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Bushfire Bombers
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This FREE E-Book Exposes the NSW Rural Fire Service, under "Fire
Hose Phil" Koperberg, the commissioner who built
an Empire on fear and government taxpayer
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Bushfires allowed to become infernos so the Federal govenment pay the bill not NSW Govt. Hero bushfire pilots of the low flying aircraft subjected to personal attack for exposing Air Safety RFS violations, ... and much more, download today click on the picture.
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Nov
23
Our letter to all Nillumbik Councilors sent that ALL RATEPAYERS need to read…
As you pay the rise of Insurance premiums for Bushfire Cover, then read this receipe by the CEO for COVER UP ORDERS ( even back in February 2009) as the Councils Insurance Brokers fight for existence while world underwriters are now working toward massive reduction of fuel loads and land clearing around buildings, etc, to receive any insurance cover in bushfire prone areas.
Nov
11
Researching and Applying Bushfire Science
Filed Under Investigations, Victoria, CFA
INDEPENDENT BUSHFIRE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Researching and Applying Bushfire Science.
Tel 61 3 5143 1053. Email jmcribbes@bigpond.com
‘Australia does not have a fire problem; it has many fire problems. …. But as debates swirl, it is wise to remember, if a proposal does not see the problem as fire does - then those implacable flames will ignore it. Prof Stephen J. Pyne (Arizona Uni) 2003
It is not possible to engage in rational discussion with irrational beliefs. It is also not possible to engage in rational discussion with those whose interest in the global warming bandwagon is as a way to make money or build a career. Prof. Jonathan Katz (Washington Uni) 2009
MEMORANDUM.
Hon Greg Hunt .M.P. MLA. Shadow Conservation Minister.
Dear Greg,
Very soon now, you, Malcolm Turnbull and Ian Macfarlane will be the only Liberals in step on the issue of global warming or climate change, whichever term you wish to use. How wonderful that you and your henchmen are experts in the field of determining that carbon dioxide is a pollutant! It is good to know that you know so much more than non Government scientists.
Nov
10
Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission - Submission
Recommendations
” Human life must be placed above all other considerations. Begin all planning legislation with this requirement and frame all other provisions to prioritise human safety as the first and highest obligation. Recognise in legislation that humans are an important part of the environment.” Reduce ground fuel on all large areas of council land and Government reserves then commence a rotating plan to continue this fuel reduction by prescribed burning.
” Abandon Local Law 5 20(B) namely the restrictions on clearance of all roadsides and nature strips.
” Prior to commencement of the 2009/2010 fire season the State Government in cooperation with councils in high fire risk areas to clear roadsides and nature strips of ground fuel. Thereafter to be maintained by council.
” Permit landowners to maintain these roadsides if desired and allow and encourage resumption by CFA of this task by burning.
” Box clearance of major and minor firebreak roads be implemented, inspected and maintained annually.
” Abandon that part of preferred future Neighbourhood Character clause 22.12 that mandates prescription planting of indigenous vegetation.
” All properties in townships and urban areas be issued with section 41 notices to clear ground fuel from their properties.
” Abandon the recent Tree policy designed to create an indigenous urban forest.
” Remove ESO’s from rural areas, currently covering approximately 70% of Nillumbik. Legislate for landowners to plant the vegetation of their choice.
” Revise zonings from the current environmental categories of bias to reflect fire risk categories. eg. Rural Conservation Zone / Fire Risk 1, for Warrandyte North. This should in no way affect the ability of Government or council to restrict development.
” Amend the exemptions under clause 52.17 Native Vegetation to exempt the requirement for a permit to remove a tree within 10 meters of a building, ground and middle story fuel within 30 meters of a building.
” Amend clause 52.16 to include a requirement for a fire management plan approved by the CFA to be submitted with each land management plan.
” Reinstate Wildfire Management Overlays (WMO) to urban fringe townships and suburbs.
” All overlays must include all Government and Council land. The Fire Municipal Fire Prevention Officer to be authorised to issue section 41 notices on council and Government land.
” Stop planting vegetation under high voltage power lines and remove those existing trees and shrubs from these easements.
” Abandon the Green Wedge Management Plan currently under Council consideration.
” Commence an education campaign to fully inform people of the relationship between bushfires and native vegetation.
” Fire danger index/risk factor information to be included with advertising and contract of property sales in very high risk areas. eg. Warrandyte North.
Nillumbik Shire came into being with amalgamation in 1994 and consisted of mainly Eltham and Diamond Valley Shires and is a Melbourne metropolitan Shire. The area was made up of small hobby farms consisting mainly of horses, cattle, sheep and pigs and the landscape was open, lightly treed and well grazed. Until the Second World War there was 1675 hectares of orchards in this area.
