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Battling Bushfires in the Land of Oz
Dick Mangan
Blackbull Wildfire Services
Missoula, Montana USA
Copyright 2002
For the Christmas 2001 holiday season, many of us in the United States
and Canada were experiencing a classic “White Christmas”. Temperatures
were cold, there was snow on the ground, and the wildfires of 2001 were
just a memory of days past. Wearing a warm wool sweater, and with a mug
of hot coffee (or hot, spiced wine) in hand, we logged on the fire web
sites to talk amongst ourselves about GS-8 engine foremen, getting 1000
hours of overtime, and a 30% pay raise for fire folks in Southern
California.
But a half a world away, in the Southern Hemisphere, there was no
sitting back and enjoying Christmas with your family if you were an
Australian bushfire fighter. Experiencing some of their worst fire
weather conditions in nearly 40 years, and with a helping hand from
lightning storms and local arsonists, the State of New South Wales and
firefighters from all over Australia were fighting nearly 100 bushfires
that burned 1.2 million acres and destroyed 170 structures. December
2001 in the Sydney area will be known in Australian history as the year
of the “Black Christmas”!
As the Australian fire situation reached the American media, the fire
web sites picked up the discussion: “why aren’t the Aussie’s asking the
U.S. firefighters to come down and help”; “what the Aussie’s need is the
A-10 ‘Firehog’ to stop their fires”; “what about the CL-415 ‘Super
Scooper’?”
It was apparent that the combination of the information flow over the
Internet, coupled with the Australian and New Zealand forces that came
to help us in 2000, both created an interest and questions in the minds
of US firefighters about fighting bushfires in Australia. It probably
helps, too, that “Crocodile Dundee”, Foster’s beer and everyone’s
favorite Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, are constant features on
American television.
Over the past few years, I’ve been extremely fortunate to make multiple
trips “Down Unda”, both in my position as Fire & Aviation Leader at the
U.S. Forest Service Technology Center here in Missoula, and more
recently as an invited lecturer at the Country Fire Authority (CFA) Fire
Training College at Fiskville, Victoria in their Operations Officer’s
Professional Development Course. During my visits, I’ve had the
opportunity to meet many of the Australian firefighters, and discuss
their firefighting strategy and tactics in both classroom settings as
well as over a brew in the local pub.
So, what’s it like fighting bushfires in “the sunburned land”???
The Land “DownUnda”
Before we start talking how they fight bushfires “DownUnda”, it’s best
to get an appreciation of the Australian landscape. Although it’s about
the same physical size as the US, the population of Australia is only
about 18 million people, compared to the 285 million that live in the
US. And, nearly 90% of the population lives in the immediate vicinity of
the Coast. The Eucalypt forests of Australia have a long and storied
history of burning. In his book “World Fire”, Steve Pyne says,
“Australia is, more than any other, a fire continent.” Why is that so?
Well, aside from a highly flammable fuel types that cover much of the
country, and an aboriginal culture that has used fires for centuries in
almost every aspect of their lives, the weather also cooperates to help
the country burn: on February 6, 1851 the city of Melbourne recorded a
maximum temperature of 117°F. This is coastal city, not a town like
Phoenix or Tucson in the Southwestern desert of the US.
The Australian Fire Problem
Not only does Australia have the climate and the fuels to cause a major
fire problem, it also has the history to show that these forces,
combined with lightning or human-caused ignitions, can wreak havoc on
the countryside when the conditions are right:
* In January 1939, the temperature in Melbourne hit 112.5°F, with
wildfires burning “millions of hectares”, and killing 71 people;
• On January 7, 1967, fires in Tasmania killed 62 people, and burned
“thousands of square kilometers” in the second worst fire in Australia’s
history (to that date).
• In January 1969, an “enormous grass fire” killed 17 recreationists;
• On Ash Wednesday 1983, 76 people were killed and 2676 needed medical
attention as 400,000 hectares of ground and 3000 houses and other
buildings were burned in the states of Victoria and South Australia;
• In New South Wales State around Sydney in January 1994, 4 were killed.
