HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-31 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

YARNELL WILDFIRES

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Finance, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (12:00): I move:

That this house—

(a) extends its condolences to the families of the firefighters who perished in the fire which struck the town of Yarnell, Arizona, on the final weekend of June 2013; and

(b) acknowledges the dangers our own CFS crews expose themselves to during the course of their service to the South Australian community.

Yarnell is a town of 650 people, an hour and a half north-west of Phoenix, the state capital of Arizona. It sits below the 6,000-foot peaks of the Weaver Mountains and 2,000 feet above the Sonoran Desert. In times past, Yarnell was a goldmining town. On Friday 28 June, lightning brought on by the early monsoon season struck a hill on the crest of the Weaver ranges, which overlooks Yarnell. The fire quickly overwhelmed the town's modest natural defences. The parched scrub oak and brush, which border the town and had not been burnt in four decades, were ignited like a fuse. The strong gusts of wind whipped up the fire until it burned over 100 acres and jumped across protective lines and out of human control.

By Sunday, ferocious winds had whipped the fire into an inferno. As the 700 residents of Yarnell fled for their lives, jettisoning their possessions as they ran, the Granite Mountain hotshot crew was called in. Hotshot crews are the trump cards of North American fire brigades. They are small squads of specialised, highly trained firefighters dispatched to meet oncoming fronts. Headed by a captain, they include in their ranks the smoke jumpers, who parachute from cargo planes into the mouths of small fires; sawyers, armed with chainsaws to cut undergrowth; and swampers, who clear of the debris which is left behind. The job of these crews is, in essence, to stare the fire in the face without blinking.

The Granite Mountain crew was the jewel in the crown of the Prescott Fire Department. They were America's only solely municipally funded hotshot crew, and they were loved and respected by the communities they helped to protect. They had attended 26 fires from April to late June, but the Yarnell Hill fire was something entirely different. Even a squad of firefighters as tough and as well trained as the Granite Mountain Hotshots were vulnerable to conditions so fearsome.

The Blue Ridge Hotshots, a crew out of the Coconino National Forest, had arrived on the scene that morning, and they were coordinating their firefighting efforts with the Granite Mountain crew. Granite Mountain would keep building line—and I will explain line in a minute—on the fire's eastern edge, while Blue Ridge used their chainsaws to widen an old road that stood between the fire and Yarnell. If the winds shifted and the blaze ran towards town, Blue Ridge could set fire to the brush between the road and the wildfire, robbing it of the fuel it needed to survive.

At approximately 3.50pm on Sunday 30 June, as the crews were establishing barriers and building line (the term I used a little earlier) the wind began to shift. The dry thunderstorm stopped sucking in air and started blowing it out. The fire began running up a ridge on the eastern side of the valley towards Yarnell, expanding and accelerating and consuming all in its path as it went. It hit the trigger point identified by the Granite Mountain crew, and they fell back to a clearing they had created earlier that day.

With the fire now heading towards the town they were tasked with saving, Eric Marsh, the captain of the Granite Mountain crew, had to make a decision. Was he to order his crew to ignore their training and fall back to the black edge, consigning the town to oblivion, or climb down the valley and save as many homes as they could? The decision to head down towards the town and into the valley inadvertently led the crew into the belly of the beast.

As the crew moved further down the valley, the heat rose and the smoke thickened. They were cutting through thick scrub with heavy packs at unimaginable temperatures. The fire was approaching the crew at a frightening pace. Upon reaching a ridge above a basin, the hotshots had two choices for their escape: the ridge on their right or a 15-minute hike down a defensible space near a ranch house, and they chose the latter option. As they reached the basin floor and the house, the flames appeared from over their left shoulders, flanking the 19 men just metres from safety and an escape route. Slowly, the Granite Mountain Hotshots came face to face with a fire that had just burned four miles in 20 minutes. From this terrible realisation there was no escape.

