Interim Report 1 Recommendations
On August 17 the Royal Commission into Bushfires handed down its interim report to the Victorian Government. While there were a range of recommendations made concerning the operation of Victorian Agencies there were some key recommendations made that will have implications for all fire and emergency agencies around Australia.
Advice to the Community
Significant changes were recommended to the delivery and wording of advice and warnings given to the community. This included community education material that highlighted:
- Leaving as the safest option
- Not all homes are defendable
- If a home can not be defended you should leave
- The risk of defending includes death
- There could be psychological impacts of staying to defend a property
The Commission has also recommended a range of measures the CFA should take to be able to provide assessments of the defendability of individual houses to their owners.
Fire Danger Ratings
Changes to the fire danger rating system has also been recommended to include ratings beyond the current upper limit of extreme and to develop a severity scale for use in bushfire warnings. It is recommended fire danger indices should be published by the Bureau of Meteorology.
Warnings
During fires the Commission has recommended warnings are founded on the principle of maximising the potential to save human lives. This includes improved information on:
- the severity
- location
- predicted direction
- likely time of impactof bushfires on specific communities and locations.
The Commission has also indicated that Incident Controllers should be able to give advice for people to relocate as part of official warnings.
Much of this work was completed by Australian fire agencies in October. The new arrangements are contained in the document Australia's Revised Arrangements for Bushfire Alerts and Warnings - 2009/2010 Fire Season
The use of community refuges has also been recommended as has Victorian agencies prioritising where possible resources to assist in the defence of designated community fire refuges and neighbourhood safer places at times when they are likely to be in use.
Many of the recommendations have matched the projects announced in July by the Victorian Premier John Brumby and work is already underway to implement a number of these recommendations. The Victorian Government will have provided a formal response to the Commission by the end of August and is expected to make major announcements on changes to fire safety strategies in Victoria on October 1 2009, the start of the fire season.
