Posts Tagged ‘Blue Gum Forest’

Cradle of Conservation left to incinerate, again

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020

Pre-2006: The Grose Valley’s 500m+ deep upper Grose Gorge displayed a Blue Mountains profile of sandstone cliffs above talus thickly carpeted by Eucalypt forest supporting rich diversity in plantlife, wildlife, birdlife, creeklife and buglife – just an eco-happy cradle of conservation.

(NB: This photo shows Eucy-mist, not Eucy-smoke. – Ed.)

In 1926, developer Ernest Williamson famously described the Blue Gum Forest in the heart of Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains thus:

“… a flat, unsurpassed on the mountains for the beauty and grandeur of its trees! Magnificent blue gums, straight and towering skyward in great heights … they appear like the huge pillars of a mountain temple.”

Ernest went on to more infamously propose:

“the Valley of the Grose could, in a few years, be transformed from a riot of scrubland to a hive of industry conveniently situated at what has been aptly described ‘the back door of Sydney’”.

According to Blue Mountains historian and author, Andy Macqueen, Williamson’s property development outfit calling itself The Grose Valley Development Syndicate, proposed in the 1920s or the Grose Valley’s forests to be deforested for timber exploitation and that a shale coal mine and coal-fired power station be built there. It would be an industrialised Lithgow Mark II. Other threats to the Blue Gum Forest included a proposed railway line and a dam. So why not a tannery and nuclear waste dump to boot?

Grose Valley Vision Splendid? – a gross Lithgow industrial vision…note the few remnant token gums retained for ambience, or was it just slack ‘clearing’.

Blue Gum Forest – Australia’s Cradle of Conservation

For generations since the 1920s, conservationists have posited somewhat a more respectful plan for the Grose Valley than by Ernest Williamson and his robber-barons. The plan being to respect and conserve the ecological values and the anthropocentric aesthetic ‘eye-candy’ tourist benefits of the Grose Valley.

Since 1875, the Blue Gum Forest was the scene of an artists’ camp established by Frederick Eccleston Du Faur of the Academy of Art. Since then, conservationists have lobbied to protect the Grose Valley from “alienation” – read ruination.

In 1931, during an Easter hiking trip, a group of bushwalkers from the Mountain Trails Club and the Sydney Bush Walkers club, led by Alan Rigby, camped in the Blue Gum Forest.

Since 1931 the Blue Gum Forest has been ecologically recognised and presumed protected.

[Source: Myles Dunphy Collection, Mitchell Library in the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney.]

While the bushwalkers camped, an orchard farmer of Bilpin, Clarence Hungerford, rode in on his horse to confront the bushwalkers ‘squatting’ on his property. Hungerford had secured a lease of the forest to graze his cattle. Hungerford told to the hikers that he intended to deforest all the blue gums and to sell the timber in order to finance a walnut orchard.

Blue Gum Forest – flagged for deforestation in 1931 for Hungerford’s walnut orchard ‘vision splendid‘

The bushwalkers’ Hungerford experience didn’t go down well. Incensed and horrified, the bushwalkers immediately started a campaign to stop Hungerford’s decimation of the Blue Gum sanctuary. Their impassioned rallying ultimately raised £130; quite a substantial sum in the depth of the Great Depression. They then paid all the funds to Hungerford in exchange for his undertaking to relinquish his pastoral lease of the Blue Gum Forest.

The bushwalkers met with Hungerford at the Blue Gum Forest on 15 November 1931 in pouring rain, and he agreed with their suggestion. Most of the funding had been donated by James Cleary, then head of the NSW railways, a keen bushwalker and conservationist. One of the key activists in the campaign was Myles Dunphy, who at the time was developing his plans for the Blue Mountains National Park.

“We hold our land in trust for our successors.” (1934) – Myles Joseph Dunphy (1891-1985), architect, legendary long distance wilderness trekker, map maker, and conservationist before his time. Dunphy always took his Lee Enfield .303 with him for hunting for food when trekking, like on this occasion – it’s under wraps under the tent fly. A daily twilight roo kill for protein was the secret behind him managing to trek his incredible distances. Born on 19 October 1891 in South Melbourne, eldest of seven children… [Read More]

Hungerford’s horse track became a developer tribute to Hungerford. The contour-following bush track starts about 300m south of Evans Lookout and descends zig-zagging down the escarpment to the flats of the Grose Valley at Govetts Creek. In its ignorance, the NPWS or more aptly, the Tourist Parks Service, named this track ‘The Horse Walking Track’ – for visitors to walk their horses?

The Blue Gum Forest has since been referred to in the conservation movement as the Cradle of Conservation for it was the focus of Australia’s original ecological protection by a small group of “thoughtful, committed citizens” (Margaret Mead quote extract) and which seeded generations later, the international listing of The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area in 2000. What legends!

Blue Gum Forest survives only as photos, posters and memories. [Source: ‘Blue Gum Forest 18-19 October 2014‘, 20141022, © by Dave Noble, ^http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=6001.]

David Noble is the parks ranger who discovered Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) in 1994. In September 2012, Noble revisited the Blue Gum Forest leading a hike to celebrate eighty years since the Blue Gum Forest was saved on 2nd September 1932.

Dave wrote at the time:

“This majestic forest lies at the intersection of the Grose River and Govetts Creek near Blackheath. Back in 1932, a large portion of the forest (it was then private land) was going to be felled and replaced by walnut trees. Visiting bushwalkers were alarmed, and rallied together and ended up raising money to purchase the block in question and saving it for conservation. Many regard this as the start of the conservation movement in NSW.”
[Source: ‘Blue Gum Forest – 80th Anniversary 1-2 September 2012‘, 20120913, by Dave Noble, ^http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=1846]

But conservationist idealism ignored the arsonist culture. Government baby boomer arsonists have had a view of native Eucalypt forests like the Blue Gum not as cherished ecology but as a valueless hazard, just like Williamson, generations before. The New South Wales Government ‘autorities’ have been chafing at the bit for years to hazard reduce Blue Mountains World Heritage “fuel“.

History of Neglectful Arson

In December 1957, a bushfire that was left to burn in bushland east of the Grose Valley, once the wind picked up, ultimately ripped through the timber clad villages of Leura and Wentworth Falls destroying 170 homes.

In December 1976, 65,000 hectares of Blue Mountains native bushland was burnt. A year later, a bushfire burnt out 49 buildings and another 54,000 hectares of Blue Mountains native bushland.

In summer 1982 a bushfire burnt right through the Grose Valley incinerating 35,000 hectares of tall native forest, and wildlife.

Again in 1994 the Grose Valley was let burnt by bushfire.

Grose Valley Arson in November 2006

Again in November 2006 the RFS backburned into the Grose Valley from Hartley Vale. Ignited by Rural Fire Service along the north side of Hartley Vale Road on a day of Total Fire Ban, bush arson incinerated native forest ecology up the length of Hartley Valley Road and then was allowed to spot over the Darling Causeway let descend into the Grose Valley. It was deliberate bush arson sanctioned by the NSW Government under then RFS Commissioner Mal Cronstedt at the time.

The fire was fanned by westerly winds over days, allowed to cross over the Darling Causeway, merge with the Burra Korain wildfire and descend down Perrys Lookdown hiking track in and through the Blue Gum Forest. Many Blue Mountains residents will be well familiar with this infamous photo of the Grose Pyrocumulus (flammagenitus) cloud rising from the Grose Valley on Thursday afternoon 23rd November 2006.

Grose Valley incineration of 2006. [Source: ‘2006 Grose Fires – the realisation of a tragedy, 20070707, The Habitat Advocate, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/2006-grose-fires-the-realisation-of-a-tragedy/]

At the time there was local community outrage about how the precious Blue Gum Forest was not defended by authorities and allowed to be incinerated. Blue Mountains resident meetings were staged and a full page article was published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper entitled >’Burning Issues – Fire in the Grose Valley (a statement funded and supported by concerned residents‘. It would have cost at least $2000. Community meetings were held, arranged by former parks ranger Ian Brown. But then it got political and the campaign was strangely suddenly aborted.

Blue Gum Forest burnt in 2006 by an RFS hazard reduction. [Source: Photo by Nick Moir of Blue Mountains Botanist Dr Wyn Jones inspecting the fire damage to the Blue Gums, dated 2006122 in the Sydney Morning Herald, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/2006-grose-valley-fire-a-cover-up/]

Grose Valley Arson of December 2019

Then Last month in December 2019 the government Baby Boomer arsonists ultimately had their way. On 16th December, the Gospers Mountain Fire crossed the Bells Line of Road and spotted into the Grose Valley. By 21st December the Blue Gum Forest was gone.

Media warped termed ‘lava waterfall‘ up the Blackheath escarpment in the Grose Valley.

[Source: Saturday 20121221, ^https://www.facebook.com/BlueMountainsExplore/]

Months prior, a remote rural pastoral property near Gospers Mountain somehow within the Wollemi Wilderness, created an ignition on Saturday 26th October 2019.

Gospers Mountain showing remote historic rural cattle paddocks deep within the Wollemi Wilderness. The Australian Government calls it a national park but takes no accountability by delegating custodial protection but no funding to the state government of New South Wales.

Gospers Mountain is 50km NE of the locality of Bell as the crow flies or fire spreads. Officially declared started by dry lighting in the ‘national park’ on a hot Saturday, this crime of arson and subsequent government firefighting neglect remains secretive. So NSW Police Bush Arson Squad ‘Strike Force Toronto‘ where are you on this – honest or corrupted by the Premier and RFS?

The RFS Gospers Mountain Fire has been the largest bushfire in New South Wales state history. The total number of days between Saturday, October 26th, 2019 and Monday, December 16th, 2019 was 51 days; or one month and 20 days. Over 51 days the fire was allowed to become a ‘megafire’ (likely a new Macquarie Dictionary term for 2020) and ultimately the largest single bushfire in Australia’s history – incineratingmore than 500,000 hectares of bush wilderness…

Of course the Gospers Mountains Fire was left to spread into a mega-fire and to cross over the Bells Line of Road some 50km south-west.

So what did the RFS do for PR but rebrand the Gospers Mountains Fire southerly spread as a new Grose Valley Fire, and to so to be allowed to incinerate down the escarpment into the Grose Valley and to incinerate the Cradle of Conservation – the Blue Gum Forest.

As if RFS arsonists care a damn?

Now government paid white collar fire chiefs have had their way. Forest incineration complete. Easy-peasy till retirement.

Yes RFS let an ignition with a small plume of smoke rising in remote National Park inaccessible to fire trucks burn neglected for days and weeks, negligent of the consequences. What hazard predictably eventuates when ignored for weeks? From the RFS ignition detected at Gospers Mountain on Saturday 26th October 2019 bordering the World Heritage Wollemi National Park …to 16th December 2019 – what response and when was undertaken by the RFS as a supposed fire fighting service?

Truthful answer: Defacto hazard reduction because the bushfire was atthe time not immediately threatening human properties.

Then as normal, the wind picked up, and the wee plume of remote rising smoke morphed into a fire front, then inferno and then into Australia’s worst megafire on record.

Rural Fire Service (NSW) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons (aged 50) is ultimately responsible for the bushfire prevention, planning, resourcing, response for New South Wales outside metropolitan areas services by NSW Fire and Rescue. In our view the he has failed to protect rural NSW to the standards of urban NSW by failing to oversee a government entrusted fire-fighting authority to promptly detect, respond to and extinguish bushfires in a timely manner.

His predecessor also repeatedly failed in his bushfire plan and following the 2006 Grose Valley Pyrocumulus of 2006 promptly skedaddled back to Perth to WA’s chagrin and cost (on record).

If only the ‘000’ Fire Brigade extinguisher standard applied outside metropolitan Australia?

No longer enjoying the benefits of the tourism economy. The Grand Canyon Track closed since 30 November 2019 and still closed on 21 January 2020 -peak tourist season.

What had started as a small plume of smoke off Army Road on Saturday 26th October on a rural property near Gospers Mountain some sixty kilometres to the north, had been allowed to burn away into the World Heritage of the Wollemi National Park wilderness for weeks. It was allowed to destroy all the magnificent Wollemi wilderness from end to end.

By the time the bushfire had crossed to the southern side of the Bells Line of Road 50km south, the RFS changed their pet name of the ‘Gospers Mountain Fire’ to being dubbed the ‘Grose Valley Fir’e. Why not? That was the goal – defacto hazard reduction.

The iconic Blue Gum Forest in the Grose Valley of the Blue Mountains was left to incinerate by the New South Wales Government in December 2019. They did what Williamson in the 1920s failed to achieve. [Source: Editor, The Habitat Advocate, photo taken from Valley View Lookout 100m north of Evans Lookout, 20200121]

Once World Heritage values of the Grose Valley have now gone up in smoke. The icon Blue Gum Forest has been incinerated yet again since the previous RFS successful attempt in November 2006. No wonder the place is very very quiet. All the wildlife is dead and the native birds have flow away.

Close up of the Blue Gum Forest from near Evans Lookout (top of photo) showing the canopy of Eucalyptus deanei incinerated; not much left of the forest in the foreground either. [Source: Editor, The Habitat Advocate, photo taken from Valley View Lookout 100m north of Evans Lookout, 20200121]

This time they have succeeded in total incineration – their goal of converting hazardous forest ecology into anthropocentric manageable parkland has long been misunderstood by ideologically hopeful environmentalists. The misnomer National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW) ethically should now do the right thing and re-brand itself State Parks Administration Service it commercially is.

More than 80% of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and more than 50% of the Gondwana world heritage rainforests of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland have been burnt in Australia’s worst bushfire disaster in history. The scale of the disaster is such that it could affect the diversity of eucalypts for which the Blue Mountains world heritage area is recognised, said John Merson, the executive director of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute.

The Habitat Advocate has written to UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre expressing shock, outrage and anger over government mismanagement and contempt for Blue Mountains ecology through abject neglect in bushfire response. With most of the world heritage incinerated, we have questioning the status of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area as these values apply to Eucalypt diversity, since 80% has been incinerated.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre has expressed concern about the scale and intensity of bushfire damage to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and to the Gondwana Rainforests and has asked the Australian government whether it should de-list their world heritage status. In a statement on its website, UNESCO said members of the media and civil society had asked about the bushfires affecting the areas inscribed on the world heritage list as the “Gondwana rainforests of Australia”. The forests are considered a living link to the vegetation that covered the southern super-continent Gondwana before it broke up about 180m years ago.

According to UNESCO:

“The World Heritage Centre is currently verifying the information with the Australian authorities, in particular regarding the potential impact of the fires on the outstanding universal value of the property. The Centre has been closely following-up on this matter and stands ready to provide any technical assistance at the request of Australian authorities.”

Blue Mountains World Heritage is a misnomer and a sick joke. This RFS blackened moonscape now blankets 80% of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Incinerated, quite dead, quiet, subsequently oven baked in the scorching sun and now sterilised. The tamed moonscape is far easier to manage for the Parks Service, like Centennial Park. [Source: Editor, The Habitat Advocate, photo taken 20200121 of escarpment track near Evans Lookout.]

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In 2006, the New South Wales (Government’s) Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) or ‘Parks‘, being delegated by the Australian Government for absolute responsibility for ecologically protecting the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (BMWHA), so under-resourced its firefighting effort as to deliberately let the Grose Valley burn out of control.

Senior management well knew, like their firefighting partners the Rural Fires Service, that legal and political accountabilty extended ONLY to protecting private properties and human lives. So this they did and so let 14,070 hectares of the Grose Valley and adjoining land burn. It saved them the cost and effort of future ‘hazard’ reduction.

Parks adopted a cost-saving abandonment strategy (making management look efficient) which it labels deliberate bushfire as ‘fire ecology‘ and so by deliberate under-resourcing of fire fighting against two documented ignitions to then let burn into the Grose Valley and the Blue Gum Forest. These two ignitions (1) a purported lightning strike on Burra Korain Ridge and (2) a deliberate RFS ‘hazard’ reduction burn along the south side of Hartley Vale Road – both outside the BMWHA, were the instigators of the 2006 Grose Fire.

It was all hushed up, despite public calls for an independent public enquiry. Both the RFS Commissioner and Blue Mountains Local Member at the time said no to the public calls for an independent public enquiry. Why?

Grose Valley Fire aftermath at Govetts Leap, Blackheath

[Photo by Editor 20061209, click image to enlarge, free in public domain]

New South Wales colonists, once they stumbled across the spectacular Grose Valley deep in the Blue Mountains, were in awe in sublime wonder. So it was that initially that the Grose Valley as far back as in 1875 became reserved as a ‘national spectacle’.

But many wanted to dam it – ^Robber Barons and prevailing industrialist politicians of the times had the same view of ‘progress‘ being a colonial right and unquestioningly superior to Nature. They tried to put the railway through the Grose, to mine it, to log it or else to farm it; all so long as the vast ‘resource’ was not neglected for ‘progress‘.

Grose Valley, view from Govett’s Leap in 1886 by Charles Bayliss

Note the women in the foreground in the Victorian dress of the day

[Source: Part of Lindt, J. W. (John William), 1845-1926,

National Library of Australia, 1 digital photograph : b&w,

^http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3989404]

Thankfully, this majestic Grose Valley and its ancient icon Blue Gum Forest were saved the axe in 1931. But is was only marginally due to the persistent campaigning efforts of a small dedicated group of bushwalkers passionate about saving this forest back even in the midst of The Great Depression.

If ever a case were not truer:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

~ American cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead

.Margaret Mead, 1901–1978

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‘The Blue Gum‘ was ultimately saved by the generous personal donation by allied bushwalker W.J. Cleary of £80 [perhaps $20,000 in today’s value *] to purchase the rights to the land from the pastoralist Clarrie Hungerford in February 1932.

Significantly, their dedicated act of environmental conservation is arguably the first environmental campaign in Australia’ history. ‘The Blue Gum‘ since then and for eighty years since has been affectionately known amongst environmentalists as ‘The Cradle of Conservation‘.

[Ed: * CALCULATION: In 1930, the average yearly wage for ordinary Australian workers was roughly £220, source: ^http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/content.php?pid=14258&sid=95522. So given that today’s average yearly salary in Australia is about $56,000 (Source: ^http://www.abs.gov.au), the calculation is 80/220 * 56,000 = $20,000]

<<Everyone has been to the lookouts. Many have been to the Blue Gum Forest, deep in the valley– but few know the remote & hidden recesses of the labyrinth beyond. Here, an hour or two from Sydney, is a very wild place.