100 injured, 185 buildings destroyed and 800,000 hectares were burned by
bushfires.
The fires that occurred over the Christmas holidays in 2001 are just
part of the continuing saga of fires in Australia that will likely
continue into the 21st century.
The Fire Organizations in “Oz”
For someone who spent more than 30 years fighting fire in the US, it was
a real cultural shock to make my first trip to Australia and find out
how differently their organizations are from those in the US that I was
familiar with.
First, the bushfire suppression responsibilities in Australia rest with
the individual States and territory, rather than with a strong
centralized Federal fire force. New South Wales (around Sydney),
Victoria (the Melbourne area), South Australia (surrounding Adelaide),
Queensland (the Brisbane area), West Australia (Perth area), the
Northern Territory (from Darwin, south), and the island of Tasmania:
these are the major governmental entities with a responsibility for
bushfire fighting in Australia. The role of the Federal government (the
“Crown”) in bushfire activities is pretty much limited to the area of
research, which I’ll discuss a little later in the article.
Probably the most significant difference between the US and Australian
fire forces is that a large majority of the Aussie bushfire fighters are
volunteers! Yeah, there are full-time, paid firefighters in the bigger
cities (I refuse to call them “professionals”, implying that volunteers
are somewhat less-than professional), but they are a small percentage of
the total Australian Fire forces. In States like Victoria, the Country
Fire Authority (CFA) has responsibility for fire suppression on all the
private, non-State lands: they have a work force of 800 paid staff and
65,000 volunteers. New South Wales Rural Fire Service has 450 paid staff
and 70,000 volunteers. The Country Fire Service in South Australia (CFS)
protects 33.4 million acres with 17,000 volunteers in 430 fire brigades.
The paid staff on the fire services of the various states provides the
senior leadership, administrative support, trainers, maintenance
personnel and day-to-day resources necessary to run a 24 hour-per-day
fire operation.
Another major difference between US and Australian fire forces is the
almost complete lack of any hand crews used in bushfire suppression:
nearly all the suppression action is taken by “tankers” (“engines” in
American ICS talk) and occasionally by dozers on larger fires. Farmer’s
tractors with plow units are also used extensively on the grass and
brush fires in the non-forested areas. The general rule of thumb is that
you fight fire to the end of your hard line reel, rather than making the
multi-thousand foot hose lays that occur in many of the western US
states.
The Incident “Controllers” (Incident Commanders under US ICS) on most
initial attack and extended initial attack fires, are often volunteers.
During the 1990’s, the Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC),
which is the US equivalent of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group
(NWCG), has set minimum “competencies” for all positions in the bushfire
fighting organization, and many volunteer fire brigades are meeting the
requirements of those “competencies”.
But the volunteer fire services in Australia face many of the same
problems that we have on volunteer departments here in America: an aging
workforce; dual-career couples, with limited time for activities outside
the home and family; an increasingly complex fire work environment that
has training requirements not only in bushfire suppression, but also in
structural fire, hazmat, and emergency medical assistance, all while
holding down full time jobs.
Across Australia, acceptance of the “AIIMS” (Australian Inter-Service
Incident Management System) Incident Control System (ICS) is widespread,
and being effectively used on most bushfire incidents. There are several
differences in the Australian implementation of ICS compared with the US
version, however. First, the Aussie’s classify their fire’s in the
opposite order that we do in the US: their least complex fires at
initial attack and extended initial attack are called “Type 1” fires;
the most complex are classified as “Type 3” incidents.
Incident Management Teams are used on Australia’s largest and most
complex bushfires, much like they are in the US; however, they are
generally formed on an “as needed” basis, rather than having
pre-designated teams that stay together year after year as is common
with US Type 1 and Type 2 teams. They are interagency in nature when a
multi-jurisdictional fire occurs, and since they are based at the State
level, are often on the scene of an emerging fire within hours of its
escape from initial attack. An organizational difference between
Australian and US fire teams deals with Fire Safety Officers. While US
teams have qualified Safety Officers working for the Incident Commander
on the Command and General Staff Group, the Australians have yet to
incorporate the Safety Officer position into their ICS organization.