The crew's best chance of survival was to deploy their small aluminium fire shelters in a depression on the basin floor where the brush was thinnest. A clearing would be formed with the chainsaws, which would then be discarded, along with the crew's gear, so as to not cause injury when they exploded. The crew deployed their shelters in a clearing 20 metres on each side. Professional to a fault, the senior hotshots would not have entered their tents until after the rookies and the seasonals. They would have encouraged and comforted each other in these moments.

The 19 men, unfortunately, perished. Among that number were two 21 year olds—barely men—and their 43-year-old captain. Yarnell Hill was the deadliest bushfire for American firefighters for over 80 years and the largest loss of life in the United States since the September 11 attack. In an instant, one-fifth of the Prescott Fire Department was lost. A lone crew member, who had acted as their lookout and had returned to the station, survived.

To put the terrible power of this fire into local context, the largest bushfire during the last South Australian danger season was the 6,200-acre fire at Bundaleer North. The blaze in Yarnell burned over 8,400 acres before it could be tamed. Arizona lost 19 firefighters, but it also lost sons, fathers, brothers and carers. Almost half the crew had children and several were engaged to be wed. They left behind wives, fiancés, families and friends. Americans were reminded in the cruellest way imaginable that the provision of their safety sometimes comes with a high cost attached. There is a global communion of firefighters joined by the invisible bonds of service. It is a community which commiserates its losses just as it celebrates its triumphs: united as one.

More is at stake here than the verbal recognition of a tragedy: there are lessons to be learned from the Yarnell Hill fire. Questions will be asked to determine how the conditions which made a disaster of this scale were possible. These questions will only be intensified in the wake of the revelations of the Tasmanian emergency services during their January bushfires.

The Country Fire Service has a valuable role to play in this reflection. There is no better way to honour the memory of the Granite Mountain Hotshots than to learn how such tragedy can be avoided in the future. An investigation may well reach the conclusion that the conditions of the Yarnell Hill fire were similar to those which instigated the Black Saturday fires of 2009 and the Eyre Peninsula bushfires of 2005. The topography of the land, dryness of the heat and capriciousness of the wind were all eerily reminiscent of these tragedies, which inscribe themselves on a state psyche the same way as Yarnell will in the United States.

With the New South Wales bushfires fresh in our minds and the significant contribution of the Country Fire Service, the recognition of the Arizona tragedy serves to remind us all of the tremendous contribution our volunteers make to our protection, both to our person and to our property.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:10): I rise to strongly support this motion from the Minister for Emergency Services that this house:

(a) extends its condolences to the families of the firefighters who perished in the fire which struck the town of Yarnell, Arizona on the final weekend of June 2013; and

(b) acknowledges the dangers our own CFS crews expose themselves to during the course of their service to the South Australian community.

There is nothing more tragic than to lose a loved one through an accident or some other disaster, but to lose so many people in one event, particularly when they are putting their lives on the line to try to protect others, such as the Hotshots crew in Arizona, is just something that we all think about. Our hearts go out to their families and friends, because it is the family and friends left behind who grieve, suffer and question.

It does not stop the volunteers and professional firefighters from going out and doing the job that these young men and women did in Yarnell, Arizona. To pay the ultimate sacrifice is something that we all have to acknowledge, and respect their courage and fortitude, particularly going out in the way they did. Firefighting in any fire can be terrifying if you are not aware of what you are going in to; it is a stressful situation. People do not understand—in fact, as we are talking, there is a briefing by the CFS to members of parliament on the bushfire season which is coming up.

We have got to get the message across to people that bushfires are seriously dangerous to deal with at any stage. When they get out of control, as we have seen in Sydney recently, and with this fire in Arizona as it was ripping through the countryside, people are put at risk. But, people do not understand how scary it can be. It is not just the radiant heat from the fire and the flames—these flames are taller than this chamber; I have been there, with fires coming towards you like that, and it is pretty daunting to see the flames—it is also the noise; it sounds like a freight train coming towards you when you hear a big fire coming towards you.

