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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-27 Daily Xml
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MITCHAM HILLS FIRE SAFETY

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:18): I wish to comment on a public meeting that I hosted on Monday with the CFS and the local mayor, Ivan Brooks, in relation to fire safety in the Mitcham Hills. This is not a new topic to the government or, indeed, the house, as I have raised my concerns about bushfire in the Mitcham Hills a number of times.

The most telling contribution on the night came from the local Sturt commander, Mike Pearce, who I have the greatest of respect for. He is a long-time firefighter. I think he is a member of the MFS as well as the CFS. He is a very experienced firefighter. When people like Mike Pearce get up and say that the Mitcham Hills has 26,000 residents in 9,000 homes but only seven escape routes and that, on the lightest day of fire two of those escape routes are likely to be blocked because of the action of the fire, and evacuation is, therefore, a major issue, I think the community and authorities need to listen. As luck would have it, Euan Ferguson, the head of the CFS was there. These arguments were not new to Mr Ferguson, as I have been raising them with him for a number of years now.

We had about 200 at the meeting. I sought four meetings with the CFS late in winter, and we managed to get one. I hope to get more meetings next year, because there is a real issue in the Mitcham hills. Mike Pearce describes the Mitcham hills as one of the highest fire risk areas in the world, not dissimilar to California; and we have seen what has happened to California this week.

The real concern is that the Mitcham hills as a community has not seen a bad fire, as in an Ash Wednesday-type fire, for well over 50 years, so in some quarters there is a complacency and an assumption that the CFS will be there. If my memory serves me right, there are only 12 appliances across the Mitcham hills. They rely on an agreement with the MFS and, of course, aerial bombings have been very successful.

One of the reasons the community has not seen a bad fire is because of the excellent work of the CFS and MFS and the aerial bombing techniques. The CFS's message is right, but I think you also have to plan for what the community is likely to do. The CFS message is: prepare your property early, and then plan whether you are going to stay or go. If you are going to go, go early before the fire starts. If you are going to stay, then make sure you are prepared with all the right equipment, clothing and those sorts of things.

With 9,000 households there, what is the likely response from those households if an Ash Wednesday-type fire comes through? I suspect that a lot of them will panic, and a lot of them will seek to evacuate. If they seek to evacuate, I do not think the road infrastructure will carry them. As I said on the night, if you have ever driven in the Adelaide Hills in fog, then driving in smoke during a bad fire is a very similar, if not worse, experience.

I am pleased that the CFS has held public meetings there; I really hope it holds four or five next year. I think that, with other members of the community, the CFS needs to doorknock the households in the area over a period of months, eyeball the property owners one-on-one and explain to them the fact that the CFS will not be at every house—they will not even be at every street—and really make sure the households are focused on the danger they face, particularly this year, which is the third or fourth year of drought. There is a very dry fire load there waiting to go up.

I do appreciate the CFS's support. Five or six of the upper echelons of the CFS and probably 20 local firefighters were there supporting the community and trying to get the message out. The CFS does a fantastic job but, ultimately, it will be up to the residents. The safety of the residents will largely come down to how well prepared they are, how good a plan they have in place and whether they can hold their nerve in the face of what will be a pretty serious fire one day through that district.

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