22 January 2013

A heavy reaction for a traffic island fire

| johnboy
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ACT Fire & Rescue and the ACT Rural Fire Service has extinguished a grass fire burning at Hindmarsh Drive & Canberra Ave, Fyshwick.

The Bushfire Alert and Warning Level for this fire has been set at ADVICE.

The ACT Fire & Rescue and the ACT Rural Fire Service has two units on scene.

The fire was located on a traffic island, approximately five x 10 metres in size and has been extinguished.

The Fire Danger Rating where this fire is burning is VERY HIGH.

Fires burning in VERY HIGH conditions can be difficult to control – flames may burn into the tree tops.

There is a low chance people may die or be injured.

Some homes and businesses may be damaged or destroyed.

Well prepared and actively defended houses can offer safety during a fire.

Embers may be blown ahead of the fire.

Spot fires may occur up to 2 km ahead of the fire.

Your home will only offer safety if it and you are well prepared and you can actively defend it during a fire.

Leaving is the safest option for your survival. You should relocate to the location identified in your Bushfire Survival Plan.

The ESA advises you to monitor the situation for any changes through local ACT media outlets, the ESA website www.esa.act.gov.au, ESA Twitter account @ACT_ESA, ESA Facebook account @ACT Emergency Services Agency, the national version of the Fires Near Me mobile device App or by calling Canberra Connect on 13 22 81.

This advice should be read in conjunction with current weather conditions. Current weather observations can be found on the Bureau of Meteorology website http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/act/observations/canberra.shtml

4:07 PM

[Courtesy ESA]

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HiddenDragon11:19 am 23 Jan 13

I most certainly would not want to see a “she’ll be right” response, but equally, there are obvious risks of public complacency, over time, in giving out what looks like overstated, formulaic advice. It may be time for the technical experts and the wordsmiths to do some fine tuning on the wording of the fire risk warnings.

On days of higher risk, when the standard warning talks of spot fires up to 6km ahead of the fire, the implication would seem to be that much of Canberra should be evacuated (to where?) given that very few, if any, parts of this town are more than 6 km from the fire fuel load of nature parks and other such bushland.

So you would prefer emergency services to downplay risks and drop their required minimum of two units at every fire, especially when it is literally a stones throw from hectares of open grassland and rural grazing country during very high fire danger?

The last 2/3 of the bulletin is simply a copy/paste of what the fire danger rating of VERY HIGH means. It’s not a blow by blow account of what happened at this particular grass fire.

wildturkeycanoe6:00 am 23 Jan 13

If there was enough grass on this traffic island to cause such a ruckus, TAMS haven’t been keeping up with their lawn mowing very well. Perhaps this is a perfect solution for those pesky overgrown roundabouts with limited views of entering vehicles. At the at time of the afternoon I can imagine the chaos for commuters.

el said :

How many people were relocated to the location identified in their Bushfire Survival Plan due to this 5x10m inferno?

Well given that there could have been spot fires up to 2km ahead of it, you’d hope it was lots…

screaming banshee said :

As much as I tried I couldn’t keep a straight face while reading this to the wife

I had a similar reaction – surely someone was taking the piss? How many people were relocated to the location identified in their Bushfire Survival Plan due to this 5x10m inferno?

screaming banshee8:49 pm 22 Jan 13

As much as I tried I couldn’t keep a straight face while reading this to the wife

Traffic island sounds like the sort of place a cigarette butt might end up..

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