The Grose has escaped development. There have been schemes for roads, railways, dams, mines & forestry, but the bulldozers have been kept out. Instead, the valley became the Cradle of Conservation in New South Wales when it was reserved from sale in 1875 – an event magnificently reinforced in 1931 when a group of bushwalkers were moved to save the Blue Gum Forest from the axe.

Local author, Andy Macqueen, has been an enthusiastic bushwalker and conservationist since the 1960’s. In 1997, he published his book, ‘Back from the Brink: Blue Gum Forest and the Grose Wilderness‘, aptly titled in telling the true story of how the Blue Gum Forest was saved from destruction.

Macqueen’s well researched book tells in detail the story of the whole Grose Wilderness experience and of the Blue Gum Forest rescue story in particular. It tells about the many different people who have visited this wilderness: Aborigines, explorers, engineers, miners, track builders, bushwalkers, canyoners, climbers…those who have loved it, and those who have threatened it.>>

Available from Megalong Books, Leura in the Blue Mountains

^http://shop.megalongbooks.com.au/bookweb/details.cgi?ITEMNO=9780646476957

^http://www.megalongbooks.com.au/

Other books about the Blue Mountains:

^http://www.lamdhabooks.com.au/bluemountainscatalogue.htm

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Hazard Reduction Revenge

A decade later, in 1940 the Grose Valley was subjected to a bushfire; however its cause, circumstances and extent of damage are unknown by The Habitat Advocate.

This bushfire occurred only a year after the devastating 1939 Bushfires of ‘Black Friday‘ across Victoria, which is collectively considered one of the worst natural bushfires (wildfires) in the world. Almost 20,000 km² (2 million hectares) was burnt, 71 people perished and several significant native forests were destroyed (Victorian Alps, Yarra Ranges, Otway Ranges, Grampians and Strzelecki Ranges) and the townships of Dromana, Healesville, Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong, Warburton, Warrandyte, Yarra Glen, Hill End, Nayook West, Matlock, Noojee, Omeo, Woods Point, Pomonal and Portland.

The subsequent Royal Commission, under Judge L.E.B Stretton (known as the Stretton Inquiry), attributed blame for the fires to careless burning, such as for campfires and land clearing.

It was the second major bushfire tragedy since the 1851 Black Thursday Bushfires which wiped out 5 million hectares of Victoria.

Bushfire Tragedy in aggregated geographical context.

So why are Australian wildlife hard to find in their natural bush habitat?

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More recently a disturbing ‘bushphobic culture‘ has produced a need to burn it for its burning sake. One must wonder whether our society has indeed advanced, matured or just ‘progressed‘ its colonialism?

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Grose Valley Bushfire of 25th October 2002

[Source: Image by Paul Cosgrave, National Library of Australia, 2003,

1 digital photograph : b&w.http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an24966058]

In 2006, the Grose Valley was incinerated in a massive firestorm and this time the fire ripped through the Blue Gum Forest..

Firefighters watching the escalating bushfire incinerating the Grose Valley below

22 November 2006 – the day before the Grose Firestorm

Picture: Brad Newman, in The Australian.

<<Residents in towns across NSW waited for the worst last night as bushfires burned thousands of hectares across the state and dry conditions were forecast for almost the entire continent for another week.

Spot fires from a 10-day-old bushfire burning in the Blue Mountains came within a few hundred metres of houses in Blackheath. Katoomba, Mount Tomah and Lawson and other towns in the region were also under threat from the worst bushfire in the nation.

“There was virtually no cloud over the entire continent,” said Julie Evans from the NSW Bureau of Meteorology of the dry conditions expected to continue across most of Australia in the coming week.

As mild weather and a cool change provided relief to firefighters in South Australia and Victoria, smoke from the Blue Mountains blaze, which was last night largely contained in the Grose Valley, rose more than 12km into the air, causing ash to fall on central Sydney and effectively creating its own weather system.

Watching from a helicopter above the flames, National Parks and Wildlife Service acting regional manager Kim De Govrik said the explosion as the fire crowned in the tree-tops around the Banks Wall cliff-face was “like a nuclear bomb going off”.

Sparks ignited fires up to 15km away, near Faulconbridge, home of Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg, who is directing the operation to contain the state’s fires.

“By tomorrow morning, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect that there will be additional fires around the countryside,” Mr Koperberg said yesterday.

About 2000 firefighters spent the day battling about 44 fires across NSW, five of which the RFS said it was unable to contain. Molong enjoyed a reprieve after a late wind shift caused a fire to change direction just 4km from the central-western town. Residents were relocated to a community centre last night, while an unoccupied house and vehicle were destroyed by the fire.

The RFS met residents in the Hawkesbury and Goulburn regions early last night to update them on the fires and what they can do to prepare their homes.

The bushfires also led to blackouts across Sydney. Just a week after the city endured its coldest November night in a century, the city sweltered through its third-hottest November day in 25 years — the official maximum temperature was 38.4C. Dozens of suburbs in the city’s west and southwest were affected by the outages, as were large sections of the CBD.

The NSW parliament was twice plunged into darkness as the power surges hit in the late afternoon, with the second one lasting several minutes.

Mild weather led the bushfire threat across South Australia to fall. CFS spokeswoman Krista St John said the state’s southeast had been hardest hit, with fires burning about 8500ha.

In Victoria, a cool change helped firefighters bring the state’s larger fires under control, although lightning strikes ignited several smaller fires in the west of the state.>>

[Source: ‘Fires and dry conditions have residents fearing the worst’, 20061123, by Dan Box and Simon Kearney; additional reporting by Padraig Murphy and AAP, The Australian newspaper, ^http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/fires-and-dry-conditions-have-residents-fearing-the-worst/story-e6frg6o6-1111112569927]

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23 November 2006

14,070 hectares of precious Blue Mountains habitat incinerated

So why are Australian wildlife hard to find in their natural bush habitat?

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The home that Parks had it in for … the Blue Gum Forest’s fire-scarred trees,

some of which have graced the Grose Valley for hundreds of years.
A defacto hazard reduction burn.

[Photo: Nick Moir, ^http://www.nickmoirphoto.com/]

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<<More than 70 years ago this forest inspired the birth of the modern Australian conservation movement. Today Blue Gum Forest stands forlorn in a bed of ash.

But was it unnecessarily sacrificed because of aggressive control burning by firefighters focused on protecting people and property? That is the tough question being asked by scientists, fire experts and heritage managers as a result of the blaze in the Grose Valley of the upper Blue Mountains last month.

As the fate of the forest hangs in the balance, the State Government is facing demands for an independent review of the blaze amid claims it was made worse by control burning and inappropriate resources.

This comes against a backdrop of renewed warnings that Australia may be on the brink of a wave of species loss caused by climate change and more frequent and hotter fires. There are also claims that alternative “ecological” approaches to remote-area firefighting are underfunded and not taken seriously.

In an investigation of the Blue Mountains fires the Herald has spoken to experienced fire managers, fire experts and six senior sources in four agencies and uncovered numerous concerns and complaints.

* It was claimed that critical opportunities were lost in the first days to contain or extinguish the two original, separate fires.

* Evidence emerged that escaped backburns and spot fires meant the fires linked up and were made more dangerous to property and heritage assets – including the Blue Gum Forest. One manager said the townships of Hazelbrook, Woodford and Linden were a “bee’s dick” away from being burnt. Another described it as “our scariest moment”. Recognising the risk of the backburn strategy, one fire officer – before the lighting of a large backburn along the Bells Line of Road – publicly described that operation as “a big call”.

It later escaped twice, advancing the fire down the Grose Valley.

Concerns were voiced about the role of the NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Phil Koperberg.

Members of the upper Blue Mountains Rural Fire Service brigades were unhappy about the backburning strategy.

There were doubts about the mix and sustainability of resources – several senior managers felt there were “too many trucks” and not enough skilled remote-area firefighters.

Scientists, heritage managers and the public were angry that the region’s national and international heritage values were being compromised or ignored.

There was anecdotal evidence that rare and even common species were being affected by the increased frequency and intensity of fires in the region.

Annoyance was voiced over the environmental damage for hastily, poorly constructed fire trails and containment lines, and there were concerns about the bill for reconstruction of infrastructure, including walking tracks.

The fire manager and ecologist Nic Gellie, who was the fire management officer in the Blue Mountains for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service during the 1980s and ’90s, says the two original fires could have been put out with more rapid direct attack.

“Instead, backburning linked up the two fires and hugely enlarged the fire area … what we saw would be more accurately described as headfire burning, creating hot new fire fronts. While it protected the town of Blackheath, the plateau tops burnt intensely – and that created new problems both for management of the fire and the protection of biodiversity.

“When extreme fire weather, hot days and high winds arrived as predicted, the expanded fire zone was still not fully contained – and that was the cause of most of the high drama and danger that followed.”

In that dramatic week, Mr Gellie confronted Mr Koperberg with his concerns that the commissioner was interfering with the management of the fire by pushing hard for large backburns along the northern side of towns in the Blue Mountains from Mount Victoria to Faulconbridge, along what is known in firefighting circles as the “black line”.

The Herald has since confirmed from numerous senior sources that “overt and covert pressure” from head office was applied to the local incident management team responsible for fighting the fire.

There were also tensions relating to Mr Koperberg’s enthusiasm for continuation of the backburning strategy along the black line – even when milder weather, lower fuel levels and close-in containment were holding the fire.

Several sources say the most frightening threat to life and property came as the fire leapt onto the Lawson Ridge on “blow-up Wednesday” (November 22) – and that those spot fires almost certainly came from the collapse of the convection column associated with the intensification of the fire by the extensive backburns.

The Herald has also confirmed that:

The original fire lit by a lightning strike near Burra Korain Head inside the national park on Monday, November 13, could not be found on the first day. The following day, a remote area fire team had partly contained the fire – but was removed to fight the second fire. The original fire was left to burn unattended for the next couple of days;

An escaped backburn was responsible for the most direct threat to houses during the two-week emergency, at Connaught Road in Blackheath. However, at a public meeting in Blackheath on Saturday night, the Rural Fire Service assistant commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons played down residents’ concerns about their lucky escape. “I don’t want to know about it. It’s incidental in the scheme of things.”

Mr Koperberg, who is retiring to stand as a Labor candidate in next year’s state elections, rejected the criticisms of how the fire was fought. He told the Herald: “The whole of the Grose Valley would have been burnt if we had not intervened in the way we did and property would have been threatened or lost. We are looking at a successful rather than an unsuccessful outcome.

“It’s controversial, but this is world’s best backburning practice – often it’s the only tool available to save some of the country.”

The commissioner rejected any criticism that he had exerted too much influence. “As commissioner, the buck stops with me. I don’t influence outcomes unless there is a strategy that is so ill-considered that I have to intervene.”

Mr Koperberg said it was “indisputable and irrefutable” that the Blue Mountains fire – similar to fires burning now in Victoria – was “unlike any that has been seen since European settlement”, because drought and the weather produced erratic and unpredictable fire behaviour.

The district manager of the Blue Mountains for the Rural Fire Service, Superintendent Mal Cronstedt, was the incident controller for the fire.>>

[Source: ‘The ghosts of an enchanted forest demand answers’, 20061211, by Gregg Borschmann, Sydney Morning Herald, p.1, ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-ghosts-of-an-enchanted-forest-demand-answers/2006/12/10/1165685553891.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2]

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Grose Valley’s bushphobic habitat incinerated

because in the minds of Parks and the Rural Fire Service it was a fuel hazard

Click image to enlarge,

Photo by Editor 20070106, free in public domain

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<<A bushfire scars a precious forest – and sparks debate on how we fight fire in the era of climate change, writes Gregg Borschmann.

The ghosts of an enchanted forest demand answers

“Snow and sleet are falling on two bushfires burning in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.”

ABC Radio, November 15: The news report was almost flippant, something that could happen only in Dorothea Mackellar’s land of drought and flooding rains. Later that evening, two weeks from summer, Sydney had its coldest night in more than a century.

Over the past month – as an early summer collided with a late winter and a decade-long drought – NSW and Victoria have battled more than 100 bushfires.

But of them all, last month’s Blue Mountains blaze reveals tensions and systemic problems that point to a looming crisis as bushfire fighters struggle to protect people, property, biodiversity and heritage values in a world beset by climate change.

The tensions have always been there – different cultures, different ways of imagining and managing the landscape. Perhaps they are illustrated by a joke told by two Rural Fire Service crew in the Blue Mountains. “How does the RFS put out a fire in your kitchen? By backburning your sitting room and library.” The joke barely disguises the clash between the imperative of saving lives and homes, and the desire to look after the land, and the biodiversity that underpins our social and economic lives.

For fire managers, whose first priority will always be saving people and property, the equation has become even more tortured with a series of class actions over fires in NSW and the ACT. As one observer put it: “These guys are in a position where they’re not going to take any chances. No one will ever sue over environmental damage.”

For bushfire management the debate tentatively started a couple of decades ago. The challenge was to do what poets, writers and painters have long grappled with – coming to terms with a country whose distinctiveness and recent evolutionary history have been forged in fire.

Drought and climate change now promise to catapult that debate to centre stage.

It is perhaps no accident that such a defining fire has occurred in one of the great amphitheatres of the Australian story, the Grose Valley in the upper Blue Mountains. Charles Darwin passed by on horseback in 1836, and described the valley as “stupendous … magnificent”.

The Grose has long been a microcosm of how Australians see their country. In 1859 some of the first photos in Australia were taken in the valley. Proposals for rail lines and dams were forgotten or shelved. The first great forest conservation battle was fought and won there in 1931-32.

But now the valley is under threat from an old friend and foe – fire.

Ian Brown has worked on dozens of fires in the Blue Mountains. He is a former operations manager for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

“All fires are complex and difficult, and this sure was a nasty fire … But we need lots of tools in the shed. Those hairy, big backburns on exposed ridges so close to a blow-up day with bad weather surprised me. Frightened me even.”

For Brown, even more worrying is the trend.

“Parts of the Grose have now burnt three times in 13 years and four times in 24 years. Most of those fires started from arson or accident. Many of the species and plant communities can’t survive that sort of hammering.”

Ross Bradstock, a fire ecologist, agrees. Professor Bradstock is the director of the new Centre for the Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong, which is funded by the Department of Environment and Conservation and the Rural Fire Service. He says Australia stands out as one of the countries whose vegetation may be most affected by climate change.

Bradstock says that in south-eastern Australia the potential for shifts in fire frequency and intensity are “very high … If we’re going to have more drought we will have more big fires.”

But the story is complicated and compounded by the interaction between drought and fire. The plants most resistant to fire, most able to bounce back after burning, will be most affected by climate change. And the plants that are going to be advantaged by aridity will be knocked over by increased fire frequency. “In general, the flora is going to get whacked from both ends – it’s going to be hit by increased fire and climate change. It’s not looking good.”

Wyn Jones, an ecologist who worked for the wildlife service, says the extremely rare drumstick plant, Isopogon fletcheri, is a good example. There are thought to be no more than 200 specimens, restricted to the upper Grose. Last week, on a walk down into the Blue Gum Forest, Jones found three – all killed by the fire.

The NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Phil Koperberg, has been a keen supporter of Bradstock’s centre. Asked if he agreed with the argument that the Grose had seen too much fire, Mr Koperberg replied: “It’s not a comment I disagree with, but had we not intervened in the way we did, the entire Grose Valley would have been burnt again, not half of it.”

The great irony of the fire is that it was better weather, low fuels and close-in containment firefighting that eventually stopped the fire – not big backburns.

Remote area firefighting techniques have been pioneered and perfected over recent decades by the wildlife service. In 2003 a federal select committee on bushfires supported the approach. It recommended fire authorities and public land managers implement principles of fire prevention and “rapid and effective initial attack”.

Nic Gellie, a fire ecologist and former fire manager, has helped the wildlife service pioneer ecological fire management. The models are there – but he says they have not been used often enough or properly.

Doubts have been expressed about the sustainability of the current remote area firefighting model. It is underfunded, and relies on a mix of paid parks service staff and fire service volunteers. Most agree the model is a good one, but not viable during a longer bushfire relying on volunteers.

The Sydney Catchment Authority pays $1 million for Catchment Remote Area Firefighting Teams in the Warragamba water supply area. It has always seemed like a lot of money. But it looks like a bargain stacked against the estimated cost of $10 million for the direct costs and rehabilitation of the Grose fire.

Curiously, one unexpected outcome of the great Grose fire may be that the valley sees more regular, planned fire – something the former wildlife service manager Ian Brown is considering.

“If climate change means that the Grose is going to get blasted every 12 years or less, then we need more than just the backburning strategy. We need to get better at initial attack and maybe also look at more planned burns before these crises. But actually getting those burns done – and done right – that’s the real challenge.”

It may be the only hope for Isopogon fletcheri.

Asked if he would do anything differently, Mr Cronstedt answered: “Probably.” But other strategies might have also had unknown or unpredictable consequences, he said.

Jack Tolhurst, the deputy fire control officer (operations) for the Blue Mountains, said: “I am adamant that this fire was managed very well. We didn’t lose any lives or property and only half the Grose Valley was burnt.”

Mr Tolhurst, who has 50 years’ experience in the Blue Mountains, said: “This fire is the most contrary fire we have ever dealt with up here.”

John Merson, the executive director of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, said fire management was being complicated by conditions possibly associated with climate change.

“With increased fire frequency and intensity, we are looking at a fundamental change in Australian ecosystems,” he said. “We will lose species. But we don’t know what will prosper and what will replace those disappearing species. It’s not a happy state. It’s a very tough call for firefighters trying to do what they think is the right thing when the game is no longer the same.

“What we are seeing is a reflex response that may no longer be appropriate and doesn’t take account of all the values we are trying to protect.”>>

[Source: ‘ The burning question’, 20061211, by Gregg Borschmann (producer for ABC Radio National), Sydney Morning Herald, p.10, ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-burning-question/2006/12/10/1165685553945.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1]

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So why are Australian wildlife hard to find in their natural bush habitat?

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Tags: Blue Gum Forest, hazard reduction, Mal Cronstedt, NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Phil Koperberg, Richard Kingswood
Posted in Blue Mountains (AU), Threats from Bushfire | No Comments »

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2006 Grose Fires: the realisation of a tragedy

Saturday, July 7th, 2012

The fire tragedy afflicted Australia’s legendary ‘Conservation Cradle’

A scorched Grose Valley from Evan’s Lookout, looking north up Govett’s Gorge

(Photo by Editor taken 20061209, free in public domain. Free Large Image)

A heritage tragedy unfolds

A simple lighting stike ignited remote bushland in rugged terrain within the Blue Mountains National Park, over 5km north of the township of Blackheath on 20061113.

