Building a fire conscious community
In the midst of busy lives, the bushfire season can arrive almost without warning. While we’re enjoying our gorgeous summer weather, we must never forget an undeniable aspect of summer in Hobart: our vulnerability to bushfires.
And as climate change becomes a reality, extended heat waves and more extreme temperatures is enhancing the occurrence and intensity of bushfires.
Queensland’s catastrophic December fires burned through entire rainforests entire towns evacuated with minutes notice was the most recent shocking reminder of the power of bushfire.
In 2018 California had the most destructive fire season in the state’s history with a total of 8,527 fires causing the loss of more than 100 deaths and tens of thousands of buildings destroyed. With severe fire weather of low humidity, high temperatures and strong winds the fires engulfed entire communities, with fires spreading from house to house, and human communities turning into a unique wildfire “fuel”. Suburbs can burn at the rate of one house per minute.
Fires in Greece in July killed 99 people, and in 2017 66 people died in fires in Portugal and Chile had its worst fire season on record also with loss of lives.
In Hobart climate scientists have advised us that dangerous fire weather days will increase over the coming decades here, just as it is around the wold.
Bushfire is the biggest risk facing Hobart and as Mayor I worry about our readiness as a community to prevent loss of life and injury. I also worry about the impact a large fire could have in slowing the city’s economic development, disrupting our community and the huge costs of recovery.
Yet we are also so lucky in Hobart to be able to live close to nature, and it’s one of the things we love most about our city. But this comes with risks that must be managed, and extra responsibilities on governments and citizens.
Global fire expert and Hobart resident, Professor David Bowman said in an interview in the Mercury this year that “without wanting to alarm people, you probably couldn’t have put a capital city in a worse place.”
Our intense, dry north-westerly winds, our bushland landscape and hilly terrain, means that when we get dangerous fire weather we get some of the most intense fires on earth.
The key to living with our flammable landscape is managing fuels and stopping wildfires from starting in the first place. I am confident in the team at Hobart City Council that is working to reduce the threat of fire on the city.
We are spending $1.9 million on bushfire preparedness this financial year, which includes the cost of specialist staff, of undertaking hazard reduction burns, maintaining a good network of accessible fire trails and creating and maintaining new fire breaks around the city.
The City of Hobart's largest ever fuel reduction burn was undertaken in late October near the Mount Nelson Signal Station. An operation conducted over two days and involving twenty firefighters, it aims to protect houses and bushland in an area across Sandy Bay, Mt Stuart and Taroona.
We’ve also created on major new fire trails in Bicentennial Park to allow firefighters to reach the front of a bushfire before it gets out of control. They also create buffer zones between bushland and homes.
Soon we will be carrying out an ecological burn in Knocklofty Reserve, to protest a patch of forest that’s home to some of the oldest trees in Hobart and several threatened species. The burn will managed to impact upon the smallest possible percentage of the reserve, with measures put in place to protect significant values, such as the nesting habitat of Tawny Frogmouths and owls.
We also recently approved the clearing of new firebreaks in Fern Tree that will take place in the first half of 2019. We undertook in-depth consultations with the community who understand that while the new ‘green fire breaks’ will look different, they will be designed to retain some ecological qualities. They may not prevent loss of property on the worst fire weather days, but may provide a crucial few extra minutes to help prevent loss of lives.
But all of this work will still not stop the fire disaster that is likely to reach us one day in Hobart. So this means we need to become an even more fire conscious community over the coming years.
My hope is that with our limited budget the Hobart City Council can find new resources to further assist the community to reduce the fuel on their own properties. With new funds we might consider undertaking programs to ensure our residents have homes that are resistant to ember attack. I would also like to see new community engagement and education initiatives to help Hobart residents to make clever decisions on fire danger days so that lives are not lost.
I appeal to you to not rely only on others and to also make your own preparations - eliminate excess vegetation around your house, clear gutters and ensure your family has planned its response to a range of scenarios.
A bushfire might arrive in the middle of the night or on a weekday when families are in locations around the city. Its important to consider all options and recognise that we can learn from the recent past to ensure Hobart’s next bushfire isn’t a human disaster.
