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Page 1 of 16 Submission to the Cronstedt Review of the 2018-19 Tasmanian Bushfires By Amy Robertson Dear Mr Cronstedt and team, At home on the 15 th January 2019, I prepared my storm-sensitive children for the arrival of thunder and lightning as forecast. Hubby and I are both fire-experienced foresters and stay in touch with the weather through summer, and recognising the startling fear brought by flashes and rumbles to our younger children, we’ve made a family tradition of serving popcorn and being together to watch the ‘performance’. Happily my husband arrived home from his forestry work as the first rumbles approached, allowing us to support the children outside and encourage a raindance as the first raindrops fell. We moved to cover to watch across the river at Port Huon as the storm moved over and east of us, seeing lightning strike nearby and explaining to the kids how little rain was forecast and there was potential for fires to begin. Almost on cue, one child asked if that was smoke rising over there – it wasn’t, but just a little further round it was, and then another and another. As we marvelled at being able to watch three fire ignitions from home and demonstrate the theory we’d been teaching, Dad phoned work and offered his services. And so it began. I’m a little emotional because I care about this place, its land and community. And because using my experience, connections and capacity, I was able to develop a viewpoint that reached across both emergency response and community reaction. From that viewpoint I saw both success and failures, and using my professionalism in governance I’m very concerned that a constructive culture of communication, transparency and accountability must inform the way our government, businesses and community learn from these successes and failures to improve what we do next time. Following I will outline a number of key points that I believe deserve response, either as successes that should be recognised and supported to bring opportunity, or as failures that should generate improvements to policy and processes to reduce future risk.

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Page 1: Submission to the Cronstedt Review of the 2018-19 ... Robertson.pdf · photographer, and Ive been unable to find out who the photographer was (apologies to them). It was reported

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Submission to the Cronstedt Review of the 2018-19 Tasmanian

Bushfires

By Amy Robertson

Dear Mr Cronstedt and team,

At home on the 15th January 2019, I prepared my storm-sensitive children for the arrival of

thunder and lightning as forecast.

Hubby and I are both fire-experienced foresters and stay in touch with the weather through

summer, and recognising the startling fear brought by flashes and rumbles to our younger

children, we’ve made a family tradition of serving popcorn and being together to watch the

‘performance’.

Happily my husband arrived home from his forestry work as the first rumbles approached,

allowing us to support the children outside and encourage a raindance as the first raindrops

fell. We moved to cover to watch across the river at Port Huon as the storm moved over and

east of us, seeing lightning strike nearby and explaining to the kids how little rain was

forecast and there was potential for fires to begin. Almost on cue, one child asked if that

was smoke rising over there – it wasn’t, but just a little further round it was, and then

another and another. As we marvelled at being able to watch three fire ignitions from home

and demonstrate the theory we’d been teaching, Dad phoned work and offered his services.

And so it began.

I’m a little emotional because I care about this place, its land and community. And because

using my experience, connections and capacity, I was able to develop a viewpoint that

reached across both emergency response and community reaction. From that viewpoint I

saw both success and failures, and using my professionalism in governance I’m very

concerned that a constructive culture of communication, transparency and accountability

must inform the way our government, businesses and community learn from these

successes and failures to improve what we do next time.

Following I will outline a number of key points that I believe deserve response, either as

successes that should be recognised and supported to bring opportunity, or as failures that

should generate improvements to policy and processes to reduce future risk.

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1. First response suppression of Riveaux fire

I’m aware of at least three independent accounts of the initial location and behaviour of

the ignition point that was to become the Riveaux Road fire (“Riveaux fire”), each

indicating that the fire could have been initially contained and suppressed successfully

using a small number of resources.

Account #1 – anonymous professional firefighter

The first account comes from a professional firefighter tasked to attend the fire reported

from Tahune airwalk on the evening of 15/1 (I’ll call this day 0). The firefighter was

apparently stood down past the airwalk and within sight of the fire’s glow, because of

darkness, to end the day’s shift.

