Black saturday bushfires

• Geographical context


  - Power cables cross the states which helps bring services to isolated rural areas but it can be damaged by weather conditions. Sparks can leads to fires

  - 10 year drought has created flammable little from trees and there is little management to guard against fires

  - Rural areas has experienced deurbanisation and caused a decline in services and results in harder times to combat the fires without services

  - Summer climate with temperatures over 40c and created low humidity. This produced timber dry vegetation which is easily ignited

  - Some ares experience high winds which creates more widespread fires

  - Victoria region has lots of eucalyptus trees which produces flammable oils which can burn easily
• Causes


  - 7th February, hot winds blew in the west over 100km/h and caused low humidity

  - Configuration of the pressure systems meant that there was hot tropical air being blown in the area

  - 2009 January, there was a intense heatwave that hit the south-east Australia with temperatures above 40c regularly
• Reasons for a fire starting


  - lightening strikes

  - sparks from power cables

  - arson

  - sparks from machinery
• Primary impacts


  - Agricultural loses with 11800 livestock being abandoned and killed

  - Property loss with 2000 homes lost and 1500 farm buildings

  - Large areas of national parks and other areas destroyed and the wildlife as well. RSPCA estimated that there was 1 million animals died.

  - Electrical supply disrupted to over 60000 residents

  - Fires was able to kill people over 400km away

  - Burned for 1 month

  - Burned within a 80km radius from Melbourne

  - Forest loss around 1 million acres

  - 7000 people displaced

  - 173 deaths including 1 firefighters
• Secondary impacts


  - cost around $4.4 billion, most of it came from insurance claims

  - Total insurance claims is around $1.2 billion

  - 5 damns surrounding Melbourne was contaminated with ash and other chemicals making it unsafe to drink for people living there

  - Emotional trauma causing families to be too scared to rebuild homes just in case another fire is going to burn it down

  - All time worse fires causing the most loss of life

  - Increasing looting and crime rates in empty properties
• Short term responses


  - 7th February, 3582 firefighters got deployed on standby and over 5000 helped to combat the flames

  - sound relief charity raised $5.8 million for victims

  - Bureau of Meteorology forecasted the conditions early enough to evacuate the area or stay and protect your home

  - International response from Canada, USA and UK. They sent humanitarian and fire aid and helped rebuild homes

  - More that 19000 CFA (country fire authority) members were front line firefighters and incident management control
• Long term responses


  - New building regulations for bushfires prone areas where fast tracked by the government

  - Government has big criticism about rebuilding Marysville which was 90% destroyed in the fire

  - 2009 October, the government introduced a new fire hazard. The Bureau of Meteorology introduced a new Fire Danger Index by considering variety of variables. On high risk days the residents are advised to leave the areas.