Vegemite Kids

As he should be. And we should be beating him up as well.

Perth Hills and surrounding shires have been on a total fire ban since midnight Friday, so he shouldn't even have been using a grinder, unless he had a special permit, in which case he's incompetent and should have his permit pulled.

paulry

Just a thought: How do people know when a fire ban is in place? Ok, out in the sticks I've seen loads of those dial-like boards about but hardly none once you're within the city limits.

hevs

I'm sorry but if it was a total fire ban day not only is he an idiot, he also broke the law. The fire that threatened our home this time two years ago was started by the same type of idiot. Our community lost 3 homes, lots of animals and nearly a whole township if the wind hadnt dropped when it did.......

bcworld

It's generally tagged on to the weather forecast. It would be fairly easy to miss I suppose...although you'd think most people would check if it has been particularly hot and dry for a while. Someone using a grinder might not think of fire though.

hevs

Yeah, who would...what with all of the sparks it chucks out

My cousins hubby is a tiler and he stalled finishing my tiling on a fire ban day. I thought he was taking the piss out of a green pommy, cos he is a skyver at the best of times then I looked it up. Its a well known fact in the building world...

Any day over 38 with a strong (northery in our case) wind is just a day to be very carefull, and watchful If you've had no rain for a while anything over 30 makes me tetchy....I guess its just a bit of common sense at the end of the day....

paulry

So by default one should check if a fire ban is in place for the day if you're thinking of having a real barbeque or the like. I suppose there's a fair bit of common sense involved as well - identifying the hazardous conditions, etc

hevs

There was one here a couple of years ago started by a car backfiring...I suppose its hard to eliminate everything..

hevs

Exactly The CFA website is always a good place to check and have open on high risk days. It will show you if there are any fires in your area etc too, this is the VIc one, to give an example
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/

aston

your ok mate.its a fare bit away from us,,dont worry..

Amazulu

Western Power's incompetence over the last few years has caused many fires - and people have died because of it.

aston

talking of fires,i know a bloke whos back is on fire digging coffee rock,the poor sod..

Cheetah7

Yep, we had an electricity pole outside our house with small flames coming from sparks at the top, the poles are tethered to the houses, I called them up and they said 'Oh thats normal' and didnt want to come out and I told them it looked like the pole had candles on the top and it was sparking quite loudly and the flames were visible but if they were happy for a major fire to break out and would compensate us homeowners then thats fine. They were out within half an hour.

Same happened to our neighbour 2 years ago, the flames were actually going down the tether (whatever you call it) and they refused to come out so he dialled 000 and got the fire brigade out and WP got into quite a bit of trouble over that one.

The electricity poles here seem ancient and rather dangerous.

paulry

Thanks.

Here's the best that I can get from the ACT:

http://www.firebrigade.act.gov.au/ES...home_page.html

Vegemite Kids

With regard to the boards - I think where people get confused is that if the rating is extreme or catastophic it is automatically a total fire ban day, but if the rating is Very High or Severe, it could be a total fire ban day but it may not be.

But if you're up in the hills and going to be doing something that creates sparks and its summer..... wouldn't you think to check? There's been enough fires over the years surely that most Perthites should know sparks = bushfires.

There are loads of ways to find out if a day is total fire ban or not.

- Go to the FESA website and click on 'Total Fire Ban'
- Phone your local Shire
- Listen to local radio
- Watch the weather forecast

In my opinion not checking is just outright incompetence and stupidity.

And to be honest even if that particular day isnt a total ban, unless the work is super urgent to fix a life threatening problem, it can probably wait a month or two to grind.



ETA: talking more here about the weekend warriors not the qualified tradies.

Amazulu

As long as he's not slacking.