Returning first thing the next morning (day 1, 16/1) the firefighter was unable to drive

beyond a locked Parks gate on Riveuax Rd and walked in to GPS, photograph and assess

the full fire perimeter. The fire behaviour was very quiet, and apparently reporting to

supervisors recommended tasking of a dozer and excavator (to access boggy perimeter

areas where a dozer would otherwise get stuck), with control entirely feasible.

The firefighter returned to check the fire on day 2 (17/1) and found increased fire

behaviour with crowns intermittently flaring up in the standing forest adjacent the

coupe, and was unable to directly access this part of the fire’s perimeter. While there a

Parks crew also arrived to assess the fire.

On day 3 (18/1) the firefighter visited again, and observed crews from multiple agencies

on their first day suppressing the fire. The fire had grown again and containment would

now be more difficult.

Account #2 - Social media (Facebook) reports by “Luuk Veltkamp”

An aerial image published on social media (attributed to Par Avion pilot Luuk Veltkamp)

and described as being taken on “the morning of the lightning strikes” at “3 hours old”

shows smoke coming from a small area in a logged coupe and the adjacent standing tall

wet forest (figure 1). I’m estimating this photo was taken at around 0900 hrs on day 1,

making the fire around 16 hours old (given multiple reports of the glow visible from

Tahune and other viewpoints the previous night).

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Figure 1 LuukVeltkamp Facebook photo, approx 0900hrs day1.

Flames are not visible thus indicating mild fire behaviour in both the greened-up

regeneration area and the adjacent forest canopy. Smoke is rising vertically from several

points indicating a lack of wind and supporting a low intensity fire (heat from a hotter

fire would tend to draw the columns together and propel smoke upward rather than

letting it diffuse as is pictured).

Interestingly I’ve seen the publisher of this image write that this image of the fire was “in

a regen prepared coupe which burnt hot and showered embers downwind”, attributing

the cause of rapid fire spread to “Forestry” and to “harvested coupes”.

I’ve easily been able to use Google maps to identify this location as being at lat/long -

43.115501, 146.693396 in the Picton Valley (figure 2).

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Figure 2 Google map showing approximate location of figure 1's smoke

The LIST shows this location as clearly being in World Heritage Area (figure 3).

Figure 3 LIST map of fire origin coupe with World Heritage Area overlaid.

I haven’t been able to find a coupe number for the logged coupe, but my understanding

of this area’s land management is such that I know this coupe was logged by then

Forestry Tasmania prior to the 2013 change of tenure to World Heritage Area under the

Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement, with funding for its regeneration given to

Environment Tasmania. I believe that the reason enough fuel still existed to burn

among the greening-up regeneration of the coupe is that it was likely burnt to an

‘environmental’ regeneration specification by the new land manager. This would have

yielded a cooler fire intensity, lower percentage of receptive seedbed and greater

remaining debris load than if it had received the normal high-intensity silvicultural burn

prescribed through original planning. It may also have likely breached smoke emission

guidelines and caused pollution for communities downwind at the time.

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Account #3 – social media image (unattributed)

The image in figure 4 was republished on social media by someone other than the

photographer, and I’ve been unable to find out who the photographer was (apologies

to them). It was reported as being of Riveaux fire smoke on day 1, and the image shows

a smoke column consistent with the fire behaviour reported in accounts #1 and #2. I

believe the track is part of the fire trail around the Tahune plain (south of the airwalk),

with Pear Hill seen in the background.

Figure 4 Unattributed photo of fire on day 1.

Other accounts

I have also heard other accounts thirdhand which support the information I’ve received

from those three more direct accounts. I hope some of these will also come to your

Review.

Analysis

My experience at firefighting and IMT planning tells me that based on the initial fire

behaviour, this fire could have easily been contained through a boundary trail and initial

water application to flames, by the end of day 1. That would not have guaranteed

continued control of the fire, or safety of the Huon Valley from fires emerging from

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further west in the WHA, but this ignition point had road access, manageable fuel loads

and favourable weather conditions for control.

