I'm a non believer anyway, but this kind of thing just enforces it for me.

Listening to the news now, they are giving out warnings that the villages of Healesville and Churchill are under threat. Strong winds have picked up again fanning the flames.

Natural cycle of the bush - it will grow back very quickly and no doubt another bush fire will come in future years.

The problem or circumstances around this one are:

• The drought in recent years has made everything tinder dry
• Recent rainfall before xmas encouraged quick growth of grass then all went brown
• Last weeks hot temps
• The winds meant the fire spread faster than communication could keep up with.

If there can be any consolation - the people affected do not feel isolated (meaning they know the whole city/state/country both feel for them and are using the sympathy and horror observed as a catalyst for action)

Hope you guys are safe. Take care down there.

Ginny

it was on the news yesterday that Gordon Brown had offered any form of support so guess that ties in, firefighters from Tassie are over there too.

NZ is sending some too, but the trouble is it's bushfire season here too, so the trouble spots can't send anyone.

We watched the report on 9 News, last night. It was awful and I just couldn't help but cry. Those poor people. Our hearts and sympathies go out to all of them and those of you who are still battling to save your families and homes.

To those who started the fires, I hope you're really pleased with yourselves, but rest assured, you'll get your comeuppance. What goes around, comes around!!

Firstly, it's not an Aussie-wide policy. Vic has the stay or go policy. NSW has the option to evacuate. It's easy to criticise the stay or go policy when things go wrong but it's also easy to criticise the evacuate policy when things go wrong. We get shown videos in training which explain why Vic has the stay or go policy.

In the event of a fire the best thing to do is to evacuate early (in this case this means Friday night or very early Saturday morning). The next best thing to do is stay and defend your house. The worst thing to do is to evacuate at the last moment. On the training videos there's footage of gridlock on the Ferntree Gully Rd with the fire in the background. If the fire had gone in the wrong direction the evacuation would have been a disaster.

There are a few things to consider here and unfortunately I don't think one policy is any better than the other. There problems you get with evacuation are numerous. In places like Kinglake there may only be a couple of police people. How are they going to force everyone to evacuate? There was little warning before the fire hit Kinglake (there wasn't an existing fire in the area). The fire started miles away and was traveling fast. You don't know where to evacuate to. The fire can change direction each time it hits a gully. Any place nearby will also be in danger. If everyone had started evacuating when the fire was known then they would have been stuck on the twisty mountain roads when the fire came through. It was very windy that day and only a couple of roads out. What would happen if the road had been blocked? If you have an evacuation policy and someone wants to stay, how are you going to force them out?

Ultimately it's up to the people involved to make a choice. How would you feel if an evacuation was enforced and it turned out to be the wrong decision?

Although this is going to be reviewed, don't expect the review to recommend evacuation. This is not black and white. Just because people died with the current policy doesn't mean that people wouldn't have died with the opposite policy.

PP, I've just re-read what I wrote here and it sounds to be a bit abrupt. I'm sorry if that's how anyone reads it, since that is certainly not how I meant it to be.
I agree with everything you say here. It's much like the hurricaine evacuations in the southern US. My family was in the path of a hurricaine in Florida about 10 years ago and while we chose to evacuate many did not. It is simply impossible to force hundreds or thousands of people to leave their homes just as it's impossible to predict with 100% accuracy where a disaster is going to strike. Like you say, authorities can give a best educated guess, but with any force of nature it's impossible to be perfect.

Even though fire is my #1 fear in life I would seriously have to consider whether I would be staying or going. I know property can be replaced, but it's such an emotional thing to decide to leave your life behind to perish.

I know next to nothing about how these fires work. Would a fire bunker work, if it had an independent air supply and was away from the house. ?

If so surely they would have to legislate these as necessary parts of new builds in the future. 46 degrees was unprecedented, but by the looks of the global warming debate, probably repeatable. I would imagine there was a higher increase in the ferocity of the wind, that accompanied that very high temperature.

Those tornado shelters in the US, Are they required by law in areas like Kentucky ?

On the 9 News special last night there was an interview with a guy who had survived, with his family, by hiding in a concrete bunker (hence my comment above). This was an overground one. I can't begin to think how scary it was as the fire moved over, but it saved their lives.

If the advice is stay, hindsight in this case is a very helpful thing, then surely the people staying should have a semi safe refuge on their property.

Thanks for replying Martin. Nice to find someone who actually wants to discuss this.

I accept and agree with alot of what you say, but i do seriously wonder about some of the strategies. I am in no way attributing any of this to the likes of you or the oth brave fire fighters out there, but to those who draw up the policies.
What about the bunker idea? I suggested this to my husband a couple of years ago and he said that it wouldnt work because of lack of oxygen underground. But I dont agree with this. Surely it can be worked out to provide it just like an areoplane?

It can be done, but it would be extremely expensive.

When you consider that many people choose not to purchase insurance to cover their building & contents, then you can imagine that very, very few are likely to invest in an underground heat resistant bunker with its own air supply.

I think we could sit and discuss policy after policy but unless you are really in that situation and nature is against you it's hard to imagine what is right or wrong.

The policy would have saved some and not others but then nature is not predictable and does not follow the same rules.

This is not meant as an argument it's mearly the opinion from someone looking from the outside.

Ginny

I was thinking more of one larger one within each community. A bit like WW2 air raid shelters, at strategic points, making sure everyone who lives there knows which one they are to go to.