Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
penetrate to the heart of the city along green belts
and through beautified suburbs planted during the
1960s and '70s with highly flammable native trees and
shrubs. Following Bureau of Meteorology forecasts
for desiccating conditions in early January, and as the
number of fires around the city grew from 40 to
148 between 3 and 8 January, authorities planned
accordingly, setting in place a military-style operation
to save lives and property. Convoys of urban and
rural firefighting equipment totaling 1700 units
were summoned from as far away as Melbourne and
Adelaide, distances of over 1000 km. Firefighters were
flown in from across the continent and from New
Zealand. At the peak of the threat, on 'Hell Fire'
Saturday, 8 January, 70 000 firefighters - three-quarters
of whom were volunteers - were battling blazes that
would consume 800 000 hectares of bush. On that day,
air temperatures climbed to 40°C and humidity
dropped to 4 per cent accompanied by winds of
70 km hr
-1
blowing out of the continent's hot interior.
The firefighters were supported by 26 000 people pro-
viding food, accommodation and logistical support; and
assisted by 16 fixed-wing flying water bombers and
80 helicopters including three Erickson aircranes -
Elvis
,
The Incredible Hulk
and
Georgia Peach
. Sewage
tankers, petrol tankers, and concrete mixers assisted in
carting water. Taxis, ambulances, chartered buses, and
ferries were used to evacuate some of the 20 000
people fleeing the fires. The scale of the response
surpassed anything witnessed during urban wildfires in
the United States - including the 1991 Oakland fires.
The effort paid off. Over a three-week period, only
four people died and just 170 homes, valued at
$US50 million, were lost. A grateful Sydney held a
ticker tape parade in honor of everyone who had pre-
vented a much larger disaster - that at the beginning of
the fires was predicted to destroy 5000 homes.
In contrast to the Sydney fires, the Canberra fire of
18 January 2003 was not well-managed. Again drought
was a prominent factor, but this time its severity was
the worst in recorded history. Fires in the previous year
had burnt more area in the surrounding state of
New South Wales - 6000 km
2
- than in any other year
including the 1993-1994 fire season. Lightning in the
week preceding 18 January had sparked numerous
fires in the rugged Brindabella Ranges 50 km west of
the city. As the high-pressure pattern responsible for
most catastrophic fires in eastern Australia developed
(Figure 7.3), hot air from the arid interior of the
Devastation to the community of Fairhaven along the
Otway coastline of Victoria following the Ash Wednesday
bushfires, 16 February 1983. Note similarity of devastation
to that in Figure 7.6 (photograph © and reproduced
courtesy of the The Age newspaper, Melbourne).
Fig. 7.9
to extreme bushfires in south-eastern Australia - and
this pattern should be researched and predicted.
Warnings of this particular hazard and research into
the design of buildings and the structuring of commu-
nities to prevent fire intrusion must be undertaken to
minimize the threat. Issues relating to prescribed
burning practices, and pitting conservationists against
fire authorities in attempts to prevent another Ash
Wednesday, must be resolved. The Ash Wednesday
bushfires of 1983 were the worst natural disaster
in Australia up to that time. Research, planning, and
preparation for major bushfires must be seen in this
country as the prime challenge for natural hazard
mitigation. These activities, coupled with an effective
education program on bushfire survival techniques
(staying inside a house or car until the fire passes over
is the safest behavior), offer hope of reducing the death
toll due to this hazard in Australia.
The Sydney 1994 and Canberra 2003 fires were
mainly urban events. The lessons learnt during the
Hobart fires of 1967 were practiced during the Sydney
fires but ignored in the Canberra fire of 18 January
2003. The Sydney fires were part of a larger fire
disaster affecting 600 km of the eastern seaboard of
New South Wales. Drought was a major factor as
eastern Australia slipped into the 1990-1995 El Niño-
Southern Oscillation event. With the advent of fires
in early summer, fire authorities knew that climate
conditions were deteriorating rapidly and that worse
was to come. For the first time ever, the fires would
not stop at the edge of Sydney. Rather, they would