Why did it take 3 days for Parks suppression crews to arrive? I can guess some possible

answers:

- Failure of the communication pathway between firefighters on the ground doing

reconnaissance and the Cambridge inter-agency IMT, leaving decision-makers

for resource tasking unaware of the information (GPS, photos, resource

recommendations) from the ground.

- Inaccurate information considered by Cambridge IMT: did initial Par Avion

reconnaissance advise the IMT incorrectly that Riveaux fire was “in a forestry

coupe”, leading to an assumption that STT would deal with suppression? Did the

IMT consider that the fire’s location in ‘far-off’ WHA gave it a lower priority for

response given the greater distance of WHA from assets (yet not the airwalk)?

- Prioritisation by Parks of Parks asset protection: I understand that Parks crews

were first response (day 1?) to a PTPZ (STT land) fire near Hastings Caves

Reserve and contributed significant work to that containment, perhaps with

concern over the threat to Hastings Caves Visitor Centre infrastructure.

- Cambridge IMT would have been under intense pressure from going fires in

other parts of the state as well as new ignitions, did Riveaux fire’s tasking exceed

the capacity of the IMT?

I’m really looking forward to your Review’s findings on this point.

1. Rostering crews and/or IMT staff at times vital for fire response

The benefit of hindsight allows us to understand that the Riveaux fire behaved ‘lazily’: it

didn’t tend to do its spreading until late in the day. This point is about the timing of

resource deployment, both during early days and later in the fire campaign.

I understand that during the early days of suppression work, crews would leave a quiet,

contained fire at the end of the day’s shift but come back the next morning to find it had

slopped over a tracked boundary, leading to more containment work and meaning the

blacking out never got completed to strengthen the perimeter. Some even speculated

that an arsonist might be visiting in the night to help the fire cross its containment line.

There are several factors that might explain this ‘lazy’ or ‘late’ behaviour.

- Heavy fuels in wet forests have a lag time in their drying, so that fuel moisture is

often lowest after the hottest and driest afternoon period. (Foresters use this to

assist in burns with more difficult boundaries, which are often lit late in the day.)

When those heavy fuels do get burning, they generate intense heat capable of

convection and ember spread.

- In the Huon the prevailing NW winds are often ‘held back’ or even reversed by an

afternoon SE sea breeze, but can ramp back up late in the day or overnight as the

katabatic effect kicks in.

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- With heavy fuels in wet forest, the wetting down of suppression can dry or soak

away in a few hours and allow fuels to reignite, especially in low humidity.

Fires don’t respect rosters or shift lengths.

The worst example I saw of this was on 25/1, when on the third hot dangerous day in a

row crews were stood down at 1730-1800 hrs with the fire at West Creek calm and a

cooler forecast for the next day. Geeveston residents had been briefed in the preceeding

days to leave if possible, and to expect evacuations if the fire crossed east of the Arve

River.

At 1930 hrs I observed a significant column of fast-rising and clear-edged smoke to the

west of my home in Port Huon (figure 5). This was much closer than the uncontained

southern boundary in the Picton valley. Taking a compass bearing and visiting a nearby

vantage point on Doodys Hill Rd (figure 6), I estimated that the smoke was coming from

east of the Arve River as the fire ran up drier NW-facing slopes towards Bennetts Ridge,

perhaps even burning the plain at Willies Saddle to generate such a column at this time

of night. (I remember Willies Saddle plain burning in an evening fire in March 2005,

which began from an escaped coupe burn.)

Figure 5 Smoke column at 20:13 on 25/1 from Port Huon

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Figure 6 Smoke column at 20:44 on 25/1 from Doodys Hill Rd

My guess was confirmed by a local friend who drove out to check and found that plain

alight. He stopped at the Geeveston fire station where some local crews were and was

told that crews were aware but they’d not received any tasking advice from TFS.