Innocuously, the ignition started off on hilly Burra Korain Ridge,

It was far from settlement but during relatively calm weather and low temperature, so it was not suppressed but ‘monitored’

..then the wind picked up.

It and a second ignition west were allowed to continue burning for days until they eventually coalesced with compounded backburning into a firestorm some ten days later down in the Grose Valley. On 20061122, the prized Grose Valley and its iconic and precious Blue Gum Forest were incinerated under a pyrocumulus cloud of towering wood smoke that could be seen from the Sydney coast a hundred kilometres away. Some 14,070 hectares of National Park habitat was burnt. The tragedy did not so much as ‘strike‘ from the lighting itself, but as Blue Mountains residents we saw it ‘unfold‘ over many days and nights under the trusteeship of Bushfire Management.

..ten days later

The pyrocumulus cloud of a screaming, dying Grose Valley precious to many, including wildlife

The Grose Valley and its Blue Gum Forest and wildlife burning to death on 20061122

A greenhouse gas estimate was not taken.

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Community shock, sadness and overwhelming sense of loss

How was this allowed to happen?

In the days that followed, many Blue Mountains residents and especially the many conservationists familiar with the Grose Valley and Blue Gum Forest over many years became deeply shocked at learning about the loss of this magnificent sacred preserved forest – its tall 300+ year old rare Blue Gums (Eucalytus deanii).

Without knowledge of personal accounts, one respects that the dramatic scenes of the smoke and fire inflicted personal trauma with many, given so many people’s long and established personal knowledge, affinity, love, awe and respect for..

‘The Blue Gum‘

The Habitat Advocate reaches out to these people (doesn’t matter the fact that years have passed) and we choose to express the view of a need to tell truths and to seek some sense of learned maturity from it all. For the Grose Valley contained many tracks, many walks and many special places if one knew where to look. Popes Glen and from Govetts Leap down under Bridal Veil following the popular Rodriguez Pass to Junction Rock then Acacia Flat and the Blue Gum Forest in the heart of the Grose. Many special places includes Beauchamp Falls, Docker Buttress, Pulpit Rock, Lockley Pylon, Anvil Rock lookout, Perrys Lookdown, Hanging Rock, Pierces Pass, Asgard Swamp, and the inaccessible Henson Glen and David Crevasse gorge.

To this editor, the return in 2007 to a previously sacred special, but incinerated Neates Glen was emptying in spirit. There was heartfelt shock and dismay by many local conservationists familiar with the iconic Blue Gum Forest who became deeply saddened by the tragedy.

Neates Glen, as it was

But since incinerated, not by the wildife, but by deliberately lit ‘backburning’

Phone calls and emails were exchanged with many locals wanting to know the extent of the damage and whether ‘the Blue Gum‘ could recover. The original fire had been fanned westward from Burra Korain Head spotting along the Blackheath Walls escarpment, but then decended and burnt through Perrys Lookdown, Docker Buttress and down and through the Blue Gum. Deliberately lit backburns had descended and burnt out Pierces Pass (Hungerfords Track) through rainforest into the Grose and everyone had seen the pyrocumulus mushroom cloud towering 6000 feet above the Grose on the 22nd.

There was an immense sense of loss. The relatively small Blue Gum Forest, perhaps just several hectares, was unique by its ecological location, by its grand age and by its irreplaceability. The sense of loss was perhaps more pronounced amongst the more mature conservationists, now lesser in number, who knew its original saviours of the 1930s – Alan Rigby, Myles Dunphy and other dedicated bushwalkers who had championed to save it from logging 81 years ago.

The conservation heritage of The Blue Gum Forest dates back to Australia’s earliest conservation campaign from 1931

For this reason ‘The Blue Gum Forest’ has been passionately respected as

Australia’s ‘Cradle of Conservation’

The region is home to threatened or rare species of conservation significance living within the rugged gorges and tablelands, like the spotted-tailed quoll, the koala, the yellow-bellied glider, the long-nosed potoroo, the green and golden bell frog and the Blue Mountains water skink. Many would have perished in the inferno, unable to escape. The Grose is a very quiet and sterile place now, with only birds. But to the firefighters, these were not human lives or property.

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Deafening silence from the ‘Firies’ naturally attracted community enquiry and suspicion

The day after the firestorm that enveloped the Grose Valley, the wind subsided and from 20061123 through to the final mopping up date of 20061203, the 2006 Grose Bushfire and its many ember spotfires came under bushfire management control and were ultimately extinguished or else considered to be ‘benign‘.

It is important to note that during the entire bushfire event from 20061113 through to 20061203, only NSW Rural Fire Service ‘Major Fire Updates’ on its website and headline journalism appeared in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper. Initially, the community, conservationists and ‘firies’ were respectfully passive. In the immediate aftermath of the fire from 20061204 through to the weekly issue of the Blue Mountains Gazette on 20061129, the local community, conservationists and ‘firies’ were letter silent in the paper. It was a combination of shock, preoccupation with the emergency and respectful anticipation of communication from the bushfire authorities.

One can assume here that given the scale of the tragedy, many in the Blue Mountains community were respectfully patient in anticipation of an assured announcement from Bushfire Management or some communication process. But none eventuated.

Injustice

The following weekly issue of the Gazette was published on 20061129, but no communication from Bushfire Management. Only dismissive bureaucratic statements came from Parks and Wildlife’s Regional Director Geoff Luscombe with a tone suggesting minimal damage and business-as-usual.

This was the article:

6th Dec: ‘Park managers take stock as smoke clears’

[Source: ‘Park managers take stock as smoke clears’, by journalist Jacqui Knox, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20061206, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/park-managers-take-stock-as-smoke-clears/487936.aspx?storypage=0]

Ed: This RFS propaganda photo was included in the media article.

Govetts Leap Track (shown here) was deliberately lit by Bushfire Management

‘Hundreds of fire-fighters are celebrating a return to normality this week after cooler weather and an intense two-week campaign by volunteers and professionals brought a fire in the Grose Valley under control.

According to the Rural Fire Service this good weather, combined with a thorough mop-up operation and ongoing infra-red monitoring, means flare-ups are unlikely. However the 15,000 hectare burnt area – including the iconic Blue Gum Forest – is likely to remain closed for the “foreseeable future” due to safety concerns and regeneration.

Geoff Luscombe, regional manager of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), said the fact that only part of the Grose Valley burnt meant many animals had been able to seek refuge.

“Many of the Australian plants and animal species have learnt not only to survive fire but to exploit it,” he said. However he confirmed fears that the fire had burnt Blue Gum Forest – a Mecca for bushwalkers and conservationists in the heart of the Grose Valley.

“Blue gums aren’t a particularly fire-tolerant species,” he said. “Fire last burnt through Blue Gum in 1994. The effects of this fire we don’t know yet and we may not know for many months to come.”

A botanist has been sent to inspect the area and there could be ongoing monitoring. Mr Luscombe did not wish to comment on how the fire was handled due to a lengthy absence, but Inspector Jack Tolhurst from the Blue Mountains District Rural Fire Service has warded off any potential criticism.

“I think at the moment we should be looking at the positive,” said Inspector Tolhurst. “The fire is contained . . . It’s been a very long campaign but at the end of the day we haven’t lost any property or lives and half the Grose Valley at least remains intact.”

A fire that broke out near Zig-Zag Railway last week has also been contained. [Ed. According to inside reports, Zig Zag Railway Station was accidentally firebombed by an aerial helicopter attempting backburning].

“We’ve had a lot of help from a wide range of people. We’ve had wonderful support from the community . . . it was a wonderful effort from everyone.”

Meanwhile the hard work has only just begun for another group of dedicated volunteers. Blue Mountains WIRES are expecting to rescue a number of fire-affected native animals in coming months as they wander into residential areas for food and water.

“The arboreal animals – possums and gliders – they come to grief,” said chairperson Greg Keightly. “Birds suffer heat stress and smoke inhalation. They’re going to be flying around bewildered.”

He said residents who see native wildlife in urban areas should keep pets inside, provide water off the ground in a place safe from predators, and avoid the temptation to feed wildlife.

“Things come up for months after fires,” said Mr Keightley. “Do ring us (4754-2946) if you thing something is injured or doing it tough,” he said.

The national park south of the Great Western Highway, and the lookout at Govetts Leap, are open to visitors. For information on closures call 4787-8877 or visit www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au’

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Mismanagement?

So the silence from the firies, from Bushfire Management and from the New South Wales Government ultimately responsible and accountable, was deafening. It was as if the entire Firie fraternity had gone to ground in a code of silence behind closed doors.

So naturally the community response was that something smelt fishy. This communication intransigence was a public relations blunder by Bushfire Management, to its detriment.

Then filtered out accounts of crazy operational mismanagement during the bushfire and of bush arson by the firies behind the roadblocks beyond the public gaze.

Rumours circulated that the initial ignition had been left for burn in the critical first few days of 13th November and 14th November up on Burra Korrain Ridge because it wasn’t right next to a road so that fire trucks could get to it. The fire had even been abandonned. Then the wind picked up and it spread. Airborne firefighting was not called in until a Section 44 incident declaration was effected on 15th November.
A second fire nearby to the west near Hartley Vale, purported also lit by dry lightning on 14th Nov, had attracted broadscale backburning from the Hartley Vale Road. But the backburn got out of control, ripped up the valley fanned by winds and crossed over the Darling Causeway on to the Blackheath Escarpment and the Upper Grose to join up with the first blaze. The onground evidence shows that this was a hazard reduction burn starting from alongside the Hartley Vale Road just east of the village of Hartley Vale.
Then came the account of senior bushfire management at the Rural Fire Service headquarters at Homebush ordering a ‘headburning’ a new 10km fire front along the south of the Bells Line of Road into the Grose Valley. Perhaps the NSW Government had stepped in demanding action. Perhaps RFS headquarters response was a series of overreactions, albeit too late and to be seen to be now ‘acting’ was only compounding the fire risk to the Grose . Apparently, the RFS Commissioner had even touted imposing a massive defacto hazard reduction north of the Bells Line of Road right though the vast wilderness of the Wollemi National Park, to somehow head off another fire on 20th November some 80km away north of Wiseman’s Ferry, but that strategy was rejected in a heated operational debate. [“The Wollemi National Park is part of the World Heritage Area and covers 488,620 hectares. Important values of the park include the spectacular wild and rugged scenery, its geological heritage values, its diversity of natural environments, the occurrence of many threatened or restricted native plant and animal species including the Wollemi pine and the broad-headed snake, significant plant communities, the presence of a range of important Aboriginal sites and the park’s historic places which are recognised for their regional and national significance.” – Wollemi NP Plan of Management, April 2001]
Even the Zig Zag tourist railway station was apparently accidently firebombed by an overzealous airborne firefighter starting backburning en mass
Then came the account of Blackheath residents who had their houses subjected to the risk of a deliberately lit backburn during the course of the bushfire. Despite the out of control wildfire being many miles to the north west of Blackheath, a broadscale backburn (some say is was really a ‘defacto hazard reduction‘) was lit along the fire trail below the electricity transmission line near Govetts Leap lookout. But it got out of control briefly and threatened to burn houses in Connaught Road. Indeed the entire Blackheath Escarpment fire from Hat Hill Road south through Govetts Leap Lookout and Ebans Head was started deliberately as a ‘strategic’ backburn.

Blackheath Escarpment completely burnt (top) for hectares, looking south from Hat Hill Road

(Photo by editor 20061209, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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The rural property east of Hartley Vale where on 20070207 there was clear evidence of hazard reduction (HR)

commencing only from the south side Hartley Vale Road, opposite.

Eucalypts were burned only at the base, but further up the hill the tree crowns had been burned.

The HR had quickly got out of control and then crossed over the Darling Causeway.

(Photo by editor 20070207, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

Once two weeks had passed since the dramatic firestorm and with only silence emanating from Bushfire Management and the NSW Government, local people had had enough and they wanted answers.

Some 143 local yet disparate conservationists via ‘jungle drums’ met up, discussed the issue, united informally and agreed to go public. They informally formed the ‘Grose Fire Group‘ and contributed to a fighting fund some $1700 odd and became vocal. Two weeks after the Grose Valley Firestorm the Grose Fire Group managed a full page open letter in the local Blue Mountains Gazette on 20061206 on page 13. It was directed to the ultimate authority responsible and accountable for the Grose Fire Tragedy, the NSW Government. The Premier at the time was Labor’s Morris Iemma MP. The NSW Member for the NSW Seat of Blue Mountains as well as NSW Minister for Environment at the time was Bob Debus MP.

Those who valued the Blue Gum Forest challenged those responsible for its protection. The tragedy certainly stirred and polarised the Blue Mountains community. Conservationists naturally wanted answers, an enquiry, a review of bushfire prevention and management from:

NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service under the direction of Regional Director Geoff Luscombe
NSW Rural Fire Service under the direction of Commissioner Phil Koperberg
Blue Mountains Bushfire Management Committee aligned with Blue Mountains City Council and chaired by Councillor Chris Van Der Kley.

‘Grose Valley Fire – World Heritage takes a hit’

“The Blue Gum Forest, birth-place of the modern conservation movement, was badly damaged by the Grose fire on Wednesday the 22^nd of November. If this precious forest was a row of houses, then there would automatically be a major investigation into how the fire was fought. The fact that this major loss of our natural heritage is only now becoming known is testimony to the prevailing attitudes of those controlled the media spin during this recent fire event,” said Keith Muir director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness.

“Until today the overall perception from the media was that this fire was a good one. No houses or lives lost”, Mr Muir said.

“There where no media updates on the struggle to save Blue Gum. No the reports of success in saving fire sensitive rare plants and rainforests along the escarpment edge. All the media reports spoke of bushland burnt; not on the success of any strategy to minimise the impact on the World Heritage listed national park, while saving lives and property”, he said.

“The Blue Mountains National Park Fire Management Strategy 2004 sets out all the necessary actions to protect the natural environment, as well as life and property. Yet for some reason it appears at this stage that the fire was not fought according to that agreed Strategy, as far as its provisions on natural heritage were concerned”, said Mr Muir.

“Increased fire is a major threat to World Heritage values of the Greater Blue Mountains national parks. Unless we develop and implement better strategies to defend the bush, as well as lives and property, then climate change will make this threat much worse,” Mr Muir said.

“The fire management strategies and techniques undertaken during the fire need to be re-examined to ensure the diversity of the Blue Mountains forests is protected into the future,” he said.

“Future fire management requires the feedback that only an inquiry into the Grose Valley Fire can achieve. Such an inquiry should not be taken as a criticism of those involved in fighting fire. It is an opportunity to ensure that everyone stays on fully board with future efforts to minimise fire damages,” Mr Muir said.’

[Source: Colong Foundation for Wilderness, ^http://www.colongwilderness.org.au/media-releases/2006/12/grose-valley-fire-%E2%80%93-world-heritage-takes-hit].

The magnificent rich carpeted Gross Valley, as it was

(compare with the lead photo at the start of this article, click image to enlarge)

What exacerbated the conflict was not some much that the bushfire had got out of control and had raged through the precious Grose Valley per se, but it was more the defensive, aloof reaction by ‘Firies’ which escalated into a barrage of defensive and vocal acrimony against any form of criticism of the firefighters.

In the face of such palatable denial by the Firies,of any accountability the initial shock and sadness within the local community within days quickly manifested into outrage and anger, and even to blame and accusations.

Most conservationists however felt a right to question and seek specific answers from Bushfire Management about the Grose Fires, for lessons to be learned, for fundamental changes to be made to bushfire management policy, bushfire fighting resourcing and practices, all simply so that such a tragedy should not be repeated.

But the key problem was that the ‘Firies‘ adopted an ‘in denial’ approach to a community suffering loss. Many Firies denied that they had done anything wrong and rejected any criticism by conservationists. Some Firies vented their anger in the local media attacking anyone who dared criticise. Clearly, Bushfiore Management’s debriefing and review of the bushfire in its immediate aftermath was poorly managed.

Underlying the conflict was the Firies urban fire fighting mandate to ‘protect lives and property” – that is human ones, not forests, not wildlife. Whereas what emerged with many in the Blue Mountains community was the implicit expectation that the World Heritage Area is an important natural asset to be protected, including from devastating bushfire.

The Grose Valley

Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area

Hence, it was a conflict between differing cultural value systems. It was about recognition of the value of the natural assets of the Blue Gum Forest and the Grose Valley within the Bue Mountains National Park within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

The iconic Blue Gum Forest

(Acacia Flat, before the pyrocumulus firestorm of 22nd November 2006)

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The iconic Blue Gum Forest

(The aftermath)

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20 Sep: (2 months prior)…‘Fire crews prepare’

[Source: ‘Fire crews prepare’, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20060926]

‘With warmer days just around the corner and continuing dry weather the Blue Mountains Region National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is again undertaking rigorous preparation for the coming fire season.

“Every year around this time the NPWS run a number of fire preparedness days to ensure staff and fire-fighting equipment are fully prepared for the season ahead,” said Minister for Environment Mr Bob Debus.

NSW Labor Minister for Environment

Mr Bob Debus MP

“Fire preparedness days require fire-fighting staff to check their personal protective equipment, inspect fire-fighting pumps and vehicles and ensure that communication equipment and procedures are in place and working before the fire season begins.”

Mr Debus said a number of exercises, including four-wheel drive and tanker driving, first aid scenarios, entrapment and burnovers, were also employed to re-familiarise staff with all aspects of fighting fires.

“Burnovers, where fire-fighters are trapped in a vehicle as fire passes over it, is one of the worst case scenarios a fire-fighter can face so pre-season practice is critical to ensure that their response is second nature”, he said. “Local fire-fighters have also undergone stringent fitness assessments to make sure they are prepared for the physical demands of fire-fighting – like being winched from a helicopter into remote areas with heavy equipment, to work long hours under very hot and dry conditions wearing considerable layers of protective clothing”, Mr Debus explained.

Mr Debus said that fire preparedness and fitness assessment days worked in conjunction with a number of other initiatives as part of a year-long readiness campaign for the approaching summer.

“Over the past 12 months, NPWS officers have conducted more than 150 hazard reduction burns on national park land across NSW.”

“Nineteen hazard reduction burns have been conducted in the Blue Mountains region covering nmore than 4500 ha” ~Bob Debus MP

Mr Debus said that while fire-fighting authorities are preparing themselves to be as ready as possible for flare ups and major fires, home-owners in fire prone areas of teh Blue Mountains should also be readying themselves for the approaching season. “Now is the time to start cleaning gutters, ember proof houses and sheds, prepare fire breaks and clear grass and fuel away from structures”, he said.’

