before 1.30pm on Tuesday, the temperature in Sydney was 31.6 degrees. Mr Rogers said strong wind also made fire conditions worse, with gusts reaching 90 kilometres an hour, which was much higher than forecast.
He said RFS firefighters helped in the hazard-reduction operation in Winmalee, which was under the supervision of the NPWS, and he apologised to anyone who experienced property damage.
“Combined with the winds, how dry it is, the temperature and the steep terrain, fire takes hold very, very quickly.”
He said the RFS also was investigating whether a hazard-reduction burn escaped and forced the closure of the M1 (formerly the F3) Motorway on Thursday.
“You would have to obviously be suspicious that it did come from a hazard-reduction, given that it was in a very close proximity to it. That’s something that we’re going to be looking at very, very closely,” he said.>>
<<Fire authorities have issued an emergency warning for a bushfire threatening homes in Castlereagh in Sydney’s west, and alerts for other out of control bushfires in Blacktown and Hawkesbury.
NSW Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said National Parks and Wildlife Service had been conducting a hazard reduction burn near Hawkesbury Road in Winmalee last weekend. The fire flared with Tuesday’s soaring temperatures and high winds.
..He apologised to anyone who experienced property damage from the Winmalee fire. ”..It appears on first look that it’s a case of the weather was worse than was predicted, the fire jumped out, it took hold really..quickly.” >>
Even though the fire ripped through Hawkesbury Heights, the National Parks and Wildlife Services has released a public notice asking any Winmalee residents who experienced property damage or loss have been urged to contact NPWS on 1300 361 967 for sympathy and counselling.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service (paid) Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers has said that his (unpaid) RFS firefighters helped in the hazard-reduction operation in Winmalee, which was under the supervision of the NPWS, and he apologised to anyone who experienced property damage.
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RFS: Sorry about thatProperty loss at Hawkesbury Heights (Wheatley Road?) but who pays?
Owner: “we won’t need hazard reduction for a while.”
[Source: ‘Bushfire wake-up call’, 20130918, by Shane Desiatnik,
^http://www.theleader.com.au/story/1782048/bushfire-wake-up-call/]
In New South Wales the National Parks and Wildlife Act became law on 1 October 1967. The legislation created a single agency, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, to care for, control and manage the original nineteen parks and any new ones created in the future.
The under-resourced pre-1939 volunteer model for the bushfire fighting is a repeated failure
What is the point of having a Catastrophic rating if it isn’t used?
Trust government’s used and abused volunteer force with your livelihood?
It’s called ‘Wildlife Drive’ for a reason. 
Tathra River Estate/Thompson’s Estate (bottom right of image) – juxtaposed next to Tanja State Forest
Photo by Ngaire Walhout
Where was it parked this time?
Koala in the Murrah Flora Reserve, probably incinerated. Photo by David Gallan. 