It is also the smoke and darkness. It is like the middle of the night; it is so black and so dark. It is scary for people who are not prepared and not aware of the circumstances. I encourage everybody—every South Australian, every Australian—to be aware of the bushfire season coming up so that they can look after themselves, because our volunteers will certainly be trying to look after them before they look after themselves.

I can proudly say I am a CFS volunteer, as are a number of my colleagues. CFS volunteers and the MFS are the sort of people who are going into the danger zone when other people are fleeing from it. As we saw with the Hotshots crew in Arizona, they were actually parachuting into the edge of this fire and using hand tools to try and reduce the spread of this fire.

I gave Prime Minister Tony Abbott a little CFS badge a few weekends ago; it is a symbol of a rake hoe, which is the most basic firefighting tool that we have. It is a metal blade with serrations on one side and a flat blade on the other, and has a long handle. It is used to clear the vegetation back to 'mineral earth', as it is called—back to bare earth—around the edge of a fire to help prevent the fire threat.

It is a very basic tool, but this is the sort of tool that the Hotshots were using. They were using rakes and rake hoes to try to stop the spread of that fire, but, more importantly, they were actually being parachuted into areas where there was no backup. They had to look after their own resources. They had to look out for their friends, for their colleagues and for themselves.

As a firefighter, you are trained to look out for yourself as well as for other colleagues, because if you are not there, you cannot do the job you are supposed to do. You do put your life on the line, and unfortunately there have been many CFS volunteers and many MFS firefighters who have paid the ultimate price.

The fire season that is coming up is going to present us with another massive challenge. I joke that down on our farm you can hear the grass grow, but the undergrowth is higher than I have seen it for many years. The oldies down at Kangarilla used to say September was flood month. Well, we had the floods this year. The last time I can remember them was in the early '80s, and we have been very lucky that we have not had serious fires since then.

The undergrowth along the sides of the road and around houses—I remember when I had my veterinary practice going up through the back of Cherry Gardens, Ackland Hill Road, Upper Sturt and through there, there were places where you had trouble getting your four-wheel drive down into these houses, never mind trying to take a fire truck in. People must realise the danger that is ahead of us. It is real and it is going to happen at some stage. It is not if, it is when it happens. Unfortunately, it is a fact of living in Australia.

The courage that our firefighters exhibit when they get out there and go on the job, particularly with bushfires, is something that we all must admire and appreciate. When they pay the ultimate price like these firefighters in Arizona, I think this house is showing its due respect by having this motion and I congratulate the minister on bringing it to the house.

The thing that I will talk about also is bushfire prevention. I have been reading Bill Gammage's book, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. There is a point made there that we need to burn more. I heard Bill Gammage on the radio saying, 'A burn a day keeps bushfires away.' Property owners must be allowed to reduce the fuel loads. You must be allowed to reduce the hazards and clear around your properties. I know we have made some significant improvements there, because the sad fact is that if a bushfire like Ash Wednesday happens again or the Sydney fires, you cannot have a fire truck at every house.

People are going to have to be prepared, and they should be doing it now. I have everything from a 100-horsepower slasher on the back of the tractor right down to a handheld whipper snipper going flat out at the moment to try to reduce the fuel load around our sheds and around the house on the farm, so that we can at least have some level of security that we are going to do everything we can to minimise the impact from a bushfire if it comes. We are on the back of the Kuitpo Forest, and it is a very dangerous area to be.

The need to prepare, though, is something I cannot overemphasise. There is a need to look after ourselves so that our firefighters, who are putting their lives at risk, are able to do the job, and that is save the lives of people who are in peril during a bushfire. It is not just about saving property, it is about saving lives. As we have seen in Arizona, the volunteers there paid the ultimate price trying to protect their local communities, their local citizens, their friends and their family. It is the ultimate sacrifice, but their memory must always live on.

There are several memorials in South Australia for CFS firefighters who have died. I know that every February 16 we remember the Ash Wednesday fires and the people who died there, but it is an ongoing issue. The threat is real; the risk, we can minimise. We can do something about it ourselves. We can help by clearing around our properties. The governments have their role in providing the equipment and training for our CFS volunteers, because we just cannot do the job without them.

