4/30/14 ACT - Stromlo - Brindabellas - Tumut

An amazingly packed day yesterday. Still catching up on the change in time. Its why I'm writing this at 4 am instead of last night!

Stromlo Fire Depot in Canberra

 Learned a great deal about fire in the ACT yesterday.  Should explain ACT stands for Australian Capitol Territory. Is a long sliver of land, excised out of New South Wales, sort of like the District of Columbia is inside of, but separate from, Washington.  It's the seat of government for NSW and where all the embassies and Parliament and national museums and such are. All the land is owned by the government - private people can lease land for up to 99 years but don't own it - and the ACT has its own Forest Fire agency. ACT has about 400,000 people. ACT Parks manages 73% of the land and there is high urban interface because most of the people live within 30 min of ACT lands

Study group in Canberra

In 2003, 70% of the ACT burned in a giant fire when 4 smaller fires burned together and our visit yesterday focused on what happened,what they learned and what changed after that fire.  Before 2003, the ACT spent maybe $40,000 a year on fire.  Didn't pay much attention, didn't do much to prepare or even worry about it. Much has changed now - millions are spent on preparedness and planning.

You do have to understand that while ACT parks is the fire manager for the land, the rely on the Rural Fire Department volunteers to actually do fire supression.  Reminds me a bit of Texas with the reliance on the volunteers.  And there are the same concerns we have, are the volunteer fire brigades as well trained as they should be?  One of the rural fire brigades is an ACT group so they are involved in suppression but mostly they are the land manager.  And then it is Fire and Rescue that provides structure protection, but not usually under Unified Command.  Its more like, the IMT has a place for ever agency that needs to play but just as a member of the IMT. Anyway, a lot more about that but there were some interesting things learned in 2003.

Their challenges should sound familiar: climate change; balancing urban development with biodiversity and fire; fire protection balanced with ecosystem management; indigenous engagement and managing water catchments or watersheds.  Ever heard that before?!

ACT Parks Fire Planner Dylan Kendall spelled out the changes they have made.  Rather complicated but basically they are doing more strategic planning.  They have a Strategic Bushfire Management Plan (SBMP) and  all other plans must be managed in accordance with the SBMP. It has many parts: Objectives, preparedness, response, community action plans and government action plans.  Under the SBMP, they have a Bushfire Operations Plan (BOP) that is done annually, last one financial year and allocates money and resources to complete actions in a given year.  There are problems - it only looks out a year and does look at how one year relates to another. So they introduced a Regional Fire Plan which looks out 10 years, are map based, are landscape in scale and put all the BOPs in context.

Interesting facts I thought.  They maintain helipads/spots at all times.  They decided how far people could walk (1500 km) and they build helipads all over within that distance for use taking things in or out and they are maintained at all times.  So during a fire they don't have to build them.

They have very creative ways to manage the balance/conflict between fire management and biodiversity and they worked out a graph to decide the rules about managing biodiversity and burning, and when they would bend the rules or how they would do a trade off. Like us they had a lot of pressure after 2003 to do prescribed burning so show the community they were protecting them, but at the same time, everything had burned and they needed to "not burn" to let the vegetation regenerate. Caused a lot of debate about what trumps what.

They have the same smoke issues we do - some under stand the need, some don't.  Everyone hates the smoke.

The public is consulted about the strategic and regional fire plans but not the BOPs.  They value and use local knowledge but want to remain out of the day to day debate,s so this works.

Amazingly, they have passed laws regarding urban design standards and construction.  It's the law if you build in the WUI you must use certain material and designs that meet fire standards. And developers of subdivisions have laws about how they design urban areas in fire prone areas.

And they are increasing "urban resilience" meaning they teach communities to take care of themselves and defend their own property because they recognize they cannot be at every house.  They also provide the equipment and training to help communities do that.

Lastly,  the greatest thing since sliced bread!  They took a look at the IAP and thought about what firefighters REALLY did with it.  Usually grabbed the map they needed, scribbled the DIVS phone number and radio frequencies on it and took that one page and put it in their pocket!  So they made a one page IAP! It has all the critical info and that's what the crews get.

After spending our morning at Stromlo Fire Depot to hear about the CAT we drove up past some prescribed burns and learned about vegetation here.  Mostly Eucalpyse varieties.  Ribbon Gum, Snow gum and peppermint trees, some of the 500 varieties of Eucalypse.  Had lunch on top of a mountain near an old fire and learned about that fire.  Saw a wallabye and some wombat holes!  Drove way up high to a fire tower and met Charlie who told us about pine plantations that are managed by the ACT.  They are government plantations.  And then down to the community of Tumut where we spent the night.

Today, Wednesday, we are headed up in elevation again.  Not exactly sure where but we may encounter snow!!  Meeting amazing people and having quite the adventure.