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20 Nov: ‘Bushfires rage closer’

[Source: ‘Bushfires rage closer’, by Dylan Welch and Edmund Tadros, Sydney Morning Herald (with Les Kennedy and AAP), 20061120, ^http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/11/21/1163871368365.html?from=top5]

Wisemans Ferry:

‘Residents in the historic Hawkesbury River village of St Albans prepared for the worst as raging bushfires neared. Their predicament came with a fresh fire outbreak in a remote corner of Wollemi National Park, 73 kilometres north of Windsor about 2pm. A Rural Fire Service spokesman said the blaze had destroyed 450 hectares by 3pm. It was being fanned by a string of north-westerly winds and had jumped Putty Road, causing its closure to traffic between Singeleton and Richmond. Winds of up to 80kmh forecast for the early hours of tomorrow are expected to drive the fire towards St Albans. About 45 Rural Fire Service volunteers with 10 tankers have been deployed to protect the small community as residents tried to safeguard their homes from floating embers. At least two helicopters were in the air to assist the operation.

Wildfire, spot fires and back burning across the Blackheath plateau

(Photo by Rural Fire Service)

Blue Mountains:

‘Meanwhile a spokesman for the RFS, Andrew Shade, told (the Sydney Morning Herald) firefighters were waiting to see if changing winds would affect the Blue Mountains fires, which jumped containment lines overnight. “The fire is across about 7000 hectares; we’ve got 18 aircraft working the fire, including two sky cranes, [and] 400 personnel at the fire on about 60 trucks.”

..Other fires continue to burn across the state, with a number of fires across 7000 hectares in the Hunter Valley burning in remote and inaccessible areas. Two other fires, near Forbes and Bathurst respectively, are both contained but the RFS has expressed concerns over the weather and its ability to cause a change in the nature of the the two blazes. Firefighters set up a containment line to protect the outskirts of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.

Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg said today winds gusting up to 80kmh were predicted for about 3am tomorrow – a time when firefighting planes are unable to fly. At a news conference in Katoomba, Mr Koperberg described the present threat to Blue Mountain towns as “fairly serious … not grave”. However, he urged residents to clean fuel away from their homes as a precaution. This afternoon the most intense efforts were along a containment line at the northern end of Hat Hill Road at Anvil Rock. If that line was breached, the outskirts of Blackheath could be under threat, he said. Firefighters expected wind changes in the area between 4pm and 6pm today. The Bells Line of Road remains closed and the Blue Mountains National Park will remain closed until further notice.

The Great Western Highway and the Darling Causeway were open but drivers were advised to proceed with caution, with smoke likely to affect the roads. A total fire ban now applies in all but the north-east corner of the state as temperatures in the high 30s (Celsius), the strong winds and low humidity combine to produce potentially savage conditions…’

22 Nov: ‘Firefighters standing strong’

[Source: Firefighters Standng Strong’, by Shane Desiatnik, Blue Mountains Gazette, Wednesday, 20061122, pages 1 and 3,^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/standing-strong/439486.aspx?storypage=0, Ed: Note this is quoted from the paper edition, which was different to the online edition]

‘Thick smoke continues to drift across the Blue Mountains as the largest firefighting and backburning operation in the region since January 2003 enters its second week.

Hundreds of RFS volunteers, NSW Fire Brigades, SES and NPWS personnel, a number of remote firefighting units and 16 waterbombing aircraft are enlisted under a Section 44 declaration with a mission of containing and then attacking bushfires burning in the Grose Valley. The fires are believed to have been ignited by lightning on Monday, November 13 and at the time of going to press had burnt out 3800 hectares of bushland and private parkland in the valley below Blackheath, Mt Victoria, Bell and Mt Tomah.

No homes were under threat on Tuesday morning, but the RFS almost doubled its resources in the Blue Mountains on Monday night following unfavourable weather conditions.
The NSW FireBrigades also deployed extra fire engines and firefighters ot the Blue Mountains on Tuesday.

The large Blue Mountains bushfire broke its containment lines at Anvil Rock about 11 pm on Monday. Earlier, a comprehensive backburning operation involving 300 firefighters commenced on Saturday night between Blackheath and Mt Victoria to protect the townships if conditions worsened. A second phase began along Bells Line of Road between the Darling Causeway and Mt Tomah on Monday morning, continuing to Pierces Pass picnic area to the south.

The backburning activities can cause heavy smoke to linger in residential areas and residents are advised to close windows and doors. An emergency operations centre is active in Katoomba under the control of Local Emergency Operating Controller and Blue Mountains Police Local Area Commander Patrick Paroz, with the RFS as the lead combat agency.

Blue Mountains RFS community safety officer Eric Berry said remote area firefighting units will continue to attack the fire at the fringe and a fleet of 16 aircraft based in Medlow Bath airfield will operate to contain the fire.

“14 medium to heavy capacity helicopters have been operating 24/7 since last Tuesday [Ed: This contradicts the official RFS Section 44 Incident Controllers Report – Wednesday 15th not Tuesday 14th] and we now have three air crane helicopters on the job,” Inspector Eric Berry said. “This is a massive operation, certainly the biggest in the last three years. “It involves up to 300 RFS, NSW Fire Brigades, NPWS, police and SES personnel and volunteers at any one time, sourced from all over eastern NSW as well as every Blue Mountains RFS brigade. “Then there are the support services chipping in like the Salvation Army, who have been supplying breakfast at 5.30 am on a daily basis for the firefighters.”

Inspector Berry said RFS community information meetings last weekend were very successful in seven upper Mountains towns. “More than 200 residents attended one of the meetings held at Blackheath Golf Club, giving us an opportunity to explain what is going on in plain English. “More meetings may occur, but in the meantime residents should phone the RFS information line for updates. “We are getting nearly 6000 hits on our website per day and are updating the site at regular intervals.”

The Gazette visited the Medlow Bath Airfield last Friday, which continues to be a hive of activity. Six helicopters, including a giant sky crane chopper, took off and landed several times inside an hour, collecting water loads from nearby dams and dropping them into and ahead of the flames. Kev Adams, an RFS volunteer from Gloucester, described the conditions the pilots had to deal with early last week as wild.

“I came down from Gloucester last Wednesday and we went up in a chopper and the wind was blowing at about 41 knots. “We hit a pocket of turbulence and I hit my head on the ceiling even though I was strapped in, that’s how wild the wind was. “Hopefully we’ll be able to head home soon.”

Inspector Eric Berry said good progress has been made, but the weather ahead could test the containment lines.’

Ed: Additional reporting in the online version of this article:

‘Severe weather is expected for the Blue Mountains this afternoon between 2.00pm and 5.00pm. A Total Fire Ban has been declared for a number of areas across the state today, including the Blue Mountains. Temperatures in the Blue Mountains are expected to reach 31 degrees with west-north-west winds gusting up to 45km/h.

Fire behaviour yesterday was subdued due to mild conditions and the main front extinguishing in very low fuel levels. Advantage was taken of these conditions to consolidate containment lines. The fire has now been burning for fourteen days and burnt nearly 15,000 hectares.

The amount of smoke is likely to increase today. Aircraft and ground crews will be actively patrolling the fire for reactivation of fire edges. Infrared hot spot technology is being used in an attempt to identify stumps and roots that are still smouldering near the edges. Crews can then locate the hotspots and extinguish them.

The Bells Line of Road between the Darling Causeway and Mount Tomah has been re-opened but may be closed intermittently. Mount Banks and Pierces Pass trails and tracks are closed to the public. Residents in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury should remain vigilant.’

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22 Nov: ‘Bushfire breaks lines again’

[Source: ‘Bushfire breaks lines again’, 20061122, Sydney Morning Herald, (AAP), ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bushfire-breaks-lines-again/2006/11/22/1163871435049.html]

Volunteers back burn along Bells Line of Road as smoke from the fire front can be seen overhead

(Photo by Wade Laube)

‘A major bushfire burning out of control in the Blue Mountains again broke containment lines overnight ahead of forecast rugged day for fire fighters. Two separate blazes have blackened more than 8,000 hectares of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, with the larger of the two burning on a massive front about four kilometres north of the township of Blackheath.

Wind gusts of up to 70kph are forecast to push through that area, around Grose Valley, about 4am (AEDT) today. Blustery conditions expected for most of the day with temperatures in the low 30s (Celsius).

Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Phil Koperberg has said the towns of Mt Tomah and Mt Wilson would be vulnerable to a wind change. An RFS spokesman said crews had been working on a 35km containment line through the night but the bigger fire had now broken its eastern containment lines. He said crews were prepared for the “tricky” conditions expected early today, with wind gusts expected to pick up as the day gets warmer. Waterbombing aircraft cannot take off until first light but no property is currently under direct threat.

Meanwhile, a new bushfire burning in the Wiseman’s Ferry area is not posing any immediate threat to the village of St Albans, 90km north-west of Sydney. However, the RFS spokesman said that could also change depending on today’s winds. A total fire ban has been declared for much of the state today, including the Greater Sydney and Greater Hunter areas, the Illawarra and far south coast, southern and central ranges, the upper and lower central west plains and the eastern Riverina.’

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23 Nov: “Massive fire back-burn effort’

[Source: ‘Massive fire back-burn effort’, Mx (free Sydney commuter newspaper), by Matt Sun, 20061123, page 1]

‘Hundreds of firefighters are today hoping a massive 30km containment line will stop the Blue Mountains bushfire in its tracks. [Ed: Bit late, this is the day after that pyrocumulus firestorm]

About 200 Rural Fire Service and NSW Fire Brigade firefighters worked overnight on a back-burn between Blackheath and Wentworth Falls. Firefighters were on standby until temperatures dropped and winds died. They were sent in to light the back-burn as soon as conditions calmed down. Crews spent this morning back burning on the Bells Line of Road and hoping to create containment lines near the village of (Mt) Tomah if winds subside.

The RFS said 400 firefighters started work on the blaze this morning. The weather bureau forecast a maximum temperature of 27C, 45kph gusting winds and 17% humidity this afternoon.

Two fires, both ignited by lightning 10 days ago, joined up this week and have now destroyed 14,500 ha. An RFS spokeswoman said the fire was burning 2.5 km south of Mt Tomah and 7km north of Wentworth Falls…Crews and 15 aircraft will remain on standby to extinguish any spot fires that pass over teh containment line. Fire-bombing helicopters Elvis and Shania were likely to be sent to other fires burning across NSW.

The RFS today said Blue Mountains townships were not in immediate danger but should remain alert. But experts warned the extreme weather conditions would return next week, with the mercury reaching the mid 30s.’

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29 Nov: “Firefighters gain upper hand”

[Source: ‘Firefighters gain upper hand’, by Shane Desiatnik, 20061129, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/firefighters-gain-upper-hand/348587.aspx]

RFS propaganda photo for a sympathetic media

These two RFS firies are at the Evan’s Lookout backburn that was deliberatly lit by the RFS

(Photo by Blue Mountains Gazette journalist, Shane Desiatnik, 20061124)

The above photo shot taken by the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper’s lead journalist, achieved front page on 20061129. The caption read: “Assessing the aftermath: Medlow Bath RFS crew member Noah Taylor and team leader Michael Anderson near Evans Lookout last Friday.”

This same photo was re-used by the Blue Mountains Gazette a year later on 20071024 (page 7) to support an article by the Rural Fire Service incident controller in charge of co-ordinating the fire-fighting of the 2006 Grose Fire, Mal Cronstedt, who responded to an article in the paper on this subject by The Habitat Advocate dated 20071010.

‘Hundreds of weary but determined firefighters are steadily gaining the upper hand over a Grose Valley bushfire that has burned about 15,000 hectares since November 13.

Daylight waterbombing by a fleet of choppers based at Medlow Bath airfield, increasing access by remote area firefighting units, successful backburns along the northern and southern escarpments and milder than predicted weather conditions since Saturday have limited the spread of the fire.

At the time of going to press, 130 RFS, NSW Fire Brigades and NPWS firefighters and nine helicopters were conducting backburns, mopping up buffer zones and cutting in access trails to the fire’s fringes. The active front of the fire was within containment lines yesterday morning, allowing the Bells Line of Road and Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens to re-open.

A small fire that started at Mitchells Lookout in Mt Victoria on November 23 is extinguished and investigations are continuing into its cause.

Blue Mountains RFS is warning residents to remain vigilant by continuing to prepare their homes for fire if conditions worsen and to immediately report any suspicious activity to CrimeStoppers by calling 1800-333-000.

The milder conditions are a welcome relief from the heat and 100 km/h wind gusts that put residents of Hazelbrook, Linden, Faulconbridge and Winmalee on high alert last Wednesday afternoon.

An explosion within the fire, which witnesses described as causing a mushroom-like cloud to develop, ignited spotfires four kilometres north of Lake Woodford and five kilometres north of Hazelbrook. Many residents headed home early from work to clear gutters and roofs and two Winmalee schools opted to close for 24 hours as a precaution. Eighteen water-bombing aircraft attacked the spotfires, extinguishing one within hours and the second by Thursday evening.

For daily fire updates and advice, go to www.bluemountains.rfs.nsw.gov.au, phone a dedicated 24-hour hotline manned by local volunteers on 1800-264-525 or visit your local RFS station, staffed by volunteer station officers.

“These people are the unsung heroes of the RFS,” Blue Mountains RFS public liaison and education officer Paul McGrath said.

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Overwhelming grief shunned by government hush, galvanised an immense sense of environmental injustice :

It was time to challenge (with due civility) the unaccountable bastards in authority…the NSW Government:

An extract of a full page letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette 20061206 on page 13

It was commissioned by 143 concerned Blue Mountains residents

It was addressed not to the ‘firies’, but to the NSW Government.

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Pulpit Rock on the left of the Grose Valley, before the firestorm

It is easy to see why the Blue Mountains, with their Eucalytus tree oil suspended in the atmosphere, get their famous name.

(Photo by Chris Ellis)

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Tags: 2006 Grose Fires, Blackheath Escarpment, Blue Gum Forest, Blue Mountains, Blue Mountains Council, Blue Mountains Gazette, Blue Mountains National Park, Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, Bob Debus MP, Burra Korain Ridge, bushfire management, Cradle of Conservation, defacto hazard reduction, Firies, Geoff Luscombe, Grose Fire Group, Grose Valley Fires 2006, Gross Valley, Hartley Vale, hazard reduction, Neates Glen, NPWS, NSW Government, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Premier Morris Iemma, pyrocumulus cloud, RFS, RFS Commissioner Phil Koperberg, RFS Section 44 Report, Rural Fire Service
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Grose Fires 2006 – forum actions ignored

Friday, March 16th, 2012

In November 2006, two separate bushfires that were allowed to burn out of control for a week as well extensive deliberate backburning, ended up causing some 14,070 hectares of the Blue Mountains National Park to be burnt.

This wiped out a significant area of the Grose Valley and burnt through the iconic Blue Gum Forest in the upper Blue Mountains of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA).

In the mind of Rural Fire Service (RFS) and the National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales (NPWS), National Parks and World Heritage do not figure as a natural asset worth protecting from bushfire, but rather as an expendable liability, a ‘fuel’ hazard, when it comes to bushfire fighting.

This massive firestorm has since been branded the ‘Grose Valley Fires of 2006‘.

To learn more about the background to this bushfire read article: >’2006 Grose Valley Fires – any lessons learnt?‘

Pyrocumulous ‘carbon’ smoke cloud

above the firestorm engulfing the Grose Valley 20061123

About a month after the fire, on Tuesday 19th December 2006 there was apparently an ‘Inter-Agency Review‘ which took place at Katoomba behind closed doors by members of bushfire management and operating personnel involved in the fire fighting. Despite requests by this Editor, no minutes or reports of that meeting were ever forthcoming. The meeting was internal and secret.

Immediate local community outrage called for explanations and accountability from the Rural Fire Service (RFS) (the government agency responsible for rural fire fighting throughout the State of New South Wales) in charge of fighting the bushfires and for a review of bushfire management practices with a view to ensuring that the highly valued Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and iconic Blue Gum Forest in particular is protected from bushfire in future. Many members of the local community called for an independent and public review or enquiry.

One local resident wrote in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper:

‘Questioning the RFS’

by Dr Jackie Janosi, Katoomba, 20061204

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‘To start, this is directed at the upper levels of the RFS and not to the wonderful local volunteers – many of whom are loved and respected friends and colleagues.

To stop the loud community Chinese whispers and restore faith with the local community, could someone please respond with factual answers about the recent Grose Valley fire that are not reinterpreted with a political spin.

How many hectares of bush was burnt by the Grose Valley wildfire and how many was burnt by the RFS mitigation efforts?
How many houses and lives were at risk from the wildfire as versus to the RFS fire?
How many millions of dollars were spent on water bombing the RFS fire?
How many litres of precious water were used to put out the RFS fire?
Is it true that soil-holding rainforest was burnt and that the real reason for the Mt Tomah road block was erosion from the RFS removal of this natural fire-break?
Was local advice and expertise sought and followed or simply ignored?
If mistakes were made, what measures will be taken to ensure that this does not happen again?

I sincerely hope that if mistakes were made then the upper levels of the RFS can show the humility and good future planning that is now required to restore it’s good reputation. I hope that the RFS can show that it is still a community group that cares for the safety of our Blue Mountains residents, is able to respect and respond to our very special local environment and is able to make sound decisions about valuable resources.’

Ed: Her questions were never answered. With the RFS rejecting calls for a public or independent review, there was a general sense amongst many in the local community of a cover up and of gross incompetence going unaccounted for.

One of two ignitions that got out of control

– this one in ‘Lawson’s Long Alley‘, north of Mount Victoria

(Photo: Eric Berry, Rural Fire Service, 2006)

A week later, a front page article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald 20061211 by journalist Gregg Borschmann entitled ‘The ghosts of an enchanted forest demand answers‘ ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-ghosts-of-an-enchanted-forest-demand-answers/2006/12/10/1165685553891.html [>Read article]. A second in depth article by Borschmann was also run on page 10 ‘The burning question‘, ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-burning-question/2006/12/10/1165685553945.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1, [>Read article – scroll down].

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Community activists form ‘Grose Fire Group’ in protest

Within days of the Grose Valley Fires finally coming under control, some 143 Blue Mountains concerned residents informally formed the ‘Grose Fire Group’ and collectively funded a full page letter in the local Blue Mountains Gazette 20061206 asking of the RFS a different set of questions:

‘We call on the New South Wales government to:

1. Undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley fire, involving all stakeholders, with particular attention to the following questions:

Were fire detection and initial suppression timely and adequate?
Were resources adequate, appropriate and supported?
Were the adopted strategies the best available under the circumstances?
Could other strategies of closer containment have offered lower risk to the community, better firefighter safety, higher probabilities of success, lower costs and less impact on the environment?
Was existing knowledge and planning adequately utilised?
Is fire management funded in the most effective way?

