The Royal Commission into Victoria’s ongoing bushfires will intensify scrutiny of the controversial “prepare, stay and defend” policy. While much lauded by many, the policy has also drawn its share of sharp criticism from international spectators.
Most recently, the program has come under attack from the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Harold Schaitberger. He said in an article for the Los Angeles Times, published in January, that “stay-and-defend … should make people run and hide.”
Schaitberger was addressing a recent push from within some Californian fire services to mirror the Australian policy of letting residents choose to stay and defend properties threatened by bushfire. In his opinion: “Hearing anyone suggest that homeowners should not get out of harm’s way is appalling … Stay-and-defend is clearly a half-baked idea from people who believe that saving money is more important than saving lives.”
While acknowledging that the policy has had some success in Australia, he added that “it has also led to disaster,” arguing that it wouldn’t translate to a state as populous as California.
Australia is quite isolated in the international community when it comes to adopting the stay and defend policy. The approach in Canada and the United States, with some exceptions, is to evacuate residents who are at risk of injury due to fire. Police can even force people to evacuate.
Fire services here argue that “a well-prepared home is often the best place to shelter from a fire-front.” The emphasis is on preparation. The CFS has previously stressed the importance of knowing whether you will stay and defend or leave early before a fire threatens your property. On their website, the CFA says [pdf]: “If you are well prepared for a bushfire and are physically able to protect your house once the fire has passed, you have a very good chance of surviving by remaining with your home.”
The question is, are people well-prepared? A recent study of the fires in Hobart on 11 October, 2006, found that of the people who stayed to defend their property, less than half had followed advice to develop a fire plan before the event. Despite the limited nature of the case study, this figure is worrying because it suggests a general complacency in terms of preparing for fire. A similar proportion of people in fire-prone areas not developing a fire-plan would indicate a severe shortcoming in the prepare, stay and defend policy.
Tragically, when it comes to the events of the last week, Premier Brumby told ABC television that “it didn’t matter how good people’s fire plans were.
“When the wind changed — particularly around Kinglake — when it came back up the hill there was nothing that anybody could have done.”
That in itself raises questions about whether the stay and defend policy is appropriate when confronted with the most extreme conditions. According to Schaitberger, it isn’t.
Wading into the debate, David Gillet, Brigade Captain for the Country Fire Authority in Anakie, told the LA Times that any examination of stay and defend “will find the policy is right because we’ve proved time and time again that it works”.
But in the face fires like those Victoria has experienced in the last week, he conceded that the policy may be limited. “The conditions were just too extreme, so ripe, I’m not sure some of those homes were defendable,” he reportedly said.
“Maybe we need to tell people, ‘Yes, you can stay and defend your house, up to certain level. But once you reach that level, maybe you’ve got to get out’.”
Brumby did the right thing the day before with regards to warning and was widely quoted even in the NSW media as asking people who didn’t need to be in the hills around Melbourne to stay home. Better would have been to say “if you plan to leave this is the day to go and please be gone by 9am”. Obviously it could be put out over text messages etc as well and this should happen. You can’t rely on media radio coverage etc to warn everyone as fires start, these things blow up too quickly. As a volunteer it can also be very confusing getting an accurate picture of a rapidly changing fire situation over the fire services network even with good information and common jargon, mapping skills etc.
The problem is also the sheer number of people as there are probably at least half a million around each of Sydney and Melbourne for the bad days. All the climate science also suggests there will be more of these, perhaps 8-10 per year by 2050. This is a lot of people on the road with kids, pets, treasures etc and where do they go? I think this is why we should be looking at new multipurpose halls constructed to very high standards in each town, located centrally and within an oval or similar to cut down on travel. Human nature means that if we have a lot of these warnings and no big fires people will get complacent and not evacuate. Fits nicely with local economic stimulus too right now.
For this reason a home bunker at each house might be the solution as it will also shelter those who choose to stay and defend. From the pictures we’ve seen and the stories from Greece and California in recent years the last place you want to be is driving around in smoke, with trees falling, moving fires and people panicking. Read the Crikey bunker story also.
The relevant bodies (CSIRO, Bushfire CRC etc) need to get onto a set of standard bunker designs for various sizes and situations and get them built. The bottom line is “stay or go early” needs refining not scrapping.
The policy of stop or go early requires decision-making under stress by people who may not be equipped to make such decisions.
There are really two decisions: first, deciding when to make the decision to go or stay and, secondly, actually deciding whether to go or stay. The first decision is the crucial one. Many people will have little idea about when is the right time. If the decision-maker leaves the go or stay decision too late the fire gets closer and closer and the pressure on him or her increases. The wrong decision is made to go or stay and it is made too late.
Highly-trained soldiers make the wrong decision under pressure. Why should we expect relatively untrained civilians to make the right one? There is a lot to be said for compulsory evacuation.
Christine Nixon, when asked why Victoria had done away with compulsory evacuation, said “people are adults”. She was implying that they can make their own decisions. But most decisions adults have to make are considerably less stressful than decisions in the face of fire. We should take account of this as we look again at our fire policies.
This whole idea that people are better off running than staying to defend their homes ignores the fact that many people do a lot better in staying. I think the point here is the timing and the preparation. Many a house has been saved in bushfires over the years by early preparation (removing flammables from the backyard, clearing the gutters etc) and by good preparation on the day (blocking the gutters and then flooding them, wetting the lawn, wetting the house, sealing the windows etc). Put it this way: those who hadn’t taken precautions would, indeed, be better running in many cases. Those who took precautions, in many cases, could remain and keep the house standing if they had enough time and resources at their disposal.
But, that said, bushfires are unpredictable, intense and a force of nature that you don’t understand until you’ve been in it. They are scary beasts to confront, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing and especially if you leave it to the last minute to leave. Our hearts go out to all those affected and to the families now wanting to know why it happened and what, if anything, could have been done to avoid such a terrible outcome. Attributing blame does not achieve much at a time like this. The reality is that we live in an unforgiving country that has had fires like this for thousands of years and will continue to do so. Now is a time to re-build and look after those who are doing it tough.
Excellent article — I was motivated to come to the page & ‘vote’ on it by Michael Gawenda’s endorsement in today’s email.
But it’s a pity it closes on the distressingly vague note of Gillet’s ‘up to a certain level’ — who can be expected to judge the lethality of a wild fire before it hits? No-one could have anticipated the ferocity of Saturday’s blazes; the conditions after the heat wave of the week before were unprecedented in living memory.