I understand that tasking the next morning was in complete disarray because of the

fire’s completely new location, having travelling more than 5km to now directly threaten

private property assets around Oigles Rd. A couple of snapshots from Sentinel show the

change in location and size before and after that run.

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Figure 7 Sentinel 0528 hrs 25/1/19

Figure 8 Sentinel 0748 hrs 26/1/19

Evening or night field presence wasn’t the only problem, as I understand that morning

despatch was often delayed as crews waited for maps to be printed or tasking to be

refined. IMT input into these tasks should occur before field crews start their shifts, with

Situation Officers debriefing sector or divisional commanders as they return from the

field to source intelligence not readily conveyed by radio communication (eg. sketches

on maps). This intelligence should then be compiled and integrated into the planned

strategy, resourcing and tasking for the next day, with Incident Action Plans printed for

pickup at briefing as shifts start.

At the Geeveston Community briefing on the afternoon of 26/1, I heard TFS officers

explain that their maps – for display to us and use by their field crews – were three days

old. I don’t believe that this is acceptable, for community or for the firefighters using

those maps.

A simple solution is a ‘swing shift’, or a late-start and late-finish day shift (I don’t believe

night shifts are used much in Tasmania, though perhaps at times they should be). Crews

coming in fresh at the hottest time of day can help support the early-starting day shift,

and can monitor, respond and prepare for the next day through the evening after that

core day shift finishes. The swing shift also provides a more targeted workforce for

evening backburning, which can be a better time to conduct these operations.

I also believe that morning rostering was problematic at times. I heard of sector

commanders providing up to 4 briefings to crews commencing at different times.

Startup of time-critical tasks such as firetrailling or backburn ignition was often

hampered by the travel time of crews to their task, or logistical delays. While the

coordination of logistics for complex operations like these will always be difficult, there

are ways to improve: roster an early start recce crew to check the fire is where it is

thought to be, despatch a road clearing crew to ensure machinery floats and crews can

get past trees that fell overnight to start a significant operation on time, have those IAPs

and maps already printed.

Another aspect is that until the fire arrived on Geeveston’s doorstep on 26/1, I saw very

little inter-agency IMT presence in the Huon. It looked like ‘forestry’ (STT) were left to

run the fire, with occasional visits from other agency staff representing some

communication from the Cambridge IMT.

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I know that it’s hard to get the full message across by radio or phone (eg. those map

scribbles captured by debrief of shift-end field staff), and that local knowledge is

invaluable in creating great strategy or planning. But with the IMT making important

decisions – like the 25/1 knockoff time and emergency warning alerts – I question

whether there was enough direct interaction and IMT support of local staff in the early

weeks of Riveaux fire.

2. Balancing use of local/imported resources

In later weeks of the Riveaux fire campaign, I saw greater use of experienced and locally-

familiar resources brought in on contract by the agencies. Many of these contractors

had formerly been part of the forest industry, so had experience in working with high

intensity fire and familiarity with local geography.

This yielded much greater effectiveness and safety. I heard of dozer operators requiring

less instruction and supervision because they already knew how to construct a

containment line (different to ordinary track-making). I heard of operations getting

better results because they already knew the site and understood its fire behaviour from

their history, needing less reconnaissance and implementing more effective solutions.

In contrast I did hear some stories of challenge around less experienced or local

resources:

- Crews unable to control a backburn escape because they couldn’t start a pump

on unfamiliar tankers (solution: familiarise with the equipment at shift start, and

practise before need arises).

- Inaccurate reconnaissance of fire extent when crews didn’t know where houses

were on a road (solution: recce your sector when first deployed and chat to

locals to pick up knowledge before the afternoon fire spread occurs).

- Dozer drivers/firefighters inexperienced with high intensity fire yet deployed to

edge attack (solution: maintain the availability of operators experienced in a

managed forest landscape).