2.   Ensure adequate funding is available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage.
3.   Pay for more research to improve understanding of fire in the Blue Mountains landscape and methods for fire mitigation and suppression.
4.   Improve training in strategies for controlling fires in large bushland areas.
5.   Improve pre-fire planning to support decision-making during incidents.
6.   Improve systems to ensure that local fire planning and expertise is fully utilised during incidents, and that the protection of the natural and cultural values of World Heritage areas and other bushland are fully considered.’

On 20061220, my letter was published in the Blue Mountains Gazette on page 12:

‘Blue Gum Lessons’

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‘One of our most precious natural heritage assets, the Blue Gum Forest, has been allowed to be scorched by bushfire. This demands an independent enquiry into current fire fighting practices to ensure such a tragedy is not repeated.

Not a witch hunt, but what is needed is a constructive revision into improving bushfire fighting methods incorporating current research into the issue. The intensity and frequency of bushfires have become more prevalent due to disturbances by man, including climate change.

An enquiry should consider the assets worth saving; not just lives, homes and property but natural assets of the World Heritage Area. Fire fighting methods should seek to protect all these values. It seems back-burning, however well-intentioned, burnt out the Blue Gum. This is unacceptable. What went wrong? The future survival of our forests depends on how we manage fire.’

Blue Gum Forest shortly after the firestorm

(Photo: Nick Moir, Sydney Morning Herald 20061210)

Ed: The above community questions and demands were ignored by the RFS and the New South Wales Government. Many within the ranks of the RFS came to its defence, as the following letters to the Blue Mountains Gazette reveal.

[>Read PDF version]

As letters to the editor continued over the Christmas holiday break, by January 2007, Local Member for the Blue Mountains and Minister for the Environment, Bob Debus MP finally responded by proposing that community members be given an opportunity to discuss their concerns with fire authorities and be encouraged to contribute to the development of revised fire management strategies, policies and procedures which may arise from the routine internal reviews of the 2006-07 fire season, and particularly the Grose Valley fire.

The ‘Grose Valley Fire Forum‘ was scheduled for Saturday 17th February 2007, but it was invitation only. I requested permission to attend, but by was rejected.

The incinerated remains of the Grose Valley

– now devoid of wildlife, also incinerated

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Grose Valley Fire Forum

The following is an edited account of the official ‘Report on (the) Grose Valley Fire Forum‘, which was arranged and co-ordinated by the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute (BMWHI) and which took place at Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mount Tomah on Saturday 17th February 2007. The Report is dated 16 March 2007. ‘The content of this report reflects the Forum discussion and outcomes and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute‘ – BMWHI.

The Grose Valley Fire Forum and report were undertaken by the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute at the request of the NSW Minister for the Environment, the Honourable Bob Debus MP.

Forum Participants

Associate Professor Sandy Booth – Forum Chairman and Facilitator (BMWH Institute)
Professor Ross Bradstock Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong
Mr Ian Brown BM Conservation Society
Mr Don Cameron BM Conservation Society
Mr Matthew Chambers Environmental Scientist, Blue Mountains City Council (Observer)
Dr Rosalie Chapple Forum Co-Facilitator, BMWH Institute
Mr Bob Conroy Director Central, Parks and Wildlife Division, DEC
Ms Carol Cooper Darug and Gundungurra Nations (Observer)
Superintendent Mal Cronstedt Blue Mountains District, Rural Fire Service
Mr Grahame Douglas Acting Chair, BM Regional Advisory Committee
Group Captain John Fitzgerald Blue Mountains District, Rural Fire Service
Mr Shane Fitzsimmons Executive Director Operations, Rural Fire Service (Observer)
Mr Richard Kingswood Area Manager Blue Mountains, Parks and Wildlife Division, DEC
Mr Geoff Luscombe Regional Manager Blue Mountains, Parks and Wildlife Division, DEC
Dr Brian Marshall President, BM Conservation Society (Observer)
Mr Hugh Paterson BM Conservation Society & NSW Nature Conservation Council
Dr Judy Smith GBMWH Advisory Committee Member
Inspector Jack Tolhurst Blue Mountains District, Rural Fire Service
Mr Haydn Washington GBMWH Advisory Committee Member
Mr Pat Westwood Bushfire Program Coordinator, Nature Conservation Council
Members of the general public were not permitted to attend, including this Editor, who had requested permission to attend

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List of Acronyms used in this Report

AFAC    Australasian Fire Authorities Control
ARC    Australian Research Council
BFCC    Bush Fire Coordinating Committee
BM    Blue Mountains
BMCC    Blue Mountains City Council
BMWHI Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute
BFMC    Blue Mountains District Bush Fire Management Committee
BMCS    Blue Mountains Conservation Society
CERMB    Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, Faculty of Science, University of Wollongong
CRC    Co-operative Research Centre
DEC NSW    Department of Environment & Conservation
GBMWHA    Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
GIS    Geographic Information System
NCC    NSW Nature Conservation Council
NPWS    NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Department of Environment & Conservation
RAFT    Remote Area Fire-fighting Team
CRAFT    Catchment Remote Area Fire-fighting Team
RFS    NSW Rural Fire Service

The Grose Valley from Govetts Leap, Blackheath

(Photo by Editor 20061209, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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Forum Agenda

10.00 Welcome to Country – Carol Cooper

Introduction by the Forum Chair -Sandy Booth:

Purpose
Process
Agreements
Outcomes
Reporting

10.10 Introduction and opening statement by each participant without comment

10.30 Presentations (10 mins each) by:

Mal Cronstedt (RFS) – report on agency debrief Dec 19
Richard Kingswood (NPWS) – national parks and fire management
Dr Brian Marshall President, Blue Mountains Conservation Society – local community perspective
Ross Bradstock (Wollongong University) – gaps and priorities in bushfire research for the BM

11.10 Points of Clarification

11.20 Grose Valley Fire Management

Issues not covered in RFS official Section 44 Debrief Report

11.40 Fire Management and the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (WHA) (Ed: the region affected by the fire)

Longer term and landscape scale management issues relating including climate change implications

12.00 Grose Valley Fire Management

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1.00-2.00 Lunch

Grose Valley Fire Management and the WHA (continued)

Identification of agreed list of actions, with nominated organisations and recommended timeframes

Close & Afternoon Tea (Ed: no specific time set. 5pm?)

Ed: Assuming that the forum concluded at around 5pm, the duration allocated for discussing and devising the ‘Actions’, including each Action’s Goal, Trends, Causes and Conditions, Delegation and Timeframe was just 3 hours, presuming the forum ended at 5pm.

Since there are and remain some 50 listed Actions out of this forum within a 3 hour allocated period (2pm to 5pm), just 3.6 minutes was allowed for discussing and devising the details of each Action. It is highly implausible that this could have been completed at the forum. So the question remains: were many of the Forum’s 50 Actions in fact devised outside the forum either by the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute on its own or in consultation with some of the forum attendees?

In any case none of the Actions has been undertaken. There has been no follow up report on the performance of the Actions.

This Grose Valley Forum of 2007 was just a politically contrived token talk-fest behind closed doors. Its glossy motherhood report was designed to appease critics of the RFS management of this devastating fire.

The forum was not open to the general public, nor was it independent of bushfire management’s selective bias.

The only benefit was that bushfire management would appease the critics of its handling of the fire fighting by producing a report and that most would forget. Well the purpose of this article is, out of respect for the ecology and wildlife of the Grose Valley, to reveal that report and to help ensure people do not forget.

Forum Introduction

In November 2006, fire caused by lightning strikes burnt a significant area of the Grose Valley in the upper Blue Mountains of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA). Like many areas throughout the GBMWHA, the Grose Valley is an area of high natural and cultural value, including the iconic Blue Gum Forest. The two original ignitions were designated as the Burrakorain Fire and the Lawson’s Long Alley Fire, and they came jointly under the jurisdiction of an emergency declaration under Section 44 of the Rural Fires Act.

Community members called on the State Government to undertake a thorough and independent review of the management of this fire, involving all stakeholders. Principal among the issues raised by the concerned residents were backburning, impacts of frequent fires, under-utilisation of local expertise, and economic costs. The community members also called for adequate funding for rehabilitation and environmental restoration works, to conduct more research and training in certain areas of fire management, to improve pre-fire planning
and to develop management systems to better capture and utilise local knowledge.

Local Member for the Blue Mountains and Minister for the Environment, Hon. Bob Debus responded to these concerns by proposing that community members be given an opportunity to discuss their concerns with fire authorities and be encouraged to contribute to the development of revised fire management strategies, policies and procedures which may arise from the routine internal reviews of the 2006-07 fire season, and particularly the Grose Valley fire. The Minister also noted the opportunity for the community to be informed of, and
contribute to, the development of future research projects concerning climate change and fire regimes.

The Minister invited the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute (BMWHI) to organise and chair a forum of representative community members and fire authorities. The Institute is an independent non-profit organisation that supports the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the GBMWHA, with a key objective to “support the integration of science, management and policy within and adjoining the GBMWHA properties.

The purpose of the forum was to:

Brief the community on the management of the Grose Valley fire and the framework and context for the management of fire generally within the World Heritage Area
Identify any issues that relate specifically to the management of the Grose Valley fire, and that haven’t already been captured and/or responded to within the s.44 debrief report
Identify longer term and landscape scale issues relating to the management of fire in the Greater Blue Mountains WHA, particularly in this time of climate change
Develop an action plan, which responds to any unresolved issues identified above.

In accordance with the Minister’s brief (Ed: Bob Debus), the following organisations were represented at the forum:

NSW Dept of Environment and Conservation;
NSW Rural Fire Service
Blue Mountains Conservation Society
Nature Conservation Council of NSW
Blue Mountains City Council
NPWS Regional Advisory Committee
GBMWHA Advisory Committee.

In addition to senior representatives of the agencies involved, representatives also came from the principal community-based organisations that had expressed concern and called for a review process. It should be noted that one of the main public calls for a review was made by an informal coalition of residents that was not formally represented at the forum, but a number of these residents were members of those organisations represented.

(Ed: the general public were not permitted to attend, there was no public notice of the forum in advance, and this Editor was specifically excluded from attending.)

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Forum Process

An open invitation was given to the community organisations to identify the issues of community interest and concern to be discussed at the Forum.

From these issues, a consolidated list of 22 issues (Table 1.2) was prepared by the Institute, and then circulated to all participants prior to the forum. To facilitate the workshop discussions and the detailed consideration of the identified issues, the ‘5R Risk Management Framework‘ was used to group the issues.

Following a Gundungurra and Darug ‘Welcome to Country’ by Carol Cooper, and an introduction by the Forum Chair, self-introductions and personal opening statements were made by each participant without comment. These were followed by a series of briefins on management of the Grose Valley Fire and fire management generally within the World Heritage Area. The Forum began by acknowledging that fire management in the Blue Mountains is close to best practice in many ways.

It was unfortunate that copies of the Section 44 debrief report were not available for the forum as anticipated (Ed: a copy is provided in the ‘Further Reading‘ appendix below).

While this was partly overcome through verbal presentation and comment, it limited the ability to reach consensus on the factual basis of what happened on the fire ground and to move forward productively from this point of consensus. Community representatives expressed their dissatisfaction with this situation, and it must be noted that the forum was therefore not able to engage effectively on specific issues of the control strategies used on the Grose Valley Fires.

After a brief session on points of clarification, the issues presented to the forum were explored in detail by working through a problem orientation process that asked a series of questions about each issue, to reach consensus on the exact nature of the problem. As this work progressed, a series of agreed actions were identified to effectively address key aspects of the issues as these unfolded. It is noted that the issues addressed toward the end of the day were examined in less detail due to time constraints, but warrant further attention (e.g. the issue about remote area fire-fighting teams). The original list of 22 issues was consolidated into 11 goal statements, with 50 associated actions.

The main body of this report presents the goals and actions along with documentation of the discussion that took place on the day. It utilises the structured approach to systematically work through the issues, and identify the actions required to bring about more sustainable bushfire management for the Blue Mountains. Within a week of the Forum, the Institute circulated a copy of the forum proceedings to all participants for comment and clarification. The Institute also sought identification of responsibilities for the 50 Actions identified by the Fire Forum.

It is strongly recommended that implementation of the Action Plan be reviewed annually by the representative organisations, to assess progress and effectiveness of actions. It is proposed that the BMWH Institute co-ordinate this review process in partnership with the Nature Conservation Council, with a workshop held after the 2007/08 fire season, to re-address the issues and their progress. (Ed: This was never done)

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Forum Overview

A big challenge in bushfire management is how to better integrate valid community interests with those of fire management agencies. Over recent years, the public has come to demand and expect a greater say in decision-making processes that impact upon their local environment. The Grose Valley Fire Forum represents a step forward in this process of better integrating community knowledge and interests into local natural resource management.

The Forum also illustrated that the Blue Mountains community is both a great supporter of fire authorities, and of the role of volunteer firefighters for the outstanding effort that they are prepared to undertake on behalf of the community.

The concerns and questions addressed at the forum included:

Identifying weaknesses and gaps in fire management plans and processes

How well are plans being implemented and what are the barriers to implementation e.g. financial, institutional, political?
How should fire authorities and land managers respond to climate change impacts?

Integrating scientific knowledge into fire management plans

How can bushfire management policy allow for the incomplete knowledge of complex ecological systems?
What roles should science and other research play in decision processes, given the uncertainty arising from incomplete understanding of ecosystem dynamics and insufficient scientific information?

The role of fire as an ecological process

How do we resolve the conflict between rapid fire suppression to reduce risk versus the fire-dependency of the ecosystem?
What does it take to more effectively mitigate against the risk?

Concern that fire control strategies do not compromise the significant natural and cultural heritage values of the Greater Blue Mountains region.

How can bushfire management policy better account for protection of World Heritage values?
How adaptive is bushfire management and policy to the specific circumstances of the Blue Mountains?

.
The Forum recommended actions in relation to:

Better interpretation of ecological data into decision-making and practical fire-fighting procedures
Improvements in bushfire risk management planning
Better translation of legislated objectives for protection of natural and cultural values into operational guidelines
Improved information flow between fire authorities and the community during and after major fires, including more transparency and public involvement in the review processes
Increasing funding for fire-related research, planning, risk mitigation, and post-fire ecological rehabilitation
Enhancing the preparedness, detection and rapid fire response capacity of fire authorities in response to fire ignitions
Modelling the effects of different control strategies and suppression.

The Forum acknowledged the increasing and serious challenges arising from risks associated with liabilities and litigation. These trends are of principal concern to fire management agencies and the fire fighters themselves, and many in the general community share these concerns.

Bushfire management is a cultural phenomenon, inextricably bound up between nature and culture. It involves the interaction of multiple, complex systems, including:

organisational/institutional behaviour and decision-making
fire fighting strategies and technologies
science, research and ecosystem behaviour
variable fire behaviour and weather, including climate change
politics; and
personal values and attitudes.

The complexity is increasing, especially with climate change, along with pressure for bushfire management to be more adaptive and responsive to the needs of the present and the future.
Facilitating the necessary changes in the behaviour of any of these systems is highly challenging for both government and the community. These systems often have severe constraints including limited resources, threats of litigation, and limited data on which sound decisions can be confidently made. Where these systems are not continuing to learn and adapt, is where attention is needed, not on individual accountabilities. Sound decision-making at the time of a fire event is crucial and the process by which these decisions are made requires careful
analysis. The system should be able to support open reflection after a fire, without blame or litigation. This is where a process of scientific analysis should come into its own: what the fire did, what was done to control it, what worked, what didn’t, why or why not, and what can be done to make things better. How can the system be changed and improved to make success more likely?

Research and adaptive management are essential in helping to address both current challenges and the issues arising from climate change. But alone, these will not bring about the required changes as neither of these domains explicitly addresses the overall policy process or the political realm in which bushfire management happens. Conflict and uncertainty are becoming increasingly common, as evidenced by the Four Corners Program “Firestorm” broadcast on Monday 12th March. The program featured the 2004 Canberra Bushfires and also
raised the Grose Valley fire and resulting Fire Forum.

To overcome the key problems identified by the Grose Valley Fire Forum and achieve real and lasting triple bottom line outcomes, change and innovation need to take place in the realm of governance. This is particularly the case in the areas of science, policy and decision-making.

The Grose Valley Fire Forum has brought fire management agencies and interested representatives of the community together in a spirit of co-operation to consider issues critical to the management of bushfires. Driven by the high conservation values of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, the implications of the issues raised at this Forum have obvious relevance to other regions and states. Protecting people as well as the environment should not be mutually exclusive. Our efforts to address this challenge in the Blue Mountains will increasingly come in for close scrutiny.

Notwithstanding the existing mechanisms of review and community consultation surrounding bushfire management, the Institute recommends to the Minister that the issues and actions identified herein by the Grose Valley Fire Forum warrant special consideration and support.

Properly pursued with senior political and agency commitment and support, they offer key insights and potential pathways for the continued adaptive development and implementation of state of the art fire fighting for which NSW, and in particular, the Blue Mountains are justifiably renowned.

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Issues of Community Interest and Concern

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A. Research, information and analysis

1. Commitment in fire management to conservation of natural and cultural values of World Heritage Area as well as human life and property.
2. Understanding and consideration (including on-ground knowledge) both by those involved in pre-fire planning and those required to make operational decisions during fire events -of the WH values for which the GBMWHA was inscribed on the world heritage list, and of other values, such as geodiversity, cultural values and beauty, which have the potential to be nominated for World Heritage listing in the future.
3. Biodiversity impacts of frequent fires in Grose Valley for last 40 years, including impacts of the recent fire on World Heritage values.
4. The ecological basis for fire policy (knowledge base for response of local biota to fire regimes) e.g. biodiversity loss associated both with high fire frequency and intensity, and with fire exclusion.
5. Translation of NPWS Blue Mountains Fire Management Plan (e.g. risks to natural heritage particularly World Heritage values) to S.52 operational plans during Grose Valley fire.
6. Effectiveness of review processes in generating real improvements for the future; current debriefing process performed by BFMCs [i.e. BFCC Policy 2/2006].
7. Assessment of community values – protection of property versus protection of the natural environment.
8. Implications of climate change for increased fire frequency and intensity.
9. Adequate funds for fire suppression versus inadequate funds for research, planning and fire mitigation.

.
B. Risk modification

10. Effectiveness of current risk strategies in managing fire regimes for biodiversity and community/asset protection (e.g. upper Grose Valley).
11. Implications of climate change for risk modification (e.g. fuel reduction).

