Climate change ‘a nuclear enemy’, royal commission hears

A former fire chief has likened climate change to a nuclear-powered enemy, issuing a stark warning to Australia.

Former fire chief Greg Mullins says Australia is not ready for the next extreme bushfire event. Picture: AAP

Former fire chief Greg Mullins has likened climate change to a nuclear-powered enemy, telling an inquiry into last summer’s blazes that Australia is not ready to deal with extreme weather events.

The Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements was also told on Monday that people were forced to take refuge in Lake Conjola as the blaze approached during a “shambolic and dangerous” evacuation of the NSW south coast community.

Mr Mullins, part of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group, said longer bushfire seasons were restricting the ability of states to share firefighting resources across borders.

“I’ve said publicly a number of times there’s a need for step change … in how we co-ordinate the insufficient resources we have to deal with this threat,” he said.

He called for greater national co-ordination to deal with climate change as it drives a spike in extreme weather events.

“I’ve been watching the enemy for 50 years now and the enemy’s geared up, you could say, like they’ve suddenly got nuclear weapons,” Mr Mullins said. “We’re still trying to deal with that with conventional forces and we need more help.”

Former head of the ACT Emergency Authorities Authority Peter Dunn, who was in the Lake Conjola area when the inferno hit, said evacuation plans for the area were virtually non-existent. “We were very, very lucky that there were not a lot more injuries, indeed deaths during that evacuation,” the retired major-general said. “The preparations for the evacuation were essentially non-existent and it was a question of people literally throwing themselves into Lake Conjola.”

The bushfires killed three people and destroyed 121 homes in the area before the community was cut-off for several days.

Mr Dunn said each person evacuated, including thousands of campers and tourists, had been mentally affected by the disaster.

“It was an extremely dangerous situation, extremely frightening for many, many people who had not experienced anything like this before.”

The former commissioner of ACT Emergency Services from 2003 to 2007 said that during his tenure the organisation had changed its communication systems to align with NSW.

Mr Dunn said prior to the change, the ACT was effectively “an island with its own communication systems within NSW”, which had presented serious issues during the 2003 fires.

The royal commission has consistently heard firefighters deployed interstate could not interact with counterparts because they did not have compatible communication equipment.

Mr Dunn suggested such issues could be alleviated through the implementation of a national system.