We have to value our volunteers, and I know that minister O'Brien does value the volunteers. He is out there supporting them, and I appreciate the fact that we cannot have everything we might want at the time, because it is very expensive, but we are doing all we can practically to support our volunteers. It is a very expensive undertaking to provide equipment. On the other hand, the damage can be very significant. I saw a program on the ABC the other night about the damage resulting from bushfires started by power lines. Cutting off the power is a very sensible thing that we do here in South Australia.

I think if you are in a situation where you know that the power could be cut off, having back-up generators is something that you should consider. In fact I am looking at installing some large generators on our property so that we can be independent of the power sources so that our pumps and fire-protection systems can run. You have to be prepared. If you have a business that relies on air conditioning and cooling, you might have to spend a little bit more on a back-up generator. Perhaps the state government or the federal government should look at tax deductions for firefighting purposes. It is a necessary area to be concerned about in Australia.

Bill Gammage's book talks about how we have let the bush become so dense nowadays that we have no hope of stopping fires, whereas the Aboriginal people kept it as an almost open parkland and the evidence for that is in the paintings of the early settlers. We need to rethink how we are managing the bush that is there. We cannot go holus bolus bulldozers and ball and chains like they used to in the old days, but we should manage it, and manage it sensibly, so that people like the Hotshots in Arizona do not have to put their lives on the line to protect us from our own fallibilities.

The motion is a very important one and I urge every member in this place to think about the motion. I know that every member in this place will be supporting our CFS volunteers this summer. I hope they have a very quiet summer. We do not enjoy getting up and going out to bushfires when the pager goes off because we know it is people's lives and their properties which will be affected. The CFS volunteers do everything they possibly can and I personally congratulate them.

I would like to congratulate Mr Kym Vawser of the Kangarilla CFS who will be celebrating 40 years in the CFS in a couple of weeks' time and I hope to be at the dinner there with him. Kym has put in thousands of hours over those 40 years in supporting the Kangarilla CFS and it is because of people like Kym that the CFS is what it is: an organisation which is made up of people whose hearts and minds are in the right place and we must always value them. With that, I support this motion.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:22): I also rise to support the motion put by the minister. I listened with interest to what he had to say, and given that I joined the old EFS in 1968—

An honourable member: 1968—you were four years old!

Mr PENGILLY: I wish! I also have been chairman of the Country Fire Service Board in another life as well. No-one can comprehend what is going to happen when you go into fire situations. Quite clearly the Hotshots team in the United States never anticipated the absolute tragedy that unfolded and our hearts go out (in my case) to fellow firefighters in another country. We must remember that we have had fires in Australia which American firefighters have attended, and likewise we have sent firefighters to the US, and even in the last couple of weeks we have sent CFS personnel into New South Wales to deal with the fires over there.

I had an earlier experience in losing someone I knew very well, Richard Hurst of Kangaroo Island, who was burnt in a fire. He was working in Victoria and the western districts in the early 1970s and was caught in a fire and severely burnt. He was put into hospital and then transferred to care. He survived for a few days. His family were able to get over there to see him, but getting burnt in that manner is an appalling way to ultimately die, and he did die. He worked for my father and we remember Richard fondly. He was only in his early 20s. His family had an adjoining farm down the road from me and his cousin was best man at my wedding.

Only the other day I was looking at a photo of Richard carting hay in the early 1970s, when we were all much younger than we are today. It is a horrendous way to die. My own uncle was badly burnt on his legs in fires and he, to this day, carries the scars and has to live with what happened. I do not want to dwell on these things, but I think they need to be remembered from time to time.

I have an abhorrent fear of what is going to happen in the Adelaide Hills. I have spoken about it here before. Far be it from me to wish a disaster up there, or anywhere else for that matter, but why are we—and I talk about governments at all levels—still allowing people to live in areas like that and continue to build in places that are just a disaster waiting to happen, and it will happen. I hope it does not happen in my lifetime, but woe betide the government of the day that has to deal with it. It is going to be a catastrophe and all sorts of things will come out of it.