.

C. Readiness

12. Skills in implementing fire control strategies for large bushland areas e.g. back-burning.
13. Ecological sustainability of current responses to fire (both suppression & bushfire risk management) e.g. knowledge and skill of plant operators in sensitive environments (environmental damage from machine work e.g. bulldozer lines).
14. Community understanding of control strategies used.
15. RAFT capacity (e.g. for night-time work).
16. Efficiency of fire detection technologies.

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D. Response

17. Back-burn control strategy from “Northern Strategic Line” and Bell’s Line of Road in large bushland area: overriding consideration for asset protection versus lack of consideration and recognition of impacts on ecological values.
18. Application of planning, guidelines, procedures & local information & expertise during fire suppression.
19. Rapid containment of lightning strike or arson fires.
20. Aerial attack efficiency and effectiveness.
21. Media – inaccurate and misleading use of language and presentation of information.

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E. Recovery

22. Funding for post-fire assessment, strategy review and ecological restoration including addressing activation of weed seed banks.

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Problem Orientation Process

(Problem Solving Methodology applied by the BMWHI to the Forum)

1. Clarify goals in relation to the issue

What goals or ends do we want?
Are people’s values clear? (there may be an over-riding goal and then more specific goals to operationalise the over-riding goal)

2. Describe trends

Looking back at the history of the issue, what are the key trends?
Have events moved toward or away from the specified goals? Describe both past and current trends.

3. Analyse causes and conditions

What factors, relationships, and conditions created these trends, including the complex interplay of factors that affected prior decisions? (e.g. environmental, social, political factors) i.e. what explanations are there for the trends?
What management activities have affected the trends?
What are the conflicts about different approaches to address the issue?

4. Projection of developments (e.g. if no action is taken to address the issue)

Based on trends and conditions, what is likely to happen in the future (e.g. if nothing is done differently).
If past trends continue, what can we expect?
Is the likely future the one that will achieve the goals?
What future possible developments are there (e.g. politically, environmentally e.g. how will climate change affect the problem)?

5. Decide on any Actions to address the problem

If trends are not moving toward the goal, then a problem exists and actions need to be considered.
What other policies, institutional structures, and procedures might move toward the goal?
What research, analysis, or public education may be needed?

* Adapted from Clark, T.W. 2002. “The Policy Process: a practical guide for natural resource professionals.” Yale University Press. U.S.

Vast hectares of the Blue Mountains’ native vegetation was either left to burn uncontrolled

or else deliberately burned by the RFS and NPWS

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Action Plan

~ a consolidated list of goals and actions [organisations delegated for executing ‘Actions’ are shown in brackets […]

1. Protection of Natural and Cultural Values

GOAL:

To protect natural and cultural heritage values, consistent with the protection of human life and property, by ensuring that bushfire management strategies:

• take a risk management approach toward protection of these values
• improve access to and interpretation of natural and cultural heritage values when deciding on fire suppression strategies and tactics
• ensure that these natural and cultural heritage guidelines for fire management are integrated throughout the entire planning framework for short, medium and long-term bushfire management and operational strategies.

ACTIONS:

1. Data collected within the “Managing ecosystem change in the GBMWHA” project, including the new GIS, to be effectively interpreted into decision-making and practical fire-fighting terms. [Responsibility for action: BMWHI & CERMB – ARC Linkage project, NPWS, BMCC, BMCS]

2. Monitor impacts of fires on Aboriginal cultural heritage values, and undertake opportunistic mapping of these values post-fire. Translate findings into decision-making and practical fire fighting terms. As a priority, undertake an opportunistic survey of Aboriginal cultural heritage post-Grose fire. [Aboriginal communities, BMWHI, NPWS]

3. Greater effort in general to be made in translating and interpreting research and other relevant information on the protection of ecological and cultural values to better inform decision-making and into practical fire-fighting terms wherever required. [CERMB, BMWHI, NPWS, BMCC, BMCS]

4. Consider further developments in environmental risk management planning by the BFCC for inclusion in the Bush Fire Risk Management Plan model template. [BFMC]

5. Effectively integrate the strategic hazard reduction plan being developed by BMCC, into the risk management plan and the operations plans. [BMCC, BFMC]

6. Translate the NPWS Fire Management Strategies objectives for protection of natural and cultural values into operational guidelines across the entire planning framework at all levels, using a risk management approach. [NPWS, BFMC]

7. Continue to identify the best mix of treatments i.e. prevention, mitigation, suppression and recovery, to achieve both fire management and land management objectives. [NPWS, RFS, BFMC]

8. Review risk management and operational plans to include relevant reserve fire management plan information, including aspects of mitigation and appropriate fire management guidelines from the RFS Environmental Code [BFMC].

9. Develop a single map-based approach for interagency use that depicts all relevant information in a user-friendly way and enables optimal use and consideration of this information under operational conditions. [NPWS, RFS, BMCC, BFCC, BFMC, BMCS]

10. Provide the outcomes of this forum to the BFCC for consideration in developing and reviewing policies and procedures such as for the Bush Fire Risk Management Policy and Bush Fire Risk Management Plan Model template. [NPWS, RFS]

11. Develop a quantitative framework for risk management: undertake research to evaluate the effectiveness of current strategies to inform the resources and strategies required to achieve integrated life, property, cultural and natural value protection outcomes. The research should identify what is the return on current ‘investment’ and the results then linked back to budgeting systems [BMWHI].

12. Undertake and improve community liaison and surveys to better capture community values within fire management plans [BFMC].

.

2. The Role of Fire as an ‘Ecological Process’

GOAL:

(2?) To better understand the role of fire as an ecological process, including the long-term ecological effects of fire regimes on fauna and flora, as a basis for identifying fire regimes that sustain the ecology both locally and across the landscape.

ACTIONS:

13. Undertake a research project using the Grose Valley fire as a case study, to ascertain and explore the opportunities to improve fire management for protection of ecological impacts [NPWS, BMCC, CERMB, BMWHI].

14. Development of a threat abatement plan for the ecological consequences of high frequency fires. [DEC]

15. Use the Blue Mountains as a case study for modelling different control strategies and suppression (e.g. analysis of suppression operations) utilising historical raw data for retrospective mapping. [RBradstock/CERMB]

16. Source external funds for priority research and investigation projects [NPWS, RFS, BMCC].

17. Undertake ecological research into the impacts of fire regimes including intervals between fires, ensuring an appropriate focus on large-scale transformation [NPWS, BMCC, CERMB, BMWHI].

18. Undertake the necessary ground-truthing investigations to ascertain whether ecological predictions are being played out. That is, are observed trends in ecosystems matching the predictions from the models? Other research and investigation priorities include:
a. Threatened species and communities, including mapping of successional processes (e.g. woodland to heathland shifts and changes to hanging swamp boundaries) and wet sclerophyll forest (e.g. Blue Gum Forest, E. oreades) and warm temperate rainforest regeneration;
b. Species composition and structure comparison of those areas burnt in 2002;

c. Species composition and structure comparison of those fires burnt with high frequency;
d. Document / map / audit weed plumes that have occurred after past fires, and similarly for the weed plumes that will already be occurring after the 2006 Grose Valley fire;
e. Build upon current research results to further elucidate how the Grose Valley responded to the ‘94 fire. [CERMB, NPWS, BMCC & BMWHI via ARC Linkage Grant]

19. Initiate appropriate involvement of the broader community in research and particularly Aboriginal people for Aboriginal cultural heritage research, in all relevant research projects. [BMWHI, NPWS, BMCC]

20. Develop mechanisms to effectively and promptly communicate research outcomes to agencies, fire-fighters and communities, and for application of these to risk management planning and human resource planning and assessment during fires. [BFMC]

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3. Review Processes and Public Communication

GOAL:

To ensure effectiveness of fire review and debriefing processes and their communication to the public by:

Communicating to the community the results of interagency review processesincluding an analysis of fire strategies and environmental impacts within major debriefs and review
Enabling greater community participation in major fire debriefs and fire reviews.

ACTIONS:

21 Urgent distribution of the section 44 debrief report to all participants in the forum. [RFS]

22 Greater provision for earlier feedback to and from the community after a major fire, regarding fire control strategies, prior to release of formal report. Also address what the barriers are to increasing community knowledge and what approaches are most effective. [RFS, BFMC]

23 Request the Coordinating Committee to revisit the s44 debrief policy and procedures and/or other appropriate mechanisms to develop an appropriate means for getting feedback from the community via a system that enables issues to be raised and feedback to be provided. The development of a policy and procedural framework for Incident Controllers may assist here. [NCC/NPWS, BMCS]

24 Undertake promotion and community education programs to familiarise the community with the framework that exists for debriefing processes and the arising information flows and decision-making processes. Incorporate this into existing Firewise program. [BFMC, RFS]

25 Encourage a culture of openness, learning and evidence-based decision-making, including understanding by volunteer fire fighters that criticism is of the process not of the implementer. [All organisations represented at forum]

26. Continue to undertake interpretation / education / media and fire-related Discovery activities. [NPWS]

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4. Climate Change and Risk Mitigation

GOAL:

To prepare for the more extreme conditions associated with climate change, by addressing the policy and management implications for control strategies and landscape management.

ACTIONS:

27. Research priorities include:

Investigate efficacy of current risk mitigation in the Blue Mountains. [NPWS, CERMB]
Climate change impacts on hanging swamps.
Build understanding of underlying shifts in environmental conditions and their effects on fire occurrence and fire behaviour.
Implications of climate change for fire behaviour and invasive species. [CERMB, BMWHI & ARC Linkage project]
Investigate plant dispersal in relation to climate change, quantifying ecological processes and habitat requirements critical to species persistence and their ability to move to new habitats given climate change. [CERMB, BMWHI & ARC Linkage project]

28. The results of this Forum should be used to advocate and lead improved dialogue and action to address the key issues pertaining to climate change and start to influence policy change. [NCC, BMWHI, CERMB, BMCS, NPWS, RFS, BMCC]

29. Investigate opportunities for increased resourcing for risk mitigation and for bushfire behaviour research. [NPWS, RFS, CERMB, BMWHI]

30. Enhance the preparedness, detection and rapid fire response capacity of fire authorities in response to fire ignitions. [Fire authorities]

31. Deliver a presentation about this forum, at the May 2007 conference of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW on bushfire and climate change. [DEC, BMWHI, NCC; 31 May-1 June 2007]

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5. Resourcing and Investment

GOAL:

Increase the availability of resources for fire-related research, planning and fire mitigation.

ACTIONS:

32. Formally approach the Environmental Trust to consider the allocation of Environmental Trust funds for use in fire related research including investigation of fire impacts. [NPWS]

33. Raise the needs and investigate the opportunities for increased commitment to rehabilitation following fire with the Catchment Management Authorities. [BFMC]

34. Allocation of additional resources for the BFMC to implement the recommendations in this document, particularly for actions resulting in strengthening risk management objectives. [BFMC members]

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6. Risk Management Strategies for Multiple Outcomes

.

GOAL:

To develop effective fire risk management strategies for mitigation and suppression in large bushland areas through:

Evidence-based plans and strategies;
Ensuring that fire fighters in wilderness and other remote areas have adequate support and training for safe and effective implementation of fire control strategies.

.

ACTIONS:

35. Address the issue of risk management planning, including investigating use of corridors for hazard reductions as part of an integrated approach that allows for ecological considerations. [Land managers/NPWS]

36. Seek more funding for community involvement in Local Government Area fire management (i.e. liaison officer position for community engagement prior to release of plan), which will assist administration/enforcement of regulatory processes. [BMCC]

37. Workshops held to provide further information regarding fire suppression in remote/wilderness areas, and BFMC to list potential contractors that could be eligible for such ecologically sound, operational training in fire control strategies for remote/wilderness areas including back-burning and bulldozer lines. [BFMC, NPWS]

.

7. RAFT Capacity

GOAL:

To improve RAFT (Remote Area Firefigfting Team) capacity to deal effectively with most remote ignitions.

ACTIONS:

38. Facilitate and support more RFS people to participate in RAFT [RFS]

39. Review and combine NPWS and RFS RAFT policy and procedures, including consideration for nighttime RAFT deployment [NPWS, RFS].
40. Address pre-deployment capacity in context of return on investment i.e. economically model across landscape to see how it meets needs and model against suppression costs [NPWS, RFS].

.

8. Fire Detection Technologies

GOAL:

To explore the potential of emerging technologies for higher efficiency in fire detection.

ACTIONS:

41. Consider the new technologies where appropriate and consider the benefits of Blue Mountains piloting new technologies for broad-scale remote surveillance, and evaluate cost effectiveness. [BF Coordinating Committee and NPWS]

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9. Aerial Attack

GOAL:

Continue to optimise effectiveness of aerial attack strategies and operations.

ACTIONS:

42. Practically strengthen record keeping during operations to assist analysis by identifying a system that is capable of catching data in real-time. [DBFMA, BFCC]

43. Identify and use some simple decision rules for aircraft deployment to maximise aircraft cost-effectiveness. [BFMC]

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10. Role of the Media

GOAL:

To have better processes in place to ensure accurate presentation of fire incident information through the media.

ACTIONS:

44. Work with the tourism industry to develop their risk management strategy. [BFMC]

45. Before/during a fire, convey explanations of what control strategies and why, to inform community. [BFMC]

46. Undertake pre-season briefs to journalists; discourage use of sensitised language (e.g. National Parks destroyed, trashed, destruction and horror, fire hell etc). [District Committee, RFS, NPWS, BFMC]

47. Engage local media in communicating exactly which areas are out of bounds, so they people don’t stop coming to remaining open areas. [BFMC]

11. Post Fire Recovery

GOAL:

To adequately fund ecological restoration after a large wildfire.

ACTIONS:

48. Approach the Environmental Trust regarding the establishment of a delineated fund (possibly from Trust Funds) to support ecological restoration which could be needed for several years post-fire and ensure initiative is appropriately linked to Section 44 state level response and also the SCA for post fire ecological funding to protect catchment values. [NPWS]

49. Ensure a strategic approach to site rehabilitation e.g. by placing an emphasis on rehabilitation of weedy sites that are a threat to natural values downstream. [Land managers]

50. NPWS to consider establishing a new dedicated staff position to coordinate and manage volunteers undertaking rehabilitation projects and activities within the Blue Mountains region of DEC. [NPWS]

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This Forum was a Farce

None of these 50 Actions has been acted upon nor implemented since 2007; now five years ago.

The entire forum process was a farce from the outset. It only served to allow those responsible to escape accountability and responsibility for incompetence and mass bush arson without reputational blemish.

RFS Incident Controller, Mal Cronstedt, relocated himself back to West Australia (Fire & Emergency Services Authority), where he was from. NPWS Blue Mountains Manager, Richard Kindswood, went on extended leave. RFS Commissioner, Phil Koperberg, was seconded by the NSW Labor Party to become Minister for Blue Mountains (i.e. promoted). Bob Debus was seconded by the Federal Labor Party to become Federal Member for Macquarie (i.e. promoted). Blue Mountains Councillor Chris van der Kley stayed on as Chair of the Blue Mountains Bushfire Management Committee.

Blue Mountains Bushfire Fighting practice, strategy, management, culture remains ‘RFS Business-as-usual’ status and similarly ill-equipped for the next bushfire catastrophe.

No lessons were learnt. More tragically, no lessons want to be learnt.

RFS: …’we know what we are doing and how dare anyone criticise us and our hard working bushfire fighting volunteers!

How it all started.

..as a small ignition ten days prior.

.

Tags: 5R Risk Management Framework, Aerial Attack, Blue Gum Forest, Blue Mountains, Blue Mountains City Council, Blue Mountains District Bush Fire Management Committee, Blue Mountains National Park, Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, Bob Debus, Bush Fire Coordinating Committee, Climate Change and Risk Mitigation, Fire Detection Technologies, Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, Grose Fire Group, Grose Valley, Grose Valley Fire, Grose Valley Fire Forum, Grose Valley Fires 2006, Inter-Agency Review, Lawson's Long Alley, Mal Cronstedt, Mt Tomah Forum, Phil Koperberg, Post Fire Recovery, Protection of Natural and Cultural Values, RAFT Capacity, Resourcing and Investment, Review Processes and Public Communication, RFS, RFS Section 44 Report, Risk Management Strategies for Multiple Outcomes, Role of the Media, Rural Fire Service, The Role of Fire as an 'Ecological Process'
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2006 Grose Valley Fires – any lessons learnt?

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

On Sunday 13th November 2006 two separate bushfire ignitions were believed to have been started by lightning just west of the Grose Valley of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, according to the Rural Fire Service (RFS). One ignition was located outside the small rural village of Hartley Vale in a valley referred to as Lawsons Long Alley, while the other was in rugged bushland at Burra Korain Head about 4 km east of the village of Mount Victoria. Ten days later catastrophe…

Pyrocumulus cloud as the Grose Valley goes up in smoke on 23rd November 2006

‘Two bushfires that were believed to have been started by lightning strikes on Monday are burning in the Blue Mountains National Park. A fire burning 2 km north of Mount Victoria has burnt out about 1100 hectares of private property and parkland and is burning on both sides of the Darling Causeway. The Darling Causeway remains closed to traffic and motorists are advised to use the Great Western Highway and Bells Line of Road as alternate routes.

A second fire burning about 5 km north of Blackheath in the Grose Valley has burnt out about 500 hectares of parkland. Waterbombing aircraft are slowing the progress of the fire as it is burning in difficult and inaccessible terrain.’

[Source: New South Wales Rural Fire Service Blue Mountains website, Fire Name: Lawsons Long Alley, Time Message Issued: 1700, Date Message Issued: 16/11/06, ^http://lists.rfs.org.au/mailman/listinfo/bluemountains-info]

At the time the RFS reported that the ‘fire is not threatening any properties or homes at this stage‘, but it was this reassurance that lulled the fire fighting effort into a false sense of security. Over the coming days the fires were not earnestly suppressed but instead allowed to burn out of control as neither were ‘threatening any properties or homes at this stage‘. Famous last words. Worse was that a series of broadscale backburns were started by the RFS at Hartley Vale, Blackheath and along Bells Line of Road – each of which at times got out of control.

Comparison with 2003 Canberra Firestorm

Three years prior, four ignitions that had been purportedly been sparked by lighting on 8th January 2003 were allowed to burn out of control in remote bushland outside Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and starting outside the ACT in NSW. At the time, those fires were deemed not to be threatening any properties or homes at that stage too. Ten days later, the four fires – McIntyre’s Hut Fire, the Bendora Fire, the Stockyard Spur Fire and the Mount Gingera Fire all coalesced into what became known as the 2003 Canberra Firestorm in which four people perished.