The existing vegetation type (dry foothill forest) is the most abundant, least threatened in Victoria with over 70% remaining and it is also the most fire prone. (Port Phillip and Westernport Native Vegetation Plan)
These gum trees that cover around 70% of urban and rural Nillumbik, drop leaf litter and twigs in greater quantities during the summer months, causing fuel loads on the ground to accumulate. This is part of the natural cycle for this native vegetation and so is fire.
Until sometime around the early 1990’s the CFA burnt the roadsides in the cooler months to reduce ground fuel and landowners in large part mowed, slashed and maintained the roadsides outside their fences.
Changes in recent years have led to a massive build up of fuels on the ground in the many State and National Parks that surround Nillumbik. The reasons for this build up include virtual cessation of prescribed burning in cooler months to reduce these fuel loads and planning policies and restrictions.
Our suburban and township properties carry high ground fuel loads also.
It was therefore inevitable that when the fires were ignited they would be uncontrollable and of high intensity. The threat to the remaining 75% of Nillumbik not burnt on Black Saturday is extreme and if ground fuel loads are not reduced the heavily populated urban areas including Eltham, Diamond Creek and Apollo Parkways are in danger of a potential holocaust.
New arrivals to this area particularly over the last twenty years or so are generally not fire aware. This is evidenced by the findings in the report by John Gilbert. (Attachment 1) New residents are under the impression that gum trees are low maintenance. This is not true even for the bushland scrub; it requires prescribed burning or other forms of fuel reduction.
According to Aboriginal elder Joy Murphy the local Aborigines burnt on a regular seven year cycle in this district. Joy Murphy representing the Wurundjeri people said in her nationwide memorial speech for the Black Saturday fires that this lack of prescribed burning was a serious and damaging neglect of the land.
Tree cover over the Nillumbik Shire has now increased to between 70% and 80% including much of the suburban areas. (Figures prior to Black Saturday)
In recent years the bushfire danger has increased dramatically. This is due to a number of factors and it can be said that our laws and policies have effectively been instrumental in building bushfires.
The State Government has designated Nillumbik a Green Wedge Shire with zonings framed to encourage an emphasis on the environment. Nillumbik Council also prioritise the environment, this bias is evident throughout policy and related documentation.
Nillumbik has become a pseudo national park where trees are valued over people. Flora and fauna are and have been the primary consideration for planning decisions at Nillumbik Council. Fire as an integral part of the environment has not been included in framing these policies. Consequently the flora and fauna that is presumed to be so vital to this environment was as a result of this failure incinerated in a high intensity fire in the 23% of the shire that was burnt. The precious habitat preserved for our birds and animals is now so denuded there is little chance the few survivors will find food or shelter for this coming winter. The denuded hills are likely to further erode with the first heavy rains that will wash away remaining topsoil, create erosion and the real possibility of landslides. The pollution of our waterways is another problem.
This horrific mismanagement led to the tragic deaths of our residents and was brought about as a result of policies, enforcement measures and the influence of particular pressure groups.
Brian Murray
President
Nillumbik Ratepayers Association
Nov
8
CFA in apology to axed captain John Willis over Black Saturday swearing
By Peter Familari and Grant McArthur
Herald Sun Melbourne - November 09, 2009
A FIREFIGHTER sacked for swearing on emergency radio while his property was burning on Black Saturday has won an apology from the CFA after it accused him of having a history of bullying.
Carrajung brigade captain John Willis claimed he was pushed out by senior officers because he said “f—” in frustration when his crew tackled a fire against orders, while he battled a blaze on his property south of Traralgon.
As reported in the Herald Sun in March, the CFA responded by claiming it received three complaints in four days about “bullying language” by Mr Willis, and that he’d been counselled about his behaviour twice in the past two years.
But the CFA last week was forced to say sorry with a paid advertisement in Friday’s Herald Sun apologising for suggesting Mr Willis received behaviour counselling and that he was not suitable to represent his brigade or the CFA in a senior role.
The apology related to comments made by CFA executive manager of public affairs Robert Hogan, but the CFA was tight-lipped yesterday, a spokesman refusing to say if its earlier claims were false. The Herald Sun was unable to contact Mr Willis.
The CFA also placed a public notice in the Yarram Standard newspaper distancing itself from a letter in the paper from Carrajung fire brigade captain Graeme Hurrell, in which he discussed Mr Willis.
In better news, Kilmore SES member Patrick Leddin was presented yesterday with service medals to replace those destroyed in this year’s fires.
Sep
16
- Mal Davies interviews scientist and farmer, Noeline Franklin who is issuing a warning to the NSW and ACT governments to wake up and look around the Snowy Mountains. The destruction of a Canberra susburb, with the loss of human life, not to mention devestation that 2003 inferno did to our heritage Snowy and the burnt wild life never to return, is a reality again for 2009-10 and no one cares it would seem…Sep
16
RATEPAYERS DEMAND COUNCIL GREENS UNLOCK THEIR BUSHFIRE CONTROL
Filed Under Victoria, CFA, Black Saturday, Royal Commission 2009
With the Victorian Shire of Nillumbik radical green vegetation and resticted hazard reduction policies, despite Black Saturday bushfire of February 2009 losses of life and property in that shire, another firestrom season is upon residents and the Nillumbik Ratepayers Association (NRA) public concern and fear for their safety once again.
Awaiting only ignition to create a new hell all over again, the NRA have sent this letter on 14th September 2009 to Hon Richard Wynne MP, Victorian Minister for Local Government and Aboriginal Affairs confirming the Bushrie Royal Commission witness testimony that fuel loads are still out of control in the shire.
More than urgent is positive bushfire controls set in place by council to combat another catastrophy engulfing this shire again. Factual history of February 2009 revealed horrific consequences of lost human life and property and halting repetion may now be too late.
Visit the Nillumbik Ratepayers Association website on the link below to see just how this culpable council have done nothing to protect the nursing homes, the schools, the homes, the children and people surrounded by a legislated tinderbox.
Sep
6
VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE EXPERT ATHOL HODGSON HAS HIS SAY
Filed Under Victoria, CFA, Black Saturday, Royal Commission 2009
Athol Hodgson
President Forest Fire Vic Inc.
Former Commissioner of Forests,
Chief Fire Officer Conservation Forests and Lands
Website: http://www.vicnet.net.au/~frstfire
STATE OF DISASTER Ineptitude and failures revealed to the Bushfires Royal Commission (Sunday Age Bachelard 5/7 and Hall 19/7) are but part of a tragic story. It starts before Black Saturday when Premier and Minister failed to do the obvious.
Counsel Assisting found “No serious consideration was given by any witness to advising that a state of disaster, under s23 of the Emergency Management Act 1986, be declared on 7 February 2009, and no witness was aware that this had been considered by anyone else.
On Ash Wednesday1983 Victoria’s “3 stage” Displan was found wanting. Pending new legislation the Government empowered the Premier to declare a state of disaster, appoint a Minister as Co-ordinator in Chief and the Chief Commissioner of Police as State Co-ordinator of Displan. The measures were thoroughly tested when lightning started 111 fires on public land on 14 January 1985 and were crucial to successfully co-ordinating and controlling the resources of many agencies to combat those fires and others on private land.
Emergency Management Act (the Act) says:
“If there is an emergency which the Premier of Victoria after considering the advice of the Co-ordinator in Chief and the State Co-ordinator is satisfied constitutes or is likely to constitute a significant and widespread danger to life and property in Victoria, the Premier may declare a state of disaster to exist in the whole or in any part or parts of Victoria.
The Act gives disparate roles to a co-ordinator (the bringing together of agencies and elements to ensure effective response to emergencies) and a controller, (the overall direction of response to a likely or actual emergency).
Government submission to the Royal Commission includes:
In a press conference on 30 January, the Premier stated ‘we are right on the edge today’. On 4 February, the Premier said in the media that the State was ready to burn, with or without extreme heat. On 5 February, he said ‘everything is just tinder dry and we don’t even need the high temperatures now for high fire alerts’. On 6 February, the Premier said the forecast conditions would make it ‘the worst day ever in the history of our State.
Fires were burning uncontrolled when the Premier made his 6 February statement. It was a defining moment for the Premier, Minister and advisers. He could declare a state of disaster or opt for existing fires and new fires to be “managed” from the Integrated Emergency Co-ordination Centre (IECC).
If a state of disaster had been declared before Black Saturday 7 February 2009 the following would have happened:
Victorians heard a timely, credible message - unprecedented in their experience that lives and property were in peril. The State Disaster Co-ordination Centre at police HQ was fully operational. The Chief Fire Officer DSE, Chief Officer MFB and Chief Officer CFA were at respective operations HQ directing their resources to going fires and new ones as they started.
In lieu of state of disaster arrangements, the IECC was allowed to handle whatever might happen on a day the Premier believed would be the worst day ever in the history of our State. The IECC, fatally flawed by integrating co-ordination and control in one facility, collapsed early on Black Saturday. Did someone actually believe the IECC is the “NERVE CENTRE” where “NO BLAZE ESCAPES THE ATTENTION OF FIREFIGHTING HQ”, “IECC specialists plan strategies and marshal firefighters, firefighting appliances, transport and other resources”, “Experts rely greatly on technology to track fires—aircraft with infra-red cameras simultaneously beam pictures of the hotspots in each fire back to HQ” ?
These “Living with Fire” claims are fantasy- not facts. The Commission heard chilling evidence of ineptitude, confusion and failure. Perhaps most revealing that at 5 o’clock on Sunday, nearly a day after people died at Marysville, IECC “managers” believed everyone there was safe.