During my time as the chairman of the CFS board, the CEO at the time Stuart Ellis (who is now the CEO of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council) and I got on very well for a number of years. It was our mortal dread that a fire would get going in the Adelaide Hills. As we well know (we talked about it earlier this year), we are now 30 years past that date. Those fires were principally eucalyptus-fuelled fires. These fires in the United States are different again. We need to understand the material we are dealing with in those fire situations.

Similar to the other day in New Zealand, where a young couple died in a cave in the mountains, with snow and whatnot, these poor devils in the United States had no way at all to get out. They did the best they could to survive, but, unfortunately, they were literally cooked alive. It is a tragedy for all concerned in the United States, particularly the families, children and everyone else involved. It was an appalling situation.

Over the years I have been involved in a multitude of fires, along with others in this place. There is no way we can limit the experience to one person or another. I would have liked to have been up at the CFS briefing this morning, but some of us need to remain in the house. We cannot all be up there. I am sure that the minister would like to be up there as well, but we just cannot be. We are here.

Lives were also lost in New South Wales. I guess what will come out in due course is what happened with the aircraft that crashed; apparently it lost a wing. I have a really good mate who flies water bombers. He is an ag pilot, a water-bomber pilot, who flies with Aerotech. He sprays crops for me during the winter and goes waterbombing in the summer. He was very quick to post something on Facebook from the group that he is involved with. I think they call them ag pilots and water-bomber pilots of Australia. It hit very close to him. He is about the same age. He will be up there roaring around this year in his air tractor doing things.

Of course, the media tends to pick up on the bombers all the time, but there is no way you can beat firefighters on the ground. They are the answer to fixing fires, doing the hard work on the ground, doing the back burning, using the rake hoes and trudging through the scrub for hours on end trying to dodge the flames. There is no way you can beat that. The bombers do a great job, but you cannot beat the men and women on the ground these days.

I think it was a good thing that the minister brought this motion to the house. A couple of nights ago I had a phone call from a constituent who has a couple of thousand of acres of scrub on their property that they cannot clear any more. They could not manage it. They are not allowed to touch it. He said to me, 'What do you think I should do? It's going to go.' He said he had not had a fire for 50 years. This is on the north coast of Kangaroo Island.

I said, 'Well, my predecessor,' old Ted Chapman of blessed memory, 'used to say, "Burn or be burned"'. He is dead and gone now, so he cannot be held liable, but, on his way to the airport, at the appropriate time of year he used to drop a few matches adjacent to his property and let the scrub light up and burn back along the edge. Of course, he would arrive in Adelaide and get a phone call saying, 'Mr Chapman, there's a property adjacent to yours and the scrub there is on fire.' He would say, 'Oh, really.' That used to keep him safe. You have to burn or be burned.

You have to take precautions. Precautions would have been at the fore for the firefighters killed in the United States—absolutely to the fore. They would have done everything to protect themselves and everything that needed to be done would have been done in an attempt to rescue them. Unfortunately, they did not survive.

We are going into the fire danger season, and parts of the state will burn already; fortunately, my electorate is a little bit later. Last weekend I was at a function at Kingscote on Saturday night and a group of men, who were not at the function, were sitting down one end having a few drinks. I asked what they were up to, and they said, 'We're department firefighters. We're doing a prescribed burn.' They did not know who I was. I said to them, 'Well, you'd better get busier and burn a bit more before the whole lot goes again.'

It is only six years since one-third of the island burnt out—six years since 2007—and I can tell you that it is ready to go again, and a lot of it will go again. There has been little, if any, commonsense burning done since then. If you do not burn in September or October when the rest of the country is green, or if you do not burn in late autumn—these are the old-time rules that still apply—you are going to get cooked, and you are going to involve millions of dollars of state assets in trying to sort it out.