- Control or fallback plans that weren’t consolidated in time to succeed (solution:

ensure resource availability and logistics can enable the success of a plan or

make a more realistic plan)

My experience as a forester tells me that we do need to manage our forests for fire, and

that in reducing or streamlining (for commercial efficiency) the resources available for

that task we increase the risk of harm. I think the worst thing about this Riveaux fire is

that the people most harmed by it are also the people who worked hardest – in

preparedness and response – to stop it; a double blow.

But I also think that one of the best things about this fire was the support that

responded to our displaced community, especially at the Huon Valley PCYC. Using local

and external resources, the care and connection provided to evacuees was amazing. We

must be ensure that the processes and resources that created this are recorded and

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remembered, so that we can do this again – perhaps more easily now we’ve had this

experience – next time someone needs this help.

3. Broad and longstanding emergency warning alerts

Over the Australia Day weekend in particular, my community in Geeveston was

subjected to the stress of a broad and longstanding emergency warning alert.

It’s absolutely better to be early than late (more on that below), but consecutive days of

minimal fire progress during this time undermined the credibility of the alert system for

some people, and led to complacency.

I understand that in the heavy smoke, the preferred methods of airborne

reconnaissance were not available to monitor fire extent and behaviour, and

supplementary methods such as Sentinel satellite sometimes gave inaccurate readings

(eg. ‘fire’ records where hot smoke rather than ground fire existed, or failure to measure

ground fire where covered by thick smoke).

But I suspect that more effective communication lines between field and IMT could have

allowed more use of field observations in decision-making and awareness of

strategy/scenario options for field staff. This could have generated more responsive,

specific alerts that decreased stress and improved confidence for the community, and

improved tasking for on-ground firefighters.

I mentioned lateness, and that relates to activity on 3/2, when the fire ran through the

Hermons Rd/Glocks Rd area south of Geeveston. I’m aware of fire impacting around at

least one house more than 30 minutes before the Watch & Act was upgraded to

Emergency. The warning’s upgrade occurred at least an hour after field crews went into

retreat from running fire. I believe that delay in those circumstances is unacceptable.

4. Inadequate TFS communication with staying residents

During the Riveaux fire campaign, I saw extensive use of the well-developed and

consistent TFS alert system. This system is designed to be high-level and risk-averse for

members of the public caught in a fire situation, as it should be.

But there will be some who stay – and during the Riveaux fire, we were not well

supported with information on fire location, expected behaviour, response strategy and

tasking.

Those well-prepared staying residents offer great benefit to the emergency services.

Each decreases the stretch for fire tankers as the flames come through, can provide

information to the many non-local crews, and are extra sets of eyes for fire behaviour

and extent (for a fire service receptive to this information). Yet to work effectively those

residents also need some information to maximise their preparedness and capacity.

As an example, being on emergency warning alert level would trigger preparedness in

my own fire plan of filling gutters and wetting down around the house. Yet maintaining

this through a campaign fire (let alone through consecutive days of unaltered maximum

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warning level) will quickly drain my water tanks and turn my asset protection into a

liability. In the absence of more precise alerts, I adapted to wetting down when

indicators of fire behaviour (temperature, wind, ash fall) were greater, or when I had

news of closer or more active fire behaviour. That news of indicators (via field weather

reporting not just forecasts) and fire behaviour was something staying residents needed

from TFS, and generally didn’t receive.

More detailed information could have been delivered in various ways:

- more frequent community meetings (road closures shouldn’t block agency or

Council assistance from access to communities or Nearby Safer Places)

- detailed daily newsletters posted on shop windows or noticeboards (eg. IMT’s

Communication Officer could include fireground weather forecasts, tasking

summary, key contact numbers & 3-day outlook).

- Written summary of community briefings for those who can’t stream the

excellent Facebook videos, as developed later in the campaign (stops the

inaccuracy that creeps into messages passed on verbally from attendees).

- Facilitated media reporting to get more ‘education’ about what work is being

done, not just ‘news developments’, into newsfeeds.

