Bushfire protection - a one-size-fits-all solution is not the answer

Following the 2009 bushfires and the subsequent Royal Commission where I was engaged by Counsel Assisting as an expert witness to give evidence on “fire refuges, stay and defend or leave early policy, evacuation, warnings and management of the fires”, I have observed and indeed personally experienced what I consider to be a developing “them and us” attitude by government that highlights a reluctance to accept a reasonable level of risk to be shared with the community since the Royal Commission handed down its recommendations. Unfortunately, this attitude can only have an adverse effect on community resilience in Victoria.

Yes, the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission made many recommendations across a broad range of subjects, but I find the two introductory paragraphs to the Commission’s 67 recommendations particularly significant:

“In preparing its recommendations the Commission chose not to constrain the State with undue prescription: it wanted to obviate the risk of narrowing policy makers’ vision. To complement the recommendations, the Commission expresses views and draws conclusions in the text of the report, proposing the type of action the State (and others) should take to deal with matters that warrant further attention. The Commission trusts that those responding to the report will attach substantially the same weight to these proposals as they accord the primary recommendations.

“When the term 'State' is used in the recommendations it is not intended to be read narrowly. It applies not just to the elected government and the organisations that form part of the Victorian public service. Depending on the circumstances, it can also encompass public entities that make up the broader public sector, such as the Country Fire Authority, and the 'special bodies' defined in the Public Administration Act 2004, such as Victoria Police.”

What seems to be lacking is an understanding that those citizens likely to be directly affected were not considered to be critical stakeholders to be consulted when policies and practices that would affect them were being prepared — particularly concerning the sharing of risk. And, I would argue that as a consequence some of the policy responses are inappropriately narrow.

VBRC RECOMMENDATION 1

The State revise its bushfire safety policy. While adopting the national Prepare. Act. Survive. framework in Victoria, the policy should do the following:

• enhance the role of warnings—including providing for timely and informative advice about the predicted passage of a fire and the actions to be taken by people in areas potentially in its path
• emphasise that all fires are different in ways that require an awareness of fire conditions, local circumstances and personal capacity
• recognise that the heightened risk on the worst days demands a different response
• retain those elements of the existing bushfire policy that have proved effective
• strengthen the range of options available in the face of fire, including community refuges, bushfire shelters and evacuation
• ensure that local solutions are tailored and known to communities through local bushfire planning
• improve advice on the nature of fire and house defendability, taking account of broader landscape risks.

The emphases in Recommendation 1 are mine and the basis of my objection to a “one size fits all’ approach to bushfire protection, which can result in otherwise avoidable loss of property in a bushfire and unnecessary costs incurred by people seeking to develop their land in Victoria.  

Partially as a response to comments from the Tribunal Member at a recent VCAT Hearing concerning a household’s emergency management arrangements continuing to exist when ownership of a property changes hands, I decided to address a range of bushfire preparedness matters to supplement information provided by the government through its agencies, for my existing and former clients and anyone else who might find them useful.

In doing so I will provide advice to assist families and others to make their own decisions on how they will respond to the current CFA “Leave and Live” bushfire survival policy, and provide what guidance I can in applying for a planning permit where a Bushfire Management Overlay covers the land involved or it is within a designated bushfire prone area.

Launching this blog the day after the fifth anniversary of the 7 February 2009 fires and on the eve of a day being heralded as a bushfire shocker scenario seems appropriate given all the bushfire learning, policies introduced and the experiences of many since that day, and a need to minimise losses due to bushfire in the future while not being panicked.

Finally, in every case individuals must assess what I have to say against their own individual circumstances and make their own decisions. As the Royal Commissioners stated in their first recommendation (above) “all fires are different in ways that require an awareness of fire conditions, local circumstances and personal capacity”.