Just briefly let me talk about the power cut-offs mentioned by the member for Morphett. I do not have a great issue with power cut-offs. The issue I have is about giving advance warning to residents. Where it applied in my electorate at Middleton, Victor Harbor and Port Elliot, there are a number of single citizens, elderly and retired people. All houses now have air conditioning, it seems, and when you shut the power off you have nothing. These people did not have adequate warning.

The message has to be sent out earlier by the emergency authorities, SA Power Networks or whoever, if the power is going to be turned off so that adequate arrangements can be made for families to pick up people and take them to where there is air conditioning or whatever, not leaving them cooking in their houses without this, that or anything else. It is simply not good enough. I ask the minister to just think about that because, if it happens again, it will be unfortunate.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light—Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (12:32): I would like to speak briefly in support of this motion in my capacity both as Minister for Volunteers and as the local member for Light. As Minister for Volunteers, the CFS is one of the great volunteering groups in our volunteer sector, and the contribution they make to community safety is enormous. When you combine the contribution they make to community safety with the SES people and also St John's, we have a whole range of volunteers here who dedicate their lives to keeping our citizens safe in their communities.

Another thing about the CFS which is often perhaps not well understood is that they do more than just fight fires. In fact, some of the brigades in my area spend a lot of time at car accidents and a whole range of other things. They provide an important service to our community in keeping people safe or rescuing people.

I am proud to say that since being elected as the local MP I have worked closely with them. I have six brigades in my electorate: Dalkeith, Gawler River, Concordia, Roseworthy, Mudla Wirra and the Wasleys Woolsheds. I used to have Freeling and Greenock, but they went to Schubert under the last redistribution. I would like to put on the record my personal thanks and gratitude to those volunteers in my electorate who at times put their lives at risk to make sure that other people are safe.

One of the things raised with me when I meet people from the various CFSs—and it does vary from brigade to brigade—is that some are finding it harder to recruit volunteers. There is increasing pressure on people to work long hours, and often, with dual-income families, it is harder to find a person who can make time available. I do recognise and acknowledge the hard work these volunteers do in our communities.

I am also pleased to see that we have been progressively improving infrastructure in my electorate for a number of the CFS brigades. When minister Zollo was minister for emergency services, the Roseworthy station was upgraded, and under the current minister the Gawler River CFS station is receiving an upgrade this financial year, which has been in the budget. They also tell me it is important to have good infrastructure because it does attract volunteers. One of the smaller stations, Wasleys Woolshed, soon after I became an MP had a new facility as well. We do work with the CFS and assist with recruitment. Having said that, I would like to acknowledge their contribution.

Another part of the CFS is the cadet program, and this is very important to mention because this is where young people start learning the trade of being a firefighter or being involved in rescue. A couple of brigades in my electorate have quite an active cadet program, and it is great to see young people also learning the ropes and making a contribution to our community.

One other comment I would like to make is that, while our CFS and emergency people often do what they can to save lives, I think as individuals we have a responsibility to make sure that we do not do things that put the lives of CFS volunteers and other volunteers at risk. We have a responsibility to make sure we minimise opportunities for fires and a range of other things. Every time we do something wrong and somebody has to come and rescue us or put out a fire, we potentially put the life of another person at risk.

As we approach quite quickly the worst part of the season for fires, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of firefighters and their families. I should also mention employers. One of the things I was able to do when representing ministers was attend some functions where employers enabled volunteers to go and fight fires during work time. I also acknowledge the contribution that employers make by releasing their staff and workers to fight fires. It is a community effort. That said, it is the volunteers who fight the fires and who are at the forefront, and we need to acknowledge their contribution.

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (12:38): I rise briefly to support the motion of the Minister for Emergency Services, that this house—

(a) extends its condolences to the families of the firefighters who perished in the fire which struck the town of Yarnell, Arizona, on the final weekend of June 2013; and

(b) acknowledges the dangers our own CFS crews expose themselves to during the course of their service to the South Australian community.

