Bushfire Preparedness

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (15:29): In February next year, it will be the 40^th anniversary of Ash Wednesday. On 16 February 1983, I remember sitting on the couch in the front room of my parents' house listening to the radio for updates. I was eight at the time and my brother just a baby. My mum came to me and my sister, handed us a garbage bag and said, 'Go fill it with what you want to save.'

I remember it so clearly, as for years afterwards I would panic every summer. I promised myself that when I grew up I would never live in the Adelaide Hills. In 2002, 20 years after Ash Wednesday, I bought a house that sits on the northern slope of the Belair National Park. Clearly I had recovered from the ordeal.

On 8 February 2014, it was forecasted to be a 40° day and catastrophic conditions. It was pretty early in the morning, and I wondered what time I should leave on a catastrophic day and how I did not know that. I casually got up and started preparing what I should take. Suddenly, I heard planes flying over our house, and then the phone rang and someone said that we needed to evacuate and then there were the sirens.

A fire had started in the Belair National Park across the road. Panic set in. Thoughts of my childhood resurfaced. I grabbed my child, heart beating through my chest, and took off to my parents' house. The fire had started from a spark from a freight train and taken off up the hill. Fortunately, firefighters got to it quickly and were able to bring it under control. The fire did not escape the park that day, but it is only a matter of time.

In 2021, we had the fire in Cherry Gardens. Things had changed a lot for me. I was now running toward the fire instead of away from it, but my child and pets were at home alone. When I reached the fireground with my Upper Sturt crew, it was clear that it was not going to be a small fire. I was fortunate to be able to call my mum to go and get my child and the pets, but this is one of the questions our CFS is currently asking people of South Australia in their latest campaign: what if you are not home but your family and your pets are?

I am dedicated to helping my community to become more resilient and more prepared. We know that we have only a few roads out and that we need to do better at leaving, not sitting around wondering when to leave, like I was. On 13 November, I am hosting a bushfire resilience forum. It is important that my community has the facts. We have several iconic parks and boundless natural scrubland, which on the wrong day at the wrong time could be catastrophic.

I am pleased that the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, the member for Cheltenham, will be joining me, along with an impressive group of experts. We need to have a serious discussion with my community about the very real threat. It is really a matter of when and not if, and as the CFS campaign's slogan states, 'If you think you're safe, you're probably not.' Joining the panel from the CFS is Ray Jackson, Assistant Chief Fire Officer, with years of frontline experience. Ray will be letting my community know about what they can do to be safe. He will also educate them on the new AFDRS and what that means.

Also attending from the CFS is Aiden Galpin, Manager of the Planning Management Unit, to talk about our area and the risk it holds. Members of my community, especially those living in Glenalta and Belair, want to know what the plan is for the national park should a fire start. We will have a representative from the Department of Parks and Wildlife to discuss bushfire management plans for Belair and our other national parks, including Sturt Gorge, Shepherds Hill Reserve and Brownhill Creek.

Mitcham council has plans in place to engage in vegetation control as well as community support, and Mark Austin, Manager of Environmental Services and Community Safety, will also be joining the discussion. Locally, we will have the Sturt Group Officer from the CFS, Dale Thompson, to talk about a local response, the capacity of the CFS and what their response will look like, as well as suggestions for keeping our residents' homes bushfire safe.

Living in a high fire danger zone, we should be thinking about our own responsibilities and how to keep our home safe. Whilst I would hope residents' bushfire plans in our areas are to leave early on catastrophic days, making sure that their home is well prepared for an oncoming fire will not only help them but also their neighbours and the whole community. We also need to be prepared for the time that we cannot leave—the car does not start, the kids are home alone or you do not have a car at all. Being bushfire prepared means considering all these things. There are ways that we can make our properties more resilient by making wise choices about our gardens.

I have invited Josh Laynes from State Flora in the Belair National Park to also join the panel at the forum to talk about what plants are more resilient than others so that those who wish to be mindful about this can get some ideas about protecting their property. I am also hoping that many of our CFS brigade members will join us so that our community can see and thank our volunteers. They are our neighbours, our friends and, in my case, my son, and we need to thank them all for not thinking twice about running towards the fire. So I invite all my community to join me at the Belair Community Centre on 13 November at 2.30pm for an in-depth discussion about becoming a bushfire resilient community.