McIntyre’s Hut Fire 20030108 – distant, isolated and remote at this stage.

Ten days later it became the 2003 Canberra Firestorm

Three years hence, the two bushfires west of the Grose Valley after seven days had coalesced into what has become known as the 2006 Grose Valley Fires that ended up incinerating 14,070 hectares of wild bush habitat, including the iconic Blue Gum Forest down in the Grose Valley inside the Greater Blue Mountains World heritage Area .

Both catastrophic bushfires were ultimately the responsibility of the RFS in New South Wales to suppress in order to prevent them becoming uncontrollable firestorms. The RFS failed catastrophically on both occasions with RFS Commissioner Phil Koperberg at the helm. The lessons from the 2003 Canberra Firestorm had not been heeded.

An aerial view of a fire-devastated Chauvel Circle in the suburb of Chapman on 21st January, 2003 in Canberra,

where 15 of 20 homes in the street were destroyed by fire.

Four people were killed and 419 homes destroyed when the fires being fought on five fronts swept through the nation’s capital.

(Photo by Daniel Berehulak, Getty Images)

According to the report of the official enquiry into the 2003 Canberra Firestorm by ACT Coroner Maria Doogan, she states:

‘During the inquiry it was submitted that the severity of the firestorm could not have been foreseen. I do not accept this. Australia has a recorded history of extreme fire events dating back to at least 1851. As discussed in Chapter 7 (of the Coroner’s Report), CSIRO fire expert Phil Cheney predicted several years ago a conflagration of the type experienced in January 2003. He made his prediction on the basis of information in the report of one of the seven inquiries that have been held since 1986 to examine various aspects of the ACT’s emergency services.

‘The point to make here is that experiences in life, be they good or bad, serve no useful purpose if we fail to learn from them. It is hoped, therefore, that the many lessons that can be learnt from this catastrophe in the ACT are in fact learnt and result in positive action, not just supportive words and shallow promises.’

[Source: ‘The Canberra Firestorm: Inquest and Inquiry into Four Deaths and Four Fires between 8 and 18 January 2003’, Vol 1, Ch1, pp.2-3., by ACT Coroner]

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Blue Mountains Council’s response to the 2006 Grose Valley Fires

The 2006 Grose Valley Fires coalesced into a conflagration on Thursday 23rd November 2006 down in the World Heritage Grose Valley. Many in the local Blue Mountains community were outraged that this could have been allowed to have occurred. Public demands for answers finally led Blue Mountains Council two months later on Tuesday 30th January 2007 to agree to support the call of ‘concerned residents’ for the New South Wales Government to undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley Fires.

It is important to note that at the time there was a Labor Government in New South Wales, which was ultimately held responsible for both the 2003 and 2006 bushfire emergency responses.

The following is a copy of the official meeting minutes of Blue Mountains Council’s Ordinary Meeting of 20070130, two months after the 2003 Grose Valley Fires:

.

‘A Motion was moved by Councillors (Terri) Hamilton (Independent) and (Daniel) Myles (Liberal):

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1. That the Council gratefully acknowledges the efforts of all the volunteers, professionals and agencies that worked together to control the recent Grose Valley Fire.

2. That the Council, in order that improvements in fire management can continue for the Blue Mountains and other parts of NSW, as a matter of urgency, writes to the Premier of New South Wales, the Hon Morris Iemma, stating it supports the call of concerned residents on the New South Wales Government, which appeared on page 13 of the Blue Mountains Gazette of 6 December, 2006, as follows:

“1. Undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley Fire, involving all stakeholders with particular attention to the following questions:

Were fire detection and initial suppression timely and adequate?

Were resources adequate, appropriate and supported?

Were the adopted strategies the best available under the circumstances?

Could other strategies of closer containment have offered lower risk to the community, better firefighter safety, higher probabilities of success, lower costs and less impact on the environment?

Was existing knowledge and planning adequately utilised?

Is fire management funded to the most effective way?

2. Ensure adequate funding is available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage.
3. Fund more research to improve understanding of fire in the Blue Mountains landscape and methods for fire mitigation and suppression.
4. Improve research and training in strategies for controlling fires in large bushland areas.
5. Improve pre-fire planning to support decision-making during incidents.
6. Improve systems to ensure that local fire planning and expertise is fully utilised during incidents, and that the protection of the natural and cultural values of World Heritage areas and other bushland are fully considered.”

.
3. That the independent review includes addressing the questions raised by Blue Mountains Conservation Society:

a. The Blue Mountains City Council therefore supports the following adopted position of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and would like the review to address the following questions:

i.    In what circumstances are back burning from the “Northern Strategic Line” and the Bells Line of Road appropriate?
ii.   What can be improved to ensure that lightning strikes or arson fires are contained as quickly as possible?
iii. What can be done to better manage fire risk in the Grose Valley in terms of preparation and suppression to minimise damage to people, property and biodiversity?
iv. What is needed to allow remote area fire teams to be able to work at night when conditions are more benign?
v.   How can funding of bushfire management and suppression be changed to reduce overall costs to the community. (Federal funding of suppression under section 44 means funding for trail maintenance and planning is limited.)

b. If practicable, would the review also address the following?

i. The World Heritage Area contains a number of threatened species and ecological communities that, in addition to the direct threats associated with climate change, are particularly vulnerable to increased fire frequency and intensity.
ii. The effects on biodiversity of the fire regimes in the Grose Valley over the last 40 years, where there has been a succession of large intense wild fires without sufficient interval between them.
iii. Climate change predictions suggest a probability of more frequent and more intensive fire events, with significant implications for fire management and integrity of ecosystems.
iv. The Blue Mountains City Council also supports and requests involvement in the forum being organised by the Director of the Central Branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Bob Conroy, on the 17 February 2007.

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4. That the Council emphasises that the requested review should be of a scientific and technical nature.

5. That a copy of this letter be forwarded to the Minister for Emergency Services, the Hon Tony Kelly, the Member for the Blue Mountains, the Hon. Bob Debus, and the New South Wales Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam.

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Upon being PUT to the Meeting, the MOTION was CARRIED, the voting being:

FOR:

Fiona Creed (Liberal)
Terri Hamilton (Independent)
Pippa McInnes (Greens)
Daniel Myles (Liberal)
Kerrin O’Grady (Greens)
Lyn Trindall (Blue Mountains First

AGAINST:

Mayor Jim Angel (Labor)
Kevin Frappell (Labor)
Alison McLaren (Labor)
Adam Searle (Labor)
Chris Van der Kley (Liberal) and Chair of Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee

The Hartley Vale backburn 20061115 escaped up Hartley Vale Road and over the Darling Causeway (above) toward the Grose Valley to the right

(Photo by Editor 20070204, free in pubic domain, click to enlarge)

..

Editor’s Note:

Ahead of the Blue Mountains Council voting for the above motion, two Labor Councillors, Clr Chris Van der Kley (also Chair of the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee) and Clr Kevin Frappell (Labor) moved an alternative motion, however it was lost upon voting. This proposed alternative motion was labelled an ‘amendment’ but it was significantly different in detail. The proposed amendment excluded calls for an independent review (per the first item in the original motion).

This proposed amendment also excluded asking the six key questions put by the concerned residents such as ‘Were fire detection and initial suppression timely and adequate?‘, ‘Is fire management funded to the most effective way?‘, etc.

This proposed amendment also excluded that part of Item 1 which recommended strategic improvements to bushfire management such as ‘Ensure adequate funding is available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage‘ and ‘Fund more research to improve understanding of fire in the Blue Mountains landscape and methods for fire mitigation and suppression‘, etc.

This proposed amendment instead drew upon the view of the leadership of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society at the time that considered an independent enquiry would equate to criticism and assigning blame and so be politicised. This did however include advocating “an interagency and technical review process, to tease out the lessons learned.”

.

The Amendment (although lost in the Council voting) is important for the record and read as follows:

1. That the Blue Mountains City Council gratefully acknowledges the efforts of all the volunteers, professionals and agencies that worked together to control the recent Grose
Valley fire.

.
2. That the Blue Mountains City Council supports the recent position adopted by the Blue Mountains Conservation Society in relation to the Grose Valley fire in November
2006. We note and support the position of the Society when it says,

“The circumstances of the bushfire are complex and it is not in anyone’s interest for criticism or blame to be apportioned. However, there is much to be gained by looking at what was done and how it can be improved. The Society does not therefore support a large public inquiry and its attendant politicisation. Instead, the Society advocates an interagency and technical review process, to tease out the lessons learned.”

3. That the Blue Mountains City Council therefore supports the following adopted position of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and would like the review to
address the following questions:

In what circumstances are back burning from the “Northern Strategic Line” and the Bells Line of Road appropriate?
What can be improved to ensure that lightning strikes or arson fires are contained as quickly as possible?
What can be done to better manage fire risk in the Grose Valley in terms of preparation and suppression to minimise damage to people, property and biodiversity?
What is needed to allow remote area fire teams to be able to work at night when conditions are more benign?
How can funding of bushfire management and suppression be changed to reduce overall costs to the community. (Federal funding of suppression under Section 44 means funding for trail maintenance and planning is limited.)

.
If practicable, would the review also address the following?

The World Heritage Area contains a number of threatened species and ecological communities that, in addition to the direct threats associated with climate change, are particularly vulnerable to increased fire frequency and intensity.
The effects on biodiversity of the fire regimes in the Grose Valley over the last 40 years, where there has been a succession of large intense wild fires without
sufficient interval between them.
Climate change predictions suggest a probability of more frequent and more intensive fire events, with significant implications for fire management and
integrity of ecosystems.
That the Blue Mountains City Council also supports and requests involvement in the forum being organised by the Director of the Central Branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Bob Conroy, on the 17 February 2007.

Upon being PUT to the Meeting, the AMENDMENT was LOST, the voting being:

FOR:

Mayor Jim Angel (Labor)
Kevin Frappell (Labor)
Alison McLaren (Labor)
Adam Searle (Labor)
Chris Van der Kley (Liberal, and Chair of Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee)

AGAINST:

Creed (Liberal)
Hamilton (Independent)
McInnes (Greens)
Myles (Liberal)
O’Grady (Greens)
Trindall (Blue Mountains First)

[Source: Blue Mountains Council’s Ordinary Meeting, 20070130, Minute No. 7, File Ref. C01095. Subject: ‘Grose Valley Fire’, pp.15-16]

.

Editor’s Analysis:

Similar failure by the RFS and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to muster all available necessary resources to suppress and extinguished both the Lawson’s Long Alley and Burra Korain Head fires, demonstrated that lessons from the 2003 Canberra Firestorm had not been learnt. Critical time was lost in the initial days of the ignitions at both to effectively suppress the fires while they were of a small size and weather conditions relatively favourable to enable suppression.
The RFS strategy to apply excessive broadscale backburning on multiple fronts at at Hartley Vale, Blackheath and Bells Line of Road exacerbated the complexity and scale of both fires and in the most part contributed to the conflagration of all the fires down in the Grose Valley on 23rd November 2006
The shortcoming of not mustering all necessary resources to suppress and extinguish bushfires, irrespective of whether a fire is immediately affecting property and homes or not, is flawed, negligent and only heightens the inherent risk of a bushfire escalating out of control. The risk of a bushfire escalation into uncontrollable firestorm is heightened as time allows for the prospect of worsening bushfire weather conditions – increased wind, wind gusts, wind direction, temperatures, and lowering humidity – contributory factors in both the respective Canberra and Grose Valley Fires. There is no indication that this operational culture has changed.
That a bushfire is situated in inaccessible terrain is not an excuse for bushfire management not to muster all airborne and RAFT resources to suppress and extinguish it as soon as feasibly possible
After local community realisation that the bushfire had overrun the Grose Valley including burning through the iconic Blue Gum Forest on 23rd November, an informal collection of local ‘concerned residents‘ formed numbering 143 and co-ordinated by Blue Mountains resident Ian Brown. By Wednesday 6th December, within days of the fire finally being suppressed (3rd Dec), this informal group had collectively paid for a full page letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper costing $2,131.40(page 13). The letter was entitled ‘Burning Issues – fire in the Grose Valley – A statement funded and supported by concerned residents‘. The context was that detailed in Council’s carried motion above.
Blue Mountains Council’s response was simply a manifestation of the “supportive words and shallow promises” whom ACT Coroner Maria Doogan had cautioned in the Coroner’s Report into the 2003 Canberra Firestorm. No effective Council follow up to its supportive words was undertaken. Sure per Council’s carried motion, Council’s then acting General Manager, Dave Allen, sent off the letter with supportive words to the NSW Premier Morris Iemma, on 20th February 2007, but Council took no other review or enquiry action.
In the Central Blue Mountains, there are three government agencies responsible for bushfire management – the New South Wales Rural Fires Service, the National Parks and Wildlife Service as part of the NSW Department of Environment (what ever its frequently changing title) and Blue Mountains Council. Collectively these three bodies have co-operated under the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee, which was/is chaired by Blue Mountains Councillor Chris van der Kley.) and is responsible for planning in relating to bush fire prevention and coordinated bush fire fighting, as well as responsible for advising the Commissioner on bush fire prevention; mitigation and coordinated bush fire suppression. Included on the Committee is also the Commissioner of the RFS, and a nominated representative respectively from the NSW Fire Brigades, Forests NSW, NPWS, the Local Government Association of NSW, the Shires Association of NSW, the NSW Rural Fire Service Association, NSW Police, a nominee of the Minister for the Environment (then Bob Debus), a representative of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, a person appointed by the Minister on the recommendation of the NSW Farmers Association, a representative of the Department of Community Services and a representative of the Department of Lands. In March 2008, the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee (BMBFMC) staged a series of community workshops on the Plan’s review process. The Plan was approved on 14th December 2000 with a required review every five years. So by the Grose Valley Fire, the Plan was a year out of date and by March 2008 the Plan was three years out of date.
It is not surprisingly that the above proposed amendment to the Council letter to the NSW Premier excluded calls for an independent review. Those who proposed the motion and who voted for it were either all Labor Party members or in the case of Liberal Councillor Chris Van Der Kley, Chair of the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee who was operationally involved. An independent enquiry and the proposed strategic improvements to the bushfire management establishment would have likely revealed operational and government failings and recommended changes to the RFS structure, strategies, and management and importantly to its culture. The amendment was rejected anyway due to Labor having insufficient votes on Council.
On Sunday 13th November 2006 two separate bushfire ignitions were believed to have been lit by lightning just west of the Grose Valley of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area by the RFS. Following a back burn/hazard reduction burn that had got out of control up Hartley Vale Road and crossed the Darling Causeway, on Wednesday 15th November the RFS declared a formal escalation to a Section 44 bushfire emergency. This four day delay in detection and suppression is unexplained by the RFS.
Despite the calls by the concerned residents (with Blue Mountains Council’s supportive words) for the ‘NSW Government to undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley Fire, involving all stakeholders, so such independent review was done.
The local Labor member for the NSW Seat of Blue Mountains at the time and NSW Minister for the Environment was Bob Debus MP, who categorically refused requests for either an independent review or a public review into the management of the Grose Valley Fires.
The Blue Mountains Conservation Society (BMCS) similarly rejected calls for a public enquiry, stating “the circumstances of the bushfire are complex and it is not in anyone’s interest for criticism or blame to be apportioned. However, there is much to be gained by looking at what was done and how it can be improved. The Society does not therefore support a large public inquiry and its attendant politicisation. Instead, the Society advocates an inter-agency and technical review process, to tease out the lessons learned.” It needs to be pointed out that key committee members of the BMCS were/are also active members of the RFS, which raises the issue of and actual or perceived conflict of interest.
There were two reviews of sorts, none independent and none public.

On Tuesday 19th December 2006 there was apparently an ‘Inter-Agency Review‘ which took place at Katoomba behind closed doors by members of bushfire management and operating personnel involved in the fire fighting. Despite requests by this Editor, no minutes or reports of that meeting were ever forthcoming. The meeting was internal and secret.
On Saturday 17th February 2007, there was a ‘Grose Valley Fire Forum‘ held at Mount Tomah organised by Director of the Central Branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Bob Conroy, and the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute. Only selected participants were permitted to attend – mainly from the bushfire management, fire experts and selected members of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society. A copy of the report of that forum will be publicised on this website shortly.

Following ongoing community concerns about the lack of transparency, no evidence of any lessons being learned from the Grose Valley Fires and even of a cover up into some of the operational decisions, in January 2007 Bob Debus MP announced a suggestion of there being an Environmental Summit to be staged in the Blue Mountains to provide the first public forum into important environmental issues affecting the Blue Mountains region, notably to discuss the Grose Valley Fire. Well, by the time the summit eventuated it was over a year later and held on the weekend of 23rd and 24th February 2008. By then Bob Debus had moved to federal politics (though still representing the Blue Mountains via the Seat of Macquarie. The summit was chaired by the RFS Commissioner responsible for the 2006 Grose Valley Fires, Philk Koperberg (now local Labor MP) and even the bushfire Incident Controller of the 2006 Grose Valley Fires, RFS Superintendent Mal Cronstedt, was in attendance. However, the summit was now called a conference and the agenda had expanded to many issues including Energy, Social Systems, Natural Systems and Water. Discussion about bushfire was restricted to a two hour workshop and so available time to the Grose Fire to one or two questions which copped only official spiel. It was a classic Labor tactic or stalling on accountability until the community gives up or forgets.
Since 2006, the Blue Mountains community still doesn’t know whether in the 2006 Grose Valley Fire or currently:

Fire detection and initial suppression was/is timely and adequate?

Whether bushfire management resources were/are adequate, appropriate and supported?

Whether in the Grose Valley Fire the adopted strategies were the best available under the circumstances?

Whether other strategies of closer containment could have offered lower risk to the community

Whether currently it has better firefighter safety, higher probabilities of success, lower costs and will cause less impact on the environment?

Whether existing knowledge and planning is adequately utilised?

Whether bushfire management is funded to the most effective way?

Is adequate funding available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage?

.

Another three years hence, in the Blue Mountains we have witnessed from afar the catastrophic Victorian ‘Black Saturday’ Bushfires of 7th February 2009.

.

Another three years hence in 2012, have we learnt anything?