I pass on my condolences to the family, friends and communities of the brave firefighters who tragically perished. I acknowledge the commitment and dangers faced by all emergency services personnel protecting our communities, and I thank the minister for bringing this motion to the house and pass on my gratitude to all emergency services personnel.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:38): I support this motion. My involvement in the CFS was very modest many years ago. The Blackwood CFS's first vehicle was a Vanguard utility with 44-gallon drums on the back and a pump. Laurie Moore was the captain, and his wife, Joan, ran the radio from their home in Hawthorndene.

I have always been impressed by the commitment of people to fight fires. Fires are very dangerous entities, and I think I have said here before that when I was a youngster two police officers lost their lives not far from where I lived at the time. They burnt to death in Upper Sturt. It is not only CFS people who put their lives at risk: sometimes it is other people in either the police force or other emergency services, including, of course, in the more urban areas and the country towns, the MFS. The tragedy that struck in Arizona brings home to us how devastating fire can be. It is a particularly nasty type of episode that can occur, and it is a horrible way for people to lose their lives.

In regard to the CFS, I concur with what the member for Finniss said. At this very moment people are allowed to build homes in parts of the Adelaide Hills, which I regard as absolutely suicidal. There is no way anyone could defend those homes. This is where some of the lives of CFS people are put at risk, if they ever attempted to defend them. If members want to check on what I am saying, travel up through parts of Upper Sturt. I am not suggesting the bush should be cleared: I am saying that people should not be allowed to build there, even with some of the so-called fire protection measures which exist.

I think the police do a great job with their Nomad program in trying to catch arsonists. There needs to be more emphasis on the cause of fires. In my little knowledge, kangaroos and koalas light very few fires; but we still seem to have a too easy approach to people being stupid or careless and causing fires. Maybe the total fire ban concept is necessary, but perhaps there should be another level just prior to it that would alert people to the dangers of doing certain activities because of the possible consequences of a fire arising from that.

At the moment it seems to be all or nothing. I know there are different risk categories, but perhaps there should be a total fire ban in respect of doing things or another category just below that which restricts what people can do. Most of these fires are caused by people who are careless or stupid, or both, and that puts a lot of people at risk, and the cost is enormous.

The area of electricity supply needs to be improved. There have been some improvements in recent years in terms of infrastructure. Many years ago in parts of the hills there was what was called the ABC—aerial bundled cabling. I do not see much evidence of that continuing in order reduce the possibility of wires moving around in wind and sparking a fire. I think that needs to be pursued more strongly.

People need to understand that, in regard to fire prevention, large trees can help. They reduce the ambient temperature, slow down the wind and reduce ember attack. The one large tree that needs to be modified is the stringy bark, to take the loose bark off it. Contrary to what a lot of people have said—and it has been borne out by research—large trees can protect a house in a bushfire situation.

The CFS recently had a fundraiser in the southern area. I do not believe the CFS should have to spend time raising money for essential equipment. If the emergency services levy is inadequate, then increase it. People in my area pay the same levy as other people, yet CFS people have told me that at times they do not have enough money for equipment. I am happy to donate on election day, or other days, and I would like to see that go into amenities for the CFS people—a coffee machine, or that sort of thing. I do not think they should have to be out there begging for money for essential equipment. As was pointed out just a few minutes ago by the Minister for Volunteers, they attend not just fires but accidents as well.

On the issue of cool burns, a lot of people are commenting that the 'greenies' oppose it, and all that sort of thing. I have been involved in conservation groups for a long time and I have never come across someone qualified as an ecologist, a botanist or whatever who has a blanket opposition to cool burns, partial burns or controlled burns. It is a question of when you do them and how you do them so that the intensity of the fire does not destroy certain vulnerable plant species. I think we have to get rid of this silly idea that people who are conservationists—which means they support the wise use of natural resources—are implacably opposed to appropriate controlled burns. That is not the case as far as I can see.

People talk about burn-offs and so on. It is still very risky for anyone on private property to engage in a cool burn because, if it gets away, they can be liable for civil action. I think that is an issue that needs to be addressed. It is not an easy issue, but people will be very careful about burn-offs on private property if they feel they run the risk of copping a couple of million dollar lawsuit if the fire gets out of hand.

