Trans Scan: a global scan of emerging trends in mobility and the built environment

Black Saturday: a look at possible new policy changes

“BY 2020 we expect to see more extreme fire weather days, longer fire seasons and a greater potential for multiple fire events like those we saw in Victoria in early February 2009.”

- Kevin Hennessy, Principal Research Scientist
CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship.

IN late August Victoria’s Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires is scheduled to publish its interim report and make recommendations for any immediate actions that might be needed to reduce threats during the 2009-2010 fire season.

Many of the recommendations both from that report and the final document scheduled for release by July next year are likely to have national relevance, not only on the way bushfires are fought but also on communications, land management, the way outer urban and regional communities are planned, buildings fire-proofed and escape routes organised.

Yet climate change and a succession of recent and separate research findings already suggest major policy updates are needed. For example there is evidence that:

• Some communities in high fire risk areas are becoming less able to protect themselves - both physically and financially.
• Twice as many people may have been killed in Victoria’s preceding heatwave than in the fires. (See more details on page 6 of TransScan’s June edition.)
• Climate uncertainty is creating a public demand for data detailing the risks of living in particular areas.
• Wildfires are aggravating climate change.
• Arsonists not nature are causing most bushfires. (See chart on page 4 of TransScan’s June edition.)
• More government agencies - including planning - need to become involved in developing anti-arson strategies.
• With “natural” disasters including bushfires predicted to get worse, the public needs basic training in how to prepare mentally.

In the aftermath of Black Saturday relief workers and local planning authorities are discovering just how comprehensive, efficient and readily adaptable their efforts need to be - if they are not to suffer criticism. Newspapers were reporting in early May that many disaster victims were feeling “abandoned”, “helpless” and “trapped by red tape”.

Whether or not such complaints were justified, the anguish and “post-incident distress” shown by some of the survivors is common after many large-scale disasters. It is also the reason why psychologists are now urging governments to introduce “psychological preparedness programs” to help ensure that people are better able to cope with the predicted saga of “extreme” natural disasters caused by climate change.

The three hundred or more fires that engulfed large parts of Victoria in early February created what has been described as Australia’s worst natural disaster in more than a century There is little doubt that the fires were “extreme”. In his opening address to the Royal Commission, counsel assisting the commission, Jack Rush QC, described ferocious walls of fire moving at phenomenal speed and throwing out fireballs with “atomic-force”. In fact on Black Saturday the index used to measure fire danger was three times above the level considered “extreme”.

While temperatures soared above 40 deg C., fires on multiple fronts cut through 78 communities killing 173 people and leaving hundreds more injured and traumatised. Some 2029 homes were burnt down and at least 5000 people were left homeless.

More than 55 businesses were destroyed and so were three primary schools and kindergartens, three sports clubs and numerous other buildings. Much infrastructure was lost. Even roads caught fire and almost the entire fixed line telecommunications network was destroyed. In March Telstra was calculating it would take three months for the network to be rebuilt.

Over 11,000 farm animals were killed or injured. Some 10,000 km of fencing was burnt - in length the equivalent to four return trips between Melbourne and Brisbane. The Victorian Farmers Federation also calculated 400,000 hectares of farmland was scorched.

In addition many thousands of wild animals were killed and at the end of March more than a thousand injured birds, reptiles and marsupials were still in care.

But that of course tells only part of the story. In the aftermath 80,000 tonnes of debris needed clearing and 2029 homes, 11 community buildings, 59 commercial buildings together with 2385 agricultural sheds, dairies and machinery had to be cleaned - a task expected to take at least until August to complete.

Rebuilding what was destroyed will take much, much longer and the Victorian Government has established the Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority for the task of managing the job. There are various estimates of the financial losses but they could top $2 billion.

The scan also showed:

Weakening resilience

The new national code for building in areas prone to bushfires has been criticised by both the CSIRO and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities (AFAC) for allegedly offering less protection to residents than the standard it is replacing. (Copies of the code can be downloaded from the Building Commission. But building standards are not the only consideration when looking to make country communities safer. According to a study just completed for the Australian Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (ABCRC), economic and social factors are going to play an ever-increasing role. For example, if local farmers have been hit by drought and other people have left a district in search of jobs, then money will not be spent on making the area more fire resilient and there will also be fewer recruits for the local bushfire brigade. “Climate change projections suggest there will be an increased risk of successive droughts, bushfires and floods in relatively short periods of time,” says the study. “(This) may exceed the capacity of farm households to cope and adapt. The financial pressures on farm households may also increase the risks associated with under-insurance.”

