CFS member says warnings about Pinery bushfire threat were delayed by up to 45 minutes
EMERGENCY warnings to communities under threat from the deadly Pinery bushfire were delayed by up to 45 minutes, putting lives at risk, a whistleblower says.
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EMERGENCY warnings to communities under threat from the deadly Pinery bushfire were delayed by up to 45 minutes, putting lives at risk, a whistleblower says.
The CFS member, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke out as the State Government released the findings of two independent reviews into the handling of the devastating November 2015 fire.
The reports make 30 key recommendations on how responses to bushfires could be improved.
The Pinery blaze killed two people, injured 90 others, destroyed 91 homes and burnt 82,600ha in the state’s Mid North.
The whistleblower told The Advertiser there was a delay of up to 45 minutes between firefighters asking for warning messages to be issued and the messages being sent.
“The CFS had notice of where the fire was and was asked to put warning messages out but the timeframe that it took to get those messages out to the public was unacceptable,” he said.
“The public warning system is not good enough on those sorts of fires.”
Meanwhile, one of the independent reports, by Noetic Solutions, found communities were not given sufficient warning that the bushfire was hurtling towards them.
An extract from a communications log showed emergency alerts were issued to residents when the fire was already threatening their towns.
It showed that firefighters asked for alerts to be sent to Hewitt, Willaston and Concordia and the CFS State Control Centre replied by saying they had just sent the messages but “these areas were not of concern”.
CFS Region Two radioed back that they “had information that the fire was already at these areas”.
The Noetic report stated the warnings were “generally not sufficiently informative nor were they sufficiently forward-looking to enable communities to develop appropriate responses.”
The review also found some of the first warnings were sent to Mallala residents but should also have been sent to other communities at the same time.
“There were a number of other locations and communities that would be impacted within the next couple of hours that needed to be warned and others that could be expected to be impacted subsequently that should have been warned,” it read.
The report stated there was also confusion about warning messages and decisions to evacuate.
It also revealed that the Government Radio Network, used by emergency services, became congested at times as various government agencies not directly involved in the firefighting campaign, including police, clogged the system.
In response to the reviews, the government will spend $940,000 over four years on specialist training and support for GRN operators.
It will also spend $9.3 million to fit-out trucks with burnover technology however CFS chief officer Greg Nettleton said he could not guarantee that all volunteers would have the protection of this technology ahead of the coming fire danger season.
Emergency Services Minister Peter Malinauskas said praised firefighters for their efforts during the bushfire.
Opposition emergency services spokesman Duncan McFetridge said the report showed the government had “mismanaged emergency services in this state for years”.
Key recommended actions from the Pinery reviews:
*Investigate opportunities to provide geographic information to supplement text-based warnings. The government says it has done this and it will be introduced in the upcoming bushfire season.
*Review the structure of warning messages to ensure point of origin and geographic orientation provide a greater appreciation of locality of fire or event. These enhancements will be implemented in the 2016/17 bushfire season.
*There is a need to establish procedure that allows rapid production and distribution of fire behaviour predictions. To be established before the next bushfire season.
*Review the standard control facilities, including incident, region and state. This review is ongoing.
*Regularly audit control facilities and conduct exercises from them to ensure their readiness. This is ongoing.
*Examine opportunities to accelerate the replacement of appliances or fitting them with layered safety systems to ensure crew protection. The government has engaged two staffers to manage a retrofit program.
*Investigate strategies for establishing an Automatic Vehicle Location system so controllers can better manage appliances and reduce the likelihood over burnovers. The CFS is looking into this.
Reinforce the importance of fatigue management. A research professor will speak about this at the CFS State Incident Management Workshop.