One success in this aspect was the establishment of community networks among those

who remained. Using phone, Facebook, messages or the wonderfully supportive “stop

and chat” method, our stay-and-defend community developed an understanding of who

was about, how we could help each other and what was coming. There is awesome

experience and capacity especially among the retirees and former land management

employees, farmers and their families.

I found myself making Facebook posts that shared my skilled interpretation of what

knowledge I had, and was humbled at the appreciation shown for that. (It’s worth

looking up my public Facebook posts at facebook.com/amy.robertson.3760430 to see

how I approached this and the responses, examples attached in figures 9 and 10).

Stayers used it, but also many evacuees had a yearning for information to counter the

disempowerment of being stranded away from home. I felt a little vulnerable and took

care to air my opinions in a way that maintained respect for overarching TFS advice, and

only had a couple of people challenge my perspective. One night I even had an

acquaintance say she knew I’d tell her to go when it was time – “no I will NOT,” I said,

and I hope her perspective changed after that.

28/1/19, 7:48AM Sentinel satellite hotspots this morning show heaps of possible fire activity in the hills behind Geeveston, Castle Forbes Bay, Franklin, Glen Huon, Judbury and Lonnavale. These dots may not all be true: I think that sometimes the satellite gets confused by thick smoke. But given the current TFS emergency warnings, I think a fair bit of it is. Forecasts for the next 3 days have a minimum 28 degrees, and we're seeing the wind play a big part - they're still forecast at 30 km/h plus for those days (not 55 as we've had, but bear in mind that active fire convection will change this)

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29/1/19, 11:08AM

It's going to be a warm one. If you're still home and anywhere near this fire, be prepared. Sentinel at 09:40am shows spots heading towards Tongatabu, and I believe at least some of them. With increasing NW wind, all of us from Glendevie northward are at risk. The sea breeze may help those on low ground but you still need to be very prepared for embers. I'm hearing activity close to Fourfoot/Donnelleys too.

2/2/19, 8:39AM

This morning's Sentinel makes it look like we've just

got a few little fires, as the broader activity of >3

days ago has dropped off the time-coded records.

Wishful thinking.

Firefighting normally happens in a series of steps.

For a small fire, you'd attack the front to stop its

progress then construct a fuel-free boundary to

'contain' it, then black out for a distance of 1-2 tree

lengths inside that boundary to ensure nothing could

fall/blow to escape, patrolling until it was all out.

This fire stymies our normal techniques. We can't

attack its roaring front on the bad days, boundary

construction is nigh on impossible in difficult terrain

and very short timeframes, we haven't the resources

to black out and patrol thoroughly.

Take care over the coming hot days, look out and

listen for TFS updates, and communicate well with

those around you.

Special mention here goes to Geeveston Pharmacist Ian Magill, whose presence at his

shop through most of the difficult days provided not just medical care, but connection

and an information exchange site.

This connection was a challenge at times: there was concern among stayers that

roadblocks might strand people away from home if they went out for a visit or errand. I

heard of locals returning to property defence with more firefighting equipment being

denied entry up Fourfoot Rd by emergency services. And the road closure process was

full of rumour and inconsistency: it really could benefit from some clearer structure and

definition (eg. closed vs residents-only), and for an access permission system to allow

temporary outings during escalation.

5. Land management techniques to prepare for fire

I’m sure there will be plenty of calls for firebreaks, big planes, fuel reduction burns and

cessation of forestry in the submissions to this Review. But as an experienced former

manager of the Riveaux fire’s landscape, I believe the fire prevention and preparedness

of that landscape was close to as good as it could be.

I’ve seen fuel reduction burns of fire-prone landscape elements (eg. plains) occurring

through the years, strategically managed by multiple agencies. I’ve seen regeneration

burning programs usually conducted successfully to reduce fuel load and future risk in

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harvested coupes (not always, but that’s the nature of a weather-dependent operation).

And I’ve seen the successful use of fire trails and boundary tracks to access first attack

and complete initial control of fire starts.

Indeed, I believe that one of the factors influencing ‘late runs’ was also the effective

delay of the start of those runs by firefighters in the field.