Providing risk data

In common with the ABCRC (See above: “Weakening resilience”) the Insurance Council of Australia wants government action to improve community resilience to extreme weather events caused by climate change. The council published a report last April urging all States to maintain and publish “present risk data” that factors in climate change and covers the next 100 years. The report says such data would place communities in the best possible position “to make risk-appropriate decisions with regard to property and lifestyle choices”. According to the report: “Such a scheme should require delivery of government endorsed risk data regarding temperature extremes, coastal inundation, extreme rainfall events, windstorm, hail, bushfires and flooding risk, in a format that is easily digested by communities and is freely available to individuals on a scale that is relevant.”

Multiply changes

Gary Morgan CEO of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre says Australia needs to come to terms with the fact that multiple changes are impacting bushfires. “Climate change, weather and drought are altering the nature, ferocity and duration of bushfires and an aging and declining volunteer population are changing the way fire agencies are going to be able to manage these events. These issues are being made worse by the rural-urban edge in our cities and regional towns. The fires on the suburban outskirts of Bendigo and Narre Warren on Saturday, for example, show that many communities need to rethink the notion of who lives in a bushfire zone and who needs to be educated and prepared.”

Fire’s feedback

One major consequence of Black Saturday is likely to be more detailed research into the cause and effect of wildfires on climate change. In fact a group of international scientists including some from Australia are now pressing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to “fully integrate fire” into their assessments for the globe’s future weather patterns. While February’s fires spread across Victoria, the group was finalising a study into this so-called “fire- climate” feedback. They believe the intensity of recent fires is being exacerbated by climate change while global warming itself is opening even tropical rainforests to the risk of wildfires. The group’s research paper just published in the journal “Science” also highlights the problems caused by deforestation. The group has calculated that deforestation fires alone have contributed up to 20% of the human-caused CO2 emissions since pre-industrial times. “Fire has been underestimated as a contributor to climate change,” said the study’s lead author, Professor David Bowman of the University of Tasmania. “In the past we thought that fires were a steady state.” Professor Bowman and his fellow authors now believe that with wildfire pumping ever more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the influence that wildfires will have on the climate is only just beginning.

Arsonist’s role

According to the Australian Institute of Criminology so little is really known about the role arsonists play in bushfires that governments may not be responding to the threat as well as they might. “The lack of a complete picture is likely to impact on how relevant agencies and government departments assess risk, the priorities that they assign to arson reduction and probably the effectiveness of the strategies that are introduced to mitigate risk,” says the institute in a research paper, “Deliberately lit vegetation fires in Australia”. The paper was actually written 12 months before Black Saturday - but it has lost none of its relevance. The author, Colleen Bryant analysed some 280,000 incidents attended by 18 Australian fire services over a five-year period. She discovered serious differences in the way each service classified fire incidents and she is convinced this has led to inaccurate national figures. For example fires lit by children are often classified “accidental” when in fact they are probably malicious. But perhaps the most astounding discovery is that in fire-prone Australia only 6% of all bush and vegetation fires can be directly attributed to natural causes. Moreover between one-third and a half of all vegetation fires occurred in and around the outer fringes of capital cities. “The greatest concentrations (are) evident in the broad zone along the urban interface - the zone where people and vegetation coexist and interact,” Ms Bryant says. She says these are the areas that often have the high numbers of disadvantaged young people with the fewest recreational facilities.

Response strategies

If children and young people are involved then out on the urban fringes the most likely time for starting a fire is between 1pm and 4pm, according to crime researcher, Colleen Bryant. (See also “Arsonist’s role” above.) She is advocating a new system of urban management along the fringes of capital cities. She says efforts should be concentrated in areas of rapid population growth or where there is clear social disadvantage. Ms Bryant believes there would be potential for coordinating an anti-arson strategy through fire, police, welfare and community services as well as environmental and “design” agencies.

Psychology questions

Among survivors of the Black Saturday fires between 30% and 40% can be expected to suffer post-disaster mental health problems, according to Professor Richard Bryant of NSW University’s School of Psychology. Added to that, between 10% and 20% of the rescue personnel are likely to be hit by mental problems too. Writing in the Australian Psychological Society’s journal “InPsych”, Prof Bryant says most of the sufferers will eventually recover - if their problems are identified early and they receive professional help. Writing in the same journal, Associate Professor Joseph Reser and Dr Shirley Morrissey both of Griffith University’s School of Psychology suggest that with the frequency and intensity of natural disasters likely to increase, a case can be made for helping the public to be better prepared psychologically. The psychologists suggest distributing the information through the media as well as including it in standard briefing material given to the public by emergency services. Such material would cover three elements of preparedness. They say people should be encouraged to:

• Anticipate - that they will be worried or anxious and that such feelings are normal;
• Identify - specific physical feelings associated with anxiety and whether frightening thoughts are adding to fears; and
• Manage - responses by using controlled breathing and “self-talk” to stay as calm as possible while focusing on practical tasks.