Bush Fire Blunders?

Watching t.v. coverage of the recent Australian bushfires one can't help on the one hand feeling immense sympathy with those who've lost everything and on the other hand wondering if it really had to be like that?

I've written to the ABC questioning their coverage and raising this issue and they've not even acknowledge receipt of the email.  Nor has their coverage changed that I have seen.

The point is that when we look at the ruins and have those chats with the survivors we often see quite extraordinary things.

Like burned houses surrounded by green grass.  

Like burned houses surrounded by green lawn and with an unburned house standing next door.

Like burned houses across a road from a sparsely treed suburban section of half a dozen blocks.  The section containing some burned houses, some not burned.  And a whole road to cross to get to this side. And this side sparsely treed - and I mean here not thick with bushes, of course, I mean sparse trees and lawn is all we have - and with a scattered handful of houses and then a cliff top!  An ocean!

It seems that houses have been abandoned and left to burn when it wasn't necessary. It is hard to see how the heat of the fire could have been too great in those circumstances.   It seems that sometimes there's been clear avenues of escape for people who perhaps chose to remain to the last minute.

So: is this right or not?  Have people been advised to leave when it wasn't really necessary?

Worse: have they been compelled to leave when it wasn't necessary?

Consider the nature of these circumstances:  we have so many variables - vegetation density and nature, water availability, escape routes, type of structures come immediately to mind.

So blanket bans or edicts or judgements are bound to be in error on many occasions.  You can't have a 'one size fits all' answer to the question: should the suburb be evacuated?  Or the question: should we compell evacuation of this suburb?

This is not my contention. Pointless to argue with me. It is an observation of recorded fact: look at the videos of the aftermath - a building survived here, a building next door burned down.

There is so much we need to know:  What temperatures were reached in the area, inside the buildings that survived, in the open around them?  I've never heard the question asked never mind answered.

What survived? Any snakes, goannas, wombats, anything?

Close forensic examination of sites and general dissemination of the data obtained.

And wider analysis:  What temperatures are generally reach ahead of grassfire at, say, 100metres and 50 metres.  Ahead of a bush fire?  Ahead of a tree fire?  Ahead of a crown fire?

What is the smoke hazard? How significant is it and what promotes it and what ameliorates it - i.e. what fuels  signify in those ways?

Why do I want to know? Why do we want to know?  Just to stir up trouble for our hard working 'authorities' who take it upon themselves to issue these evacuation edicts and advisories?

No. In the interests of self protection and general education.

We ought to know all these things. We should be a well educated public.  We should be able to assess fire risk and comprehend the nature of the mitigatory and prophylactic steps we should take in any situation.

Taking a holiday with the family in a woodland rural cottage we should know at a glance where danger might come from, the level it  might reach and what we could/should do about it both now and in the event.

But we know nothing.  That's if you know what I know.  Because I know nothing.

After years, these recent years, of fire reporting and literally dozens of interviews with people who've lost everything including the lives of relatives and friends....

I'm still no better prepared.

In fact you could argue I am less well prepared. Being trained by the media and the authorities over this last few years to accept their edicts, instructions, commands, recommendations and without a skerrick of training or education in the interests of equipping myself for coping myself, I have become the more ignorant, the less adaptable, the more docile and less inventive and pro-active, the more a dependent moron....