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Now, one of the issues that does remain
is that, as good as that technology has
become, and as much as the resourcing
has increased, at the end of the day we’re
still asking firefighters to stand in front of
these huge bushfires, which have as much
energy as a cyclone on the fire line itself.
The firefighters are effectively standing
there with the equivalent of a garden hose.
We don’t expect people to stand in front of
cyclones with an umbrella, but we expect
firefighters to do the equivalent.
The technology still doesn’t improve
the outcomes right on the fire line when it
comes to that frontline firefighter with the
water there. It’s just physically not possible
to put enough water on some of these fires.
Even if we had all the trucks in the nation
lined up side by side, it’s just not possible to
extinguish some of the fires.
Is that what your PhD project is focused on?
The theme of my PhD project was
firefighter safety and the suppression
effectiveness during these ‘mega wildfires’
at the rural-urban interface. That is, where
these landscape-scale bushfires impact
our communities and how we can improve
the dependability of the communities,
how we can improve the strategies for
suppression there, and how we can
try and keep our firefighters as safe as
possible, both when they’re fighting the
fire and also when they’re faced with being
entrapped and overrun by bushfires.
Firefighter tenability came to the fore on
social media this past summer, with many
firefighters arguing that what they were
doing was beyond volunteerism. Do you
agree with this, and do you think it will
become a bigger issue in the future?
I was fortunate enough to be deployed to
NSW in November to assist with the fires
over there. They’re absolute professionals.
The volunteer firefighters, especially the
ones I’ve dealt with, go above and beyond
every single day. They’re absolutely amazing
and we couldn’t fight the fires throughout
Australia without them, and indeed the rest
of the world.
Now the demands placed on them this
year were absolutely extreme, and the
volunteers and the career firefighters as
well will work until they absolutely drop,
until they’ve got absolutely nothing left in
the tank. What was required of firefighters
this summer was arguably beyond what
has been required by firefighters in previous
seasons just by the duration that they were
expected to stay out on the fire ground.
I know many of the fire services had strict
safety guidelines as to defined rest periods
and how long firefighters could spend on
the ground. But it does take its toll over
the months.
Again, my belief is this was an exceptional
summer. All the people involved, from
volunteers to career fighters, just pushed
beyond their limits. It’s going to take a
long time to recover, especially for the
Nerrigundah volunteer RFS firefighter Simon
Baguley. Picture: David Swift
communities who were impacted. Now,
is it beyond volunteerism? My friends who
are volunteers, their creed is they’ll do
what they can when they can, to the best
of their ability. And it’s going to push some
individuals beyond what they can normally
do and beyond their limits.
This will become a bigger issue in the
future simply because of climate change
worsening. The scale of these fires is such
that they’re creating their own weather
systems, which intensifies the wildfire
behaviour. It makes it an inferno to stand in
front of, and it’s only going to get worse. ■
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