The minister just mentioned cadets. I believe there is a case for having in schools, particularly in fire-prone areas, a cadet scheme that is linked to schools as part of community involvement by young people. I think part of the school experience should be serving the community in one way or another, whether that be with the CFS. When people talk about national service they usually think only of the military. I do not oppose that, but you could have people working with St John Ambulance or helping in nursing homes. I think that being involved in the CFS as a young person is a good way of introducing young people to community service and the notion of doing something for others, which is a good thing.

Finally, I make this point: a long time ago now, when Adam was a boy, our Blackwood CFS unit used to do burn-offs as part of their training regime, often on a Friday night or at other times. I think that should be reconsidered. I do not know whether there is an instruction for them not to do it. People used to give a donation or something like that. That was part of the training regime and I think it should be reconsidered as a way of reducing the fuel load. As I said, the CFS could do this by way of a donation or a modest charge but, as part of the training regime, let them do controlled burns in the lead-up to the bushfire season. The minister may know, but my understanding is that they are not allowed to do deliberate cool burns at the moment as part of a training regime.

As we approach—we are right into it now really—the bushfire season, I think it is time people shook off their complacency, because things can change very quickly. It was before my time, but I have been told of a fire in Aberfoyle Park in 1939, which started on a farm with a stationary engine. It continued on until it stopped somewhere around Strathalbyn, taking virtually everything in its path. We have people who may have come from overseas or parts of Australia where bushfires are not prevalent. People need to be reminded about fires because, unless you have been in one and experienced one—

Time expired.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:48): I am very pleased that the minister has moved this motion today, which both acknowledges the sacrifice and extends condolence to the families of those who paid the price and lost their lives in Arizona in June but also, importantly, acknowledges the dangers our own CFS crews expose themselves to during the course of their service to the South Australian community.

I am speaking as a member who represents an area with a range of CFS brigades, ranging from the local brigades who might have 100 callouts a year, often for accidents and car accidents, while they keep themselves fit for service to fight the broader fires, and we also have a couple of brigades (I am thinking particularly of Athelstone, Norton Summit-Ashton and others) who are trained to the highest specifications and help out in a range of disaster situations, and are ready to do so and are ready to offer themselves to do so. It is a very important motion. As the minister described, the global community of firefighters feel it very keenly when fellow servicemen and women are killed. I know that the CFS communities in my electorate are very awake to that situation.

I also acknowledge the comments by another member, as I was going to make them myself, in gratitude to not just the volunteers and paid staff who serve, but also the employers of those volunteers who allow them to serve, not only when our local community threatened, but also when they serve elsewhere. Just in recent weeks in New South Wales, not only were dozens of South Australian CFS volunteers putting their hands up and going over to help, I can inform the house there was a waiting list of volunteers who were willing and ready to serve above and beyond the number that the New South Wales Rural Fire Service requested that we help out with. Those South Australian volunteers did a great job; their service was appreciated.

In Morialta, during the May Cherryville fires, it was brought to my particular attention that many of the volunteers who helped to save property and life in our community were, of course, from all around the state. People who are trained in this way give up their time to help out not just their neighbours, but those all across the state, and they do so putting their lives at risk. They expose themselves to danger, and we are very appreciative.

As the Opposition Whip, I know that there are a number of members on this side, and I imagine other members as well, who would have very much appreciated the opportunity to confirm their own support for this motion, but they are being briefed on the very issues that we are talking about (that is, the upcoming fire danger season). So, without naming any of them in particular (which would of course be improper), I will confirm that this motion has the strong support of each and every member of the Liberal Party, including those who have not been able to make a contribution at this moment.

Further to that, I will extend the apologies of the members for Finniss and Morphett and myself, who would have loved to be at that CFS briefing. Instead, we are here, and are happy to be here, but nevertheless we look forward to reading the materials that were provided at that briefing. I support the motion.

Motion carried.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT