30 August 2024

Five years after Black Summer, are we any better prepared for bushfire season?

| Zoe Cartwright
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Smoke blows across backed-up traffic off the M1 as fire crews battle high winds to put out a blaze in Brownsville on 28 August.

Smoke blows across backed-up traffic off the M1 as fire crews battle high winds to put out a blaze in Brownsville on 28 August. Photo: Zoe Cartwright.

It’s a windy, unseasonably warm day; I can smell smoke on the wind.

It smells clean. That’s a good sign – it means the fire hasn’t reached anything man-made, despite being in the middle of suburbia.

The smell of homes and cars burning is unforgettable.

NSW Fire and Rescue says it’s under control, but I’m a journalist. It’s my job to fact-check, so I wander down.

The closer I get the heavier the smoke, and the traffic. Police have closed the M1, and the fire has jumped a section of road to the next median strip.

There are just three fire trucks on scene. I see the silhouettes of two firefighters through the smoke, struggling against the wind.

It doesn’t look under control to me.

READ ALSO When your escape becomes a guilt trip, get ready for the doghouse (cos it’s gonna get ruff)

I check the Fires Near Me page, and the hazards app. They haven’t been updated in two hours.

I call Fire and Rescue NSW, who repeat that the fire is under control. They weren’t aware it had crossed the first section of road.

The duty officer is on his way to a different grass fire, in Western Sydney. Everyone is stretched.

It feels like 2019.

There’s the same tension in the air. Drivers stuck in traffic are furious; the people you talk to make jokes-that-aren’t-really-jokes about evacuating.

Despite the Bushfire Inquiry, despite the Natural Disaster Royal Commission, on the ground not much has changed.

The community can’t access up-to-date information, emergency services are under-resourced and overburdened, and for some reason there’s still a wait-and-see attitude to fires that break out in high fire danger rating conditions.

I pop my passport, wallet, inhaler and keys into a bag and collect my laptop gear. All the dogs have their harnesses on, ready to go. The smaller creatures have been packed into carry-sized crates and tanks.

READ ALSO Posthumous honour for South West Slopes’ longest serving volunteer bush firefighter

I know how quickly things can go from “under control” to “shelter in place”. I know how hard it is to leave when highways are cut, and everyone has decided to evacuate at the last possible moment. The streets turn into carparks.

When one of my colleagues found a body in a burnt-out car during the Black Summer bushfires, I was the first person he called.

It still haunts me. It’s hard to imagine a worse way to go.

I duck over to check on my neighbour over the road. She’s elderly, and lives with her son who has a disability.

They’re out on the front verandah, watching the smoke billow towards us, unsure of how far away it is or what they should do.

I ask about their fire plan, joking-but-not. They haven’t really got one.

NSW Fire and Rescue deploys another four fire trucks, including a bulk water tanker. The RFS send multiple trucks and crews to help, too.

After another couple of hours the fire is mostly out, the roads are open, and two firefighters are being taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

It’s been five years, and it feels like we’ve learnt nothing.

Original Article published by Zoe Cartwright on Region Illawarra.

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Martin Tebbutt12:49 pm 01 Sep 24

Five years after Black Summer, are we any better prepared for bushfire season?
31 August 2024 | Zoe Cartwright
Dear Mirage News,

There is certainly not adequate preparation for the next bush fire season here in our area.
We are in the category one bush fire prone area of Bilpin NSW and have experienced a number of fires impacting our 75 acre property since 1972. We have been most uncomfortable since the escaped Mount Wilson backburn (which was lit by the NSW Rural Fire Service head office against local advice) reached us via the overgrown Crown Land opposite us and also destroyed the Tutti Fruitti roadside cafe not far away. This was part of the 2019-2020 mega fire. On 21 December 2019.
The regrowth over the last almost five years is now thicker than before the mega blaze and our complaints to those responsible for hazard reduction are being ignored. We have requested that mechanical fuel reduction via slashing and mulching be carried out at least along the roadside perimeter of the 188 acres of Crown Land opposite us. This could be done in most weather with no need to wait for the much lauded ‘window in the weather’ and there would be no unhealthy smoke for Sydneysiders or the risk of another fire escaping and large trees and much of the wildlife could be protected.
The three NSW Government agencies responsible for the Crown Land maintenance are the Rural Fire Service (RFS), Hawkesbury Council and the Crown Lands Department.

The are buck passing and ignoring our complaints about the neglect.

We would be pleased if you were to follow up on this issue and reveal some of the details that the media in general seem to ignore.

Yours sincerely,
Martin and Marion Tebbutt
2018 Bells line of Road, BILPIN NSW 2758
Ph. 02 4567 0788 Mob. 0409 621 975
[email protected]

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