What do we expect of the CFA?

It's a tricky business; fighting fires. For the most part, everyone can't stop extolling the virtues of the CFA. But now a couple of days after the tragic loss of life across Victoria as a result of widespread vicious bushfires, the blame game has started and Victorian Premiere John Brumby, has announced the need for a Royal Commission into Victoria's bushfire strategy.

Stories of survival and loss of human life, especially in the Kinglake fires, have suggested that:
1) There was no warning through official channels that a fire was close to these communities;
2) The fire was moving so fast that 'spotting' was taking about 1 minute to cover one kilometre;
3) That those who had fire plans didn't have warning enough to activate them; and
4) That though some people had well prepared fire plans, many who stayed were not able to fight this fire, it exceeded all expectations in terms of its ferocity.

As a result many died trying to protect property while others were quickly overwhelmed by the intensity of the fire and heat and perished in their cars fleeing their burning homes.

The CFA urgent alert messages have emphasised the need to activate fire plans, to either prepare to stay and defend or leave early. The CFA warnings read on local ABC radio have reminded affected communities that as soon as you can see flames it is too late to leave.

After hearing all the stories of near death and loss in Kinglake on Saturday, today when local communities were being told that it's too late to leave, one couldn't help feel that this might be the end of the road for anyone living there: that we were about to see another Marysville or Kinglake all over again.

What seems obvious now is that a Commission will have to reassess these warnings. How they are delivered: could a SMS service be part of the new strategy as well as an air raid siren? Perhaps information on the ferocity and conditions of the fire could be estimated and then communicated succinctly so that it be made clear if a fire is not defendable.

Overall, however, this disaster has raised the more nebulous question of what our expectations are, and should be, of the CFA. Is it realistic to expect them to know the information that would have been so useful to Kinglake residents on Saturday night? To some extent expectations of the CFA are unrealistically high, we almost expect them to be omnipotent. Others might question though whether the CFA, through their education programs, have unintentionally raised expectations of the service to an unrealistic level.

Although a Royal Commission might uncover details of miscommunication or poor logistics - or not, we surely cannot be surprised that in the conditions experienced on Saturday, that systems were not able to cope. And remember these are conditions that we are likely to experience more frequently given climate change predictions.

So what can be learnt then from this tragedy? That perhaps the warning systems could be finessed but most importantly, that individuals need to be better plugged into their local communities, because it is the local social network that saved lives in the dire circumstances of the most ferocious fires this Black Saturday.