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Tags: 2003 Canberra Firestorm, Bliue Mountains Conservation Society, Blue Gum Forest, Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee, Blue Mountains City Council, Blue Mountains National Park, broadscale backburning, Burra Korain Fire, Burra Korain Head, funding of bushfire management, Grose Valley Fire Forum, Grose Valley Fires 2006, Labor Government, Lawsons Long Alley Fire, McIntyre's Hut Fire, Northern Strategic Line, NSW Rural Fire Service, RFS, RFS Commissioner Phil Koperberg, RFS Superintendent Mal Cronstedt
Posted in Blue Mountains (AU), Threats from Bushfire | No Comments »

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Blue Gum Forest still not valued by RFS

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

The Blue Gum Forest’s fire-scarred trees of December 2006

some of which have graced the Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains for hundreds of years.

Photo: Nick Moir (Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 20111211, Front Page)

The following articles are drawn from those by Gregg Borschmann, the first of which hit the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday 11th December 2006, following the massive bushfire conflagration that coalesced in the Grose Valley on 23rd November 2006.

From the community’s perspective, no noticeable lessons have been since learned by the Rural Fire Service (RFS) responsible. The prevailing bushfire management culture is that unless private property is directly, bushland is not valued and so not defended from bushfire. Indeed the approach is to let a bushfire burn as a defacto hazard reduction, so long as it doesn’t threaten human life or property. The RFS does not consider bushland an asset worth protecting from bushfire no matter what its conservation value, so with such a mindset such an ecological tragedy could well happen again.

‘The ghosts of an enchanted forest demand answers’

[Source: ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-ghosts-of-an-enchanted-forest-demand-answers/2006/12/10/1165685553891.html]

‘More than seventy years ago this forest inspired the birth of the modern Australian conservation movement. Today Blue Gum Forest stands forlorn in a bed of ash. But was it unnecessarily sacrificed because of aggressive control burning by firefighters focused on protecting people and property? That is the tough question being asked by scientists, fire experts and heritage managers as a result of the blaze in the Grose Valley of the upper Blue Mountains last month.

It was claimed that critical opportunities were lost in the first days to contain or extinguish the two original, separate fires.
Evidence emerged that escaped backburns and spot fires meant the fires linked up and were made more dangerous to property and heritage assets – including the Blue Gum Forest. One manager said the townships of Hazelbrook, Woodford and Linden were a “bee’s dick” away from being burnt. Another described it as “our scariest moment”. Recognising the risk of the backburn strategy, one fire officer – before the lighting of a large backburn along the Bells Line of Road – publicly described that operation as “a big call”. It later escaped twice, advancing the fire down the Grose Valley.
Concerns were voiced about the role of the NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Phil Koperberg.
Members of the upper Blue Mountains Rural Fire Service brigades were unhappy about the backburning strategy.
There were doubts about the mix and sustainability of resources – several senior managers felt there were “too many trucks” and not enough skilled remote-area firefighters.
Scientists, heritage managers and the public were angry that the region’s national and international heritage values were being compromised or ignored.
There was anecdotal evidence that rare and even common species were being affected by the increased frequency and intensity of fires in the region.
Annoyance was voiced over the environmental damage for hastily, poorly constructed fire trails and containment lines, and there were concerns about the bill for reconstruction of infrastructure, including walking tracks.

The Herald has since confirmed from numerous senior sources that “overt and covert pressure” from head office was applied to the local incident management team responsible for fighting the fire.

The Herald has also confirmed that

The original fire lit by a lightning strike near Burra Korain Head inside the national park on Monday, November 13, could not be found on the first day. The following day, a remote area fire team had partly contained the fire – but was removed to fight the second fire. The original fire was left to burn unattended for the next couple of days;
An escaped backburn was responsible for the most direct threat to houses during the two-week emergency, at Connaught Road in Blackheath. However, at a public meeting in Blackheath on Saturday night, the Rural Fire Service assistant commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons played down residents’ concerns about their lucky escape. “I don’t want to know about it. It’s incidental in the scheme of things.”

Blackheath escarpment broadscale backburn – “incidental in the scheme of things“?

(Photo by Editor 20061209, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

Mr Koperberg, who is retiring to stand as a Labor candidate in next year’s state elections, rejected the criticisms of how the fire was fought.

He told the Herald: “The whole of the Grose Valley would have been burnt if we had not intervened in the way we did and property would have been threatened or lost. We are looking at a successful rather than an unsuccessful outcome.

“It’s controversial, but this is world’s best backburning practice – often it’s the only tool available to save some of the country.”

Phil Koperberg

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner at the time of the Grose Fire

The district manager of the Blue Mountains for the Rural Fire Service, Superintendent Mal Cronstedt, was the incident controller for the fire.

Asked if he would do anything differently, Mr Cronstedt answered: “Probably.” But other strategies might have also had unknown or unpredictable consequences, he said.

Mr Tolhurst, who has 50 years’ experience in the Blue Mountains, said: “This fire is the most contrary fire we have ever dealt with up here.”

John Merson, the executive director of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, said fire management was being complicated by conditions possibly associated with climate change.

“What we are seeing is a reflex response that may no longer be appropriate and doesn’t take account of all the values we are trying to protect.”

Grose Valley incinerated 23rd November 2006

(Photo by Editor 20061209, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

..

‘The burning question’

[Source: ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-burning-question/2006/12/10/1165685553945.html]

‘A bushfire scars a precious forest – and sparks debate on how we fight fire in the era of climate change.

“Snow and sleet are falling on two bushfires burning in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.” ~ ABC Radio, November 15 (2006).

The news report was almost flippant, something that could happen only in Dorothea Mackellar’s land of drought and flooding rains. Later that evening, two weeks from summer, Sydney had its coldest night in more than a century.

Over the past month – as an early summer collided with a late winter and a decade-long drought – NSW and Victoria have battled more than 100 bushfires. But of them all, last month’s Blue Mountains blaze reveals tensions and systemic problems that point to a looming crisis as bushfire fighters struggle to protect people, property, biodiversity and heritage values in a world beset by climate change.

But now the valley is under threat from an old friend and foe – fire.

Ian Brown has worked on dozens of fires in the Blue Mountains. He is a former operations manager for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

For Brown, even more worrying is the trend.

Bradstock says that in south-eastern Australia the potential for shifts in fire frequency and intensity are “very high … If we’re going to have more drought we will have more big fires.”

Wyn Jones, an ecologist who worked for the wildlife service, says the extremely rare drumstick plant, Isopogon fletcheri, is a good example. There are thought to be no more than 200 specimens, restricted to the upper Grose. Last week, on a walk down into the Blue Gum Forest, Jones found three – all killed by the fire.

The great irony of the fire is that it was better weather, low fuels and close-in containment firefighting that eventually stopped the fire – not big backburns.

Curiously, one unexpected outcome of the great Grose fire may be that the valley sees more regular, planned fire – something the former wildlife service manager Ian Brown is considering.

It may be the only hope for Isopogon fletcheri.

Fletcher’s Drumstricks (Isopogon fletcheri)

http://www.anbg.gov.au

.

Distribution of Isopogon fletcheri is restricted to a very small area in the Blackheath district of the Blue Mountains.

Given restricted distribution, it is susceptible to local extinction due to environmental and demographic uncertainty and in particular pathogens such as Phytophthora cinnamomi.
What needs to be done to recover this species? Continued habitat protection.
http://www.threatenedspecies.environment.nsw.gov.au/tsprofile/profile.aspx?id=10440

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What price now?

[Source: ^http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/what-price-now/2006/12/10/1165685553948.html?page=2]

The Blue Gum Forest stands tall, straight and surreal in a fire-ground of still smouldering ash. Three weeks ago it was intensely burnt during bushfires in the Grose Valley. The future of the iconic forest – some trees are thought to be 200 to 300 years old – now hangs in the balance.

Last week the massive white-trunked blue gums were dropping their scorched leaves to reveal a stark and unrecognisable forest of tall trunks, bare limbs and fallen logs.

The director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Keith Muir, did not speak out during the fires, but now he wants answers.

“Could the Blue Gum have been saved using other firefighting strategies that also protected life and property?
Was the fire that burnt this very special forest made more intense, unpredictable and extensive by massive backburning operations?
Was the Blue Gum sacrificed for the sake of a de facto fuel reduction exercise that didn’t consider heritage values?
We need answers. We need an independent inquiry. This is too important to happen again.”

In the early 1930s the Herald supported a campaign by bushwalkers to save the Blue Gum from grazing and agricultural development. It was the first successful Australian conservation campaign to protect an almost pure stand of tall mountain blue gum ( Eucalyptus deanei) on about 40 hectares of river flats in the rugged Grose Valley of the upper Blue Mountains. The bushwalkers raised £130 to buy the lease covering the forest and create the Blue Gum Forest Reserve.

The Herald visited the Blue Gum Forest again last week with a forest ecologist, Wyn Jones, and Ian Brown, former National Parks and Wildlife Service operations manager with overall responsibility for fire management. In 1994 Jones, then an ecologist with the service, helped to describe scientifically the rare and newly discovered Wollemi pine. He first saw the Blue Gum Forest more than 40 years ago. He has been involved with it professionally and as a bushwalker ever since.

He said the forest would re-shoot and regrow, but it remains to be seen when and how. He predicted its immediate future would be decided over the next six months. That would depend largely on the vagaries of climate. Severe wind storms, a hot dry summer or even persistent rain, fungal growth and insect attack could all compromise the forest’s ability to bounce back quickly.

More uncertain and potentially bleak is the long-term prognosis. Jones said changing fire regimes caused by humans could be further complicated by climate change, a recipe for more frequent and hotter fires.

The Blue Gum Forest has been burnt four or five times in less than 50 years: by wildfire in 1957, possibly 1968, and in 1982, 1994 and 2006.

“Without human interference , this forest may have been burnt once or perhaps twice in 50 years, not five times,” Jones said.

Jones is convinced cracks in majestic gums were caused by the fire. If they are deep enough to effectively ringbark the surviving trees, then the demise of the forest promises to be a slow and painful affair.

“The old Blue Gum Forest is gone,” he said. “We don’t know what the Blue Gum of the future will look like. We could be heading for strange and very different days.”

===========

‘Friends of the giants’

In 1931 the Herald’s conservation reporter, J.G. Lockley, writing under the name Redgum, led a campaign to save the Blue Gum Forest.

“To destroy the trees would be unforgivable vandalism .. if they are permitted to stay, they will stand straight and true for many generations … Every acre on which those grey gums are growing should be reserved for the distant days, when the nation will know the true worth of the giant trees, which are not understood.”

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‘Blue Gum Lessons’

(Editor’s letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette, 20061220)

‘One of our most precious natural heritage assets, the Blue Gum Forest, has been allowed to be scorched by bushfire. This demands an independent enquiry into current fire fighting practices to ensure such a tragedy is not repeated.

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A Grose Valley Fire Forum was held at Mount Tomah on Saturday 17th February 2007, but the public were denied entry.

An independent enquiry was never conducted. A public enquiry was never conducted.

.

Tags: backburns, Blackheath, Blue Gum Forest, Blue Mountains, Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, broadscale backburning, ecological values, forest values, Grose Valley, Grose Valley Fires 2006, Isopogon fletcheri, Mal Cronstedt, old growth, Phil Koperberg, RFS, Rural Fire Service
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Grose Leadership

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

The following article was first published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper 20060122:

Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains

[Source: AK Bushwalks, ^http://mywebdots.com/bushwalks/?page_id=26]

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A tall moist open forest dominated by Blue Gum (Eucalyptus deanii) characterises the famous ‘Blue Gum Forest’ at the junction of the Grose River and Govetts Creek in the Grose Wilderness.

But there would be no Blue Gum Forest if it were not for the efforts of a dedicated band of very fit bushwalkers seventy odd years ago. In 1931, under the leadership of Myles Dunphy, the ‘save Blue Gum Forest’ campaign was ignited by the threat by a leaseholder on the Grose River/Govetts Creek junction wanting to clear the icon stand of tall blue gums for cattle grazing. Consisting of members of the Wildlife Preservation Society, the Sydney Bush Walkers and the Mountain Trails Club, they formed the Blue Gum Forest Committee. Hard campaigning secured purchase of the forest for £130, which they handed back to the Crown and on 2^nd September 1932 was proclaimed a recreation reserve. They unknowingly in their bold defence of the Blue Gum Forest, established what has become known as Australia’s ‘cradle of conservation‘.

It took another 27 years of wilderness campaigning for The Blue Mountains National Park to be proclaimed in 1959 and the Blue Gum Forest incorporated two years later.

Despite deserved World Heritage listing in 2000, the Grose has again come under threat. This time last year, tonnes of caramel sediment from highway upgrade stockpiling at Leura started choking Govett’s Creek. Seems the RTA simply underestimated Mountains weather.

To the credit of Leura residents, grassroots leadership has again emerged to defend the Grose and to hold the RTA accountable. A year hence, council has responded with a working party to develop remedial actions, although ‘in-creek’ action remains wanting. Abundant photographic evidence and a moral obligation warrant the RTA fund ecological remediation.

Caramel-coloured construction sediment from the RTA’s Trucking Expressway

Leura, Blue Mountains 2006

(click photo to enlarge, the click again to enlarge again)

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But where was the custodial manager of the Grose while the damage was being reported? The Department of Environment and Conservation (National Parks) and the environmental enforcer (the EPA) have been conspicuously muted to environmental breaches caused by their sister government agency.

RTA sediment from the upstream Trucking Expressway development

polluting Govetts Creek inside the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

Photo of Editor in Govetts Creek, Leura, Blue Mountains 2006

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Tags: Blue Gum, Blue Gum Forest, Blue Mountains National Park, Cradle of Conservation, creek polluton, EPA, Eucalyptus deanii, Govetts Creek, Grose River, Grose Valley, highway sediment pollution, RTA Blue Mountains, trucking expressway, Wildlife Preservation Society
Posted in Blue Mountains (AU), Threats from Road Making | Comments Off on Grose Leadership

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Just Think

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area

..owes its initial salvation to legendary trail blazers Alan Rigby, Myles Dunphy and others of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club in 1931,

who saved the Blue Gum Forest from the threats from farming destruction.

[Photo by Editor 20060625, free in public domain]

“We cannot really live for commerce alone, nor will our civilisation be deemed great until we thoroughly recognise the fact that the bushlands and all they naturally contain are gifts of Nature far transcending in value all monetary and commercial considerations.

The humanising gifts of Nature are necessary for our interest, education, adventure, romance and peace of mind.

They constitute the antidote for the evils of our semi-artificial existence. As we destroy our bushland environment we destroy just so much of ourselves. The balance of Nature is finely adjusted: upset it, and there will be a desert at our doors.

All the glory of the canyons, caves and rolling plateau of our great Blue Mountains is not nearly so much a commercial asset as it is Nature’s heritage for legitimate enjoyment, and our own gift to prosperity.”

[Myles J. Dunphy, The Katoomba Daily, Friday 24th August, 1934].

Back on Saturday 28th May 2005, the editor was privileged to participate in a special day to farewell Myles Dunphy’s son, Milo Dunphy. Made welcome by the Dunphy family and close friends, I shared a special trek into the outer Blue Mountains wilderness and celebrate scattering the ashes of Milo Dunphy back into his wilderness home of the Blue Mountains.

Despite being blown by chilling winds and under a big blue Australian sky, our dedicated group persisted along a remote, little known foot track up to Kanangra Tops. For Milo the man and the legacy, we arrived in pristine wilderness as far as the eye could see, all thanks to Milo’s life campaign to protect it.

Milo Dunphy lead an environmental cause since the 1960s, saving Colong Caves, the Kanangra, the Komung, the Boyd, the Grose. Milo was the catalyst for what we are all now thankfully able to appreciate from the many trails and lookouts throughout The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. The legacies of the life works of Myles Dunphy and his son Milo deserve recognition and celebration.

Tags: Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Milo Dunphy, Myles Dunphy, Sydney Bushwalkers Club
Posted in 34 Wildlife Conservation!, Blue Mountains (AU), Threats from Farming | 1 Comment »

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Posts Tagged ‘Blue Gum Forest’

Cradle of Conservation left to incinerate, again

Blue Gum Forest – Australia’s Cradle of Conservation

History of Neglectful Arson

Grose Valley Arson in November 2006

Grose Valley Arson of December 2019

Now government paid white collar fire chiefs have had their way. Forest incineration complete. Easy-peasy till retirement.

Further Reading:

Blue Gum Forest – in 2006 Parks let it burn

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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Hazard Reduction Revenge

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2006 Grose Fires: the realisation of a tragedy

A heritage tragedy unfolds

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Community shock, sadness and overwhelming sense of loss

‘The Blue Gum‘

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Deafening silence from the ‘Firies’ naturally attracted community enquiry and suspicion

Injustice

6th Dec: ‘Park managers take stock as smoke clears’

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Mismanagement?

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‘Grose Valley Fire – World Heritage takes a hit’

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20 Sep: (2 months prior)…‘Fire crews prepare’

“Nineteen hazard reduction burns have been conducted in the Blue Mountains region covering nmore than 4500 ha” ~Bob Debus MP

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20 Nov: ‘Bushfires rage closer’

22 Nov: ‘Firefighters standing strong’

Ed: Additional reporting in the online version of this article:

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22 Nov: ‘Bushfire breaks lines again’

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23 Nov: “Massive fire back-burn effort’

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29 Nov: “Firefighters gain upper hand”

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Overwhelming grief shunned by government hush, galvanised an immense sense of environmental injustice :

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Grose Fires 2006 – forum actions ignored

‘Questioning the RFS’

Ed: Her questions were never answered. With the RFS rejecting calls for a public or independent review, there was a general sense amongst many in the local community of a cover up and of gross incompetence going unaccounted for.

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Community activists form ‘Grose Fire Group’ in protest

‘Blue Gum Lessons’

Ed: The above community questions and demands were ignored by the RFS and the New South Wales Government. Many within the ranks of the RFS came to its defence, as the following letters to the Blue Mountains Gazette reveal.

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Grose Valley Fire Forum

Forum Participants

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List of Acronyms used in this Report

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Forum Agenda

Ed: Assuming that the forum concluded at around 5pm, the duration allocated for discussing and devising the ‘Actions’, including each Action’s Goal, Trends, Causes and Conditions, Delegation and Timeframe was just 3 hours, presuming the forum ended at 5pm.

In any case none of the Actions has been undertaken. There has been no follow up report on the performance of the Actions.

This Grose Valley Forum of 2007 was just a politically contrived token talk-fest behind closed doors. Its glossy motherhood report was designed to appease critics of the RFS management of this devastating fire.

The forum was not open to the general public, nor was it independent of bushfire management’s selective bias.

Forum Introduction

(Ed: the general public were not permitted to attend, there was no public notice of the forum in advance, and this Editor was specifically excluded from attending.)

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Forum Process

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Forum Overview

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B. Risk modification