Counsel Assisting promised the conduct of Government, not just its agencies, will be subject to scrutiny in the Commission. The deceased and still suffering Victorians deserve to hear what the Premier, Co-ordinator in Chief and State Co-ordinator of Displan have to say.
Athol Hodgson President.
Forest Fire Victoria Inc.
Aug
29
With unbelievable fuels loads surrounding the Victorian Shire of Nillumbik, a township in that shire where most of the resident, men women and children lost their by an inferno generated from fuel loads that could have been controlled if this council laws forbidding vegetation removal and or hazard reduction to protect property, as common sense would prescribe. The next bushfire is just around the corner, this council of clowns are culpable and will be held accountable when, and that is “WHEN” the next Black Saturday inferno arrives in Nillumbik. Nursing homes in that Shire we have seen surrounded by tinderbox fuel loads just awaiting ignition…. remember this Mr Mayor … CULPABLE NEXT TIME …
Hear Premier Brumby quote on ABC “Stateline” up to 1000 could have perished in the Black Saturday fires … are you ready for the next wave of inferno’s Mr Brumby, the fuel loads around Victoria are at massive density. This should offer your Bushfire Royal Commission a front row seat of the 2009 - 10 summer bushfire season under radical green lock it up and leave it policies.
Aug
27
Bushfire inquiry covers up fuel reduction failure
Filed Under Victoria, CFA, Black Saturday, Royal Commission 2009
“With the interim report from the Bushfires Royal Commission now out, the most stark revelations are those which are not stated,” Citizens Electoral Council Leader Craig Isherwood said today.
Back in February, Mr Isherwood said that Victoria doesn’t need a Royal Commission, as it has had two Royal Commissions before, by Judge Stretton, into the Victorian bushfire disasters of 1939 and 1944, and the result was crystal clear: the bushfire disasters then, as now, were caused by what the Judge called “ridiculously inadequate” prescribed burning of the forests, and he mandated “fire prevention must be the paramount consideration of the forester”.
“Guess what was left out of this interim report?” Mr Isherwood asked.
He restated, “For forty years, fuel reduction burning was practiced as a scientific forestry management measure, until the intervention of, first, radical greenies in the Cain/Kirner Labor Government, and then, radical economic rationalists in the Kennett Government.
“Environmental concerns for ‘biodiversity’ etc. were increasingly cited to stop fuel reduction burns in the Cain/Kirner years, and then Kennett slashed the Department’s budget and staff, and gutted its ability to do prescribed burns.
“In 1992 the Auditor-General found that the Department of Conservation and Environment [now Sustainability and Environment] had cut expenditure on fire prevention by 23 per cent over five years, and in 2003 the Auditor-General found that the amount of prescribed burning had never met the Department’s targets.”
Mr Isherwood continued, “As I stated in February, prescribed burning doesn’t stop bushfires, but it dramatically reduces the intensity of the type of wildfires that erupt on extreme fire danger days like Black Saturday.”
He pointed out that last December, two months before the Black Saturday bushfire disaster, the Brumby government had already rejected the idea of tripling the area of prescribed burning from 130,000 to 385,000, stating that “the government supports a move away from focusing on hectare-based targets, which may lead to inappropriate planned burning programs.”
Mr Isherwood blasted the government: “This is pollie-code, for ‘we don’t want to spend the money’, to fund the personnel, machinery and infrastructure (which was dismantled in the 90s), and have a crash programme to expand our capacity to ‘triple’ the area we can safely perform controlled burns.
“Well, the reality is, that with the government now issuing warnings that the approaching fire season will be worse than the last, currently only 503 prescribed burns over 113,000 hectares have been completed.
“Given that national parks alone have increased from 276,343 hectares in 1975 to 3,230,741 hectares in 2005, more than a ten-fold increase, even controlled burning targets of 385,000 hectares per year, is a small target for bushfire control.”
Mr Isherwood concluded, “The government continues to be criminally negligent, when it comes to bushfire control.”
Jun
17
BRINDABELLA FIRE ABATEMENT PLAN 13 JUNE 2009.
Filed Under NSW, RFS, ACT, 2003 ACT Fire
Scientist and farmer Noeline Franklin met with the Rural Fire Service Deputy Fire Commissioner Dominic Lane, Southern Region Manager Jeff Lucas and Lindsay Lashbrook, Riverina at Brindabella to explain the folly of the events leading up to the 2003 firestorm to the west of Canberra. Hazard reduction to maintain the ideal vegetation structure she explained used to be achieved by a mix of activities. Wildlife grazing and browsing, traditional cool fire, dingo suppression and after European settlement the reinstatement of mega fauna grazing to assist cool fire and forest activities with vegetation and fire management.
Noeline and her family has long held the view the fires across the high country recently have been “man made events” as is the current and continued water crisis achieved by catchment management “over burning” at unprecedented intensities.
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