They believe, for the most part, that safety is the responsibility of
each individual firefighter. Assigning a Fire Safety Officer might cause
an individual firefighter to pay less attention to their own safety on
the fireline, believing that someone else was watching out for their
well-being.
In Australia, there is no National-level Coordination Center such as we
have at Boise, Idaho. When the fire situation exceeds the suppression
resource capability of the State where it occurs, the fire dispatchers
of the affected State must “run the trap line” for available resources
from all the other Aussie States. This situation offered interesting
challenges both during the “Black Christmas” fires of 2001 in New South
Wales, as well as during the mobilization of Aussie and New Zealand fire
overhead to Montana and Idaho during 2000.
Protecting the Firefighters
The Australian bushfire fighters are exposed to most of the same fire
hazards as their American partners. Like us, they wear protective
clothing intended to protect them from the effects of radiant heat and
burnovers. While most US firefighters are wearing Nomex® fire clothing,
the Aussie’s tend more toward Proban®-treated cotton. And while most US
firefighters are wearing the 2-piece shirt & trouser ensemble, most
Aussie firefighters tend toward the one-piece jumpsuit style of
protective clothing. There is no “standardized” design or color of
protective clothing for Aussie firefighters, although some of the States
are recognizing the potential cost saving to be realized from some
degree of standardization of design, if not color. The upcoming
International Standards Organization (ISO) standards for wildfire
protective clothing, and the economic benefits of standardization, will
likely move more of the Australian States towards a more common design
for their protective clothing.
Although the concept of fire shelters were first introduced by the
Australians in the 1950’s, the idea quickly lost favor among their
research community, and was never pursued as it was in the US. While
there are some strong voices in the Australian fire community that
continue to down play the potential life-saving aspects of the fire
shelters, believing that training can overcome the risk of becoming
entrapped and needing a fire shelter to survive, the shelter is
gradually being looked at among some Aussie firefighters as another tool
that may ultimately increase their safety, and may even save their
lives.
While Australian firefighters don’t carry fire shelters, and believe
that their training will keep them from becoming entrapped on bushfires,
they do place a high degree of trust in the protection systems designed
for their tankers. Since most of their fire suppression is tanker based,
and firefighters are seldom far away from their tanker, it makes sense
to that this is your safety zone in case of a fire blowup. But, to be
survivable, the tanker must be able to cool the radiant heat and direct
flame contact that occurs during extreme fire conditions. The Australian
answer: an emergency spray deluge system that envelops the entire tanker
in a mist of water when threatened with a burnover. Successful in saving
firefighter lives in some instances, and unsuccessful in other
circumstances, the concept of creating a survivable environment in a
tanker has gained widespread support across Australia. Tanker protection
spray systems, reflective curtains, and cab modifications are being
aggressively pursued as methods of protecting bushfire fighters in case
of entrapments.
Since the large majority of Aussie bushfires are suppressed in the first
burning period by firefighters close to their tankers, the use of web
line gear has not really surfaced as a need among Aussie firefighters.
There is a significant amount of importance placed on adequate
hydration, but carrying line packs with 20-35 pounds of gear is not the
norm.
Essential items such as drinking water are delivered to firefighters on
a regular basis, since much of the fire fighting is close to the road
system.
Science and Research
As I mentioned earlier, the presence of a national Federal fire force is
non-existent in Australia. But, there is a small group of really
excellent fire scientists at work DownUnda whose impact is felt
worldwide in the wildfire community. The Commonwealth Science and
Industry Research Organization (CSIRO) host a small but dedicated group
of fire researchers comparable to the folks at the Missoula and
Riverside Fire Labs in the US. Although much smaller in number than
their American counterparts, these folks have made significant
contributions to the body of knowledge about fire behavior and fire
safety for all of us around the world. Phil Cheney and Jim Gould have
done some outstanding fire behavior research on “Project Vesta” in
Western Australia that provided significantly new and different
information about the rates of spread that affected firefighter safety.