Worth mentioning here are many examples I’ve seen of control of summer arson events

in harvested coupes; directly contrasts allegations that “production forests in the Huon

put lives at risk”. Indeed the rapid control of fires from the same lightning and in the

same weather, at Conways Rd, Arve Rd, Billy Creek and Hastings, demonstrates that

well-designed and conducted forest harvesting isn’t a risk in itself (and perhaps can

benefit access… if locked gates don’t impede).

6. Community learning, healing and future preparation

I’ve heard so many people surprised at how this fire was different to ’67. It wasn’t

different to me: the 2003 Victorian Alpine fires where I earned my IMT stripes followed

the same life cycle. But landscape-scale, campaign fires are less common in Tasmania,

and thus present a great opportunity for learning.

Riveaux fire caused comparatively little damage to the foreground of our community

(noting the damage at Tahune Airwalk, Southwood and a significant amount of timber

resource), and I think this is in part due to its ‘lazy’ behaviour and in part to the

suppression that delayed or prevented morning or afternoon runs. But with little

visibility of damage after the extended period of emergency and evacuation, I’m

concerned that many around the fire may develop a sense of complacency: that “it

didn’t reach or damage me so I’ll be safe from fire in future”.

In the same way that evacuees were hanging out for any news of where the fire was,

what work was happening, and what firefighting plans were, our community is

interested in why the fire happened as it did. And as detailed in point 5, the best time to

provide this information is during the fire but failing that level of engagement, the

second best time would be right now.

This Review must not just gather information, but it must use a full range of engagement

techniques to share that information and its findings back with the communities

affected by these fires, and those further away who watched and can share in any

learning that comes. This both helps to heal the trauma experience, and to open the

door to learning and improving preparedness for the next time a fire begins, preventing

that risk of complacency.

Those who worked on the fire are particularly important to involve, both in providing

that opportunity to acknowledge and move on from the trauma and challenge of their

work, and to provide the broader community with a genuine understanding of the real,

grounded and often terribly humble people who made such a difference to this fire. I

really hope that you and your team have easy access to these voices, and that if you

don’t that you’ll engage with the overarching agencies to create open and respectful

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recognition for the voices of our firefighters. It troubles me that technically these people

aren’t allowed to share their experiences publicly, yet this can provide such education

and information to those around them and be really important as a means of support for

those exhausted and challenged individuals. We need ways to facilitate this responsibly

and respectfully.

I recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, and the level of preparation and

engagement for tsunami and earthquake response there struck me as a model for our

potential approach to bushfires. I’m aware of good work going into Community Bushfire

Protection Plans, but really these just provide a system for recording and awareness of

what a community has, not a mechanism for improving it. (Recent community discussion

about the lack of a Nearby Safer Place (NSP) for Mountain River and Grove communities

highlights this.) Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have things like:

- Signage identifying NSPs and reminding of what to do when using one

- TV or radio advertisements of how to respond to alerts just prior to bushfire

season

- Annual drills for bushfire-prone communities

- Education in schools (not just on house fires)

- Greater engagement on developing getaway kits

Conclusions

For three months, my family lived with the uncertainty of a parent on emergency

response and recovery. It wasn’t that fun, although we are immensely proud and

appreciative of all the work he and all his multi-agency colleagues did and of their great

achievements in managing the Riveaux Fire.

Normal is returning slowly, though I think it will take a while for us all to feel

comfortable with the ring of a work phone out-of-hours.

I really appreciate the opportunity to have input into this Review, and I’d be happy to

provide further information or feedback during your process, and in future as an active

and conscientious member of this community that I love.

Amy Robertson

3/5/2019

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Key Points:

1. First response suppression of Riveaux fire

2. Rostering crews and/or IMT staff at times vital for fire response

3. Balancing use of local/imported resources

4. Broad and longstanding emergency warning alerts

5. Inadequate TFS communication with staying residents

6. Land management techniques to prepare for fire

7. Community learning, healing and future preparation