Phil transferred that information immediately to field firefighters
through his CD-rom video “the Dead-Man Zone”, unwilling to wait for the
normal. drawn-out process of publishing in Technical journals. Another
CSIRO-sponsored fire research project was “Project Aquarius” under the
direction of Dr. Grahame Budd. It looked at the physiological effects of
firefighting on the firefighters, and reported out that the purpose of
fighter protective clothing is “ to LET heat out, not KEEP heat out.”
With only a small staff, the CSIRO Bushfire group has made important
contributions to fire safety in Australia as well as the rest of the
world’s fire community
In addition to the great work done by CSIRO at the national level, some
excellent work is also being done in the various states around
Australia: Richard Donarski with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service,
and Barry “Rocky” Marsden with Victoria Natural Resources and
Environment are both players on the National and international scene in
the area of fire equipment development. There’s also a volunteer
firefighter in South Australia, Dr. Bruce Paix, who has made significant
contributions both within Australia and abroad to the issue of Tanker
protection systems. Bruce exemplifies the best of the Australian
volunteer spirit, donating his time and expertise to not only fight
bushfires, but to develop a safer system to do so.
Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke
One of the emerging issues in the world of Australian fire these days is
the subject of fuel reduction and the social impacts of smoke. Sound
familiar??? The recent fires around Sydney have aroused the interest of
the local population about fuel reduction projects, but another portion
of the residents don’t like the smoke, while others are against changing
the “natural environment”. Just like life in the old US of A!!!
Firefighting Gone Wrong
Like the US firefighter community, the Australian bushfire fighters have
seen friends and neighbors killed battling fires. On of the most recent
tragic evens occurred in December 1998 in Victoria when five (5)
volunteer firefighters were killed in a tanker burnover on a bushfire
near the town of Linton. The impact of those fatalities, and the
recommendations of the three (3) year Coronial Inquest that were
delivered on January 11, 2002 have the potential of having the same
impacts on the Australian fire fighters as the South Canyon and
Thirtymile fires had on their American counterparts. Tanker burnovers
are the most common cause of deaths among the Aussies, and they have
responded by focusing a great amount of energy on developing improved
systems for protecting firefighters inside their tankers. Spray systems,
reflective curtains and fire-resistant components for inside the tanker
cabs are all being aggressively used to make the tankers less
susceptible to burnovers like occurred on Linton.
So What’s Next, Mate??
Now that we’ve looked at fighting bushfires in Australia, what’s it all
mean to those of us in the US??
Well, first of all, I think that we can safely assume that very few of
us will be called “DownUnda” at portal-to-portal pay, with H-pay and OT,
to help out our Aussie friends. The Aussie volunteer spirit is the
mainstay of their fire organization, and they’re willing to work hard to
keep that spirit alive without much help from the outside. I do believe
that there are circumstances where US firefighters can offer some
specialized help under serious fire conditions – helicopter managers and
Safety Officers come to mind – but for the most part, don’t expect to
see large numbers of Yanks heading south. The Aussies and New Zealanders
that helped us in Montana and Idaho in 2000 were mostly top overhead,
who could easily fit into our Incident Command System and manage large
fires with hundreds of firefighters. I doubt that we’ll see those
opportunities arise on the shorter duration fires that occur in
Australia.
I’m also afraid, however, that the changing culture of the
wildland-urban interface dweller in Australia will put more pressure on
their friends and neighbors in the volunteer fire services to take
exceptional (and unacceptable) risks to defend the homes and properties
that they have developed in indefensible places (just like here in the
US.) The “can do” spirit of firefighters around the world that has
helped us become so successful also has the potential to put Aussie
volunteer firefighters in risky situations in the years ahead. To
prevent this form happening, solid training and strong leadership at the
local fire brigade level will be essential.
If you ever get the chance to meet and visit with an Aussie firefighter,
don’t let the opportunity pass you by: they’re good mates!! They share a
common bond with those of us in North America in the wildfire
suppression world, and are rightfully proud of the successes they have,
year after year, as a volunteer fire force in a fire environment almost
unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
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