5/7/14 Melbourne Water - Lookout Tower - CFA - Powelltown

Sorry about so few pictures again.  Really poor internet but there are pictures in the dropbox link to the right!!

Map of water catchment.  The yellow areas are
catchments or watersheds

Wednesday was spent about the importance of the water “catchments” or watersheds that serve the 4.3 million people in Melbourne and the efforts made to keep catastrophic fire out of that catchment. Melbourne Water Company, like the Forest Corporation, is a state owned corporation.  It serves as the wholesale water supplier to 3 retailers, also state owned, that sell the water to consumers. They are expected to make a profit and return a dividend to the government.

The land belongs to the Crown, which means its state land and is under the control of Parks Victoria.  While most National Parks (which by the way are owned by the state!) are open to the public, the water catchment Parks are closed to the public. Back in 1857 when the first catchment was built, the land was open but at some point the water got contaminated and many people died.  So they closed the parks, people stopped dying and the parks have remained closed ever since.

There are 9 catchments that supply water to Melbourne - some have dry forests and some have wet forests.  The wet forests supply 50% of the water but it’s difficult to maintain those forests with regular low intensity burning because, well, they’re wet and won’t burn!  Instead,in 2005 they created a strategic plan to burn the dry forests around the catchments, keeping them healthy and free of shrubs and other fuels that would carry intense fire into the catchment.  In addition, there are some areas with a 20 to 30 meters cleared between the general park land and the catchment to provide further opportunities to stop fires.

Fire tower at Upper Yarra Catchment

We spent the day at a fire tower owned by Melbourne Water that over looked the Upper Yarra Catchment which is about 395,000 acres.  Their objectives are simple: protect water quality and water quantity.  Some timber harvesting is allowed but its minimal, about 350 hectares a year and when harvesting is done, the water in that catchment is turned off for a year to protect water quality.

Much research has been done and is still being done about the impacts of fuel reduction measures in the catchment, on the water supply and quality.  They've looked at and tested clear cutting, thinning, stripping, burning, etc.  They continue to test the effects but they are fairly sure about the impact of severe, stand replacing wildfires.  If a severe wildfire significantly impacts a catchment there is a 50% reduction in water after 30 years.  This is because the regrowth after a fire, all the young trees trying to grow, suck up all the water for about 30 years. 

Upper Yarra Catchment

At 30 years, the stands have thinned themselves, there are significantly less trees because only the strong have survived, and the trees are few enough and old enough to not take up so much water. There is a graph the use called the Kuzera Curve created in 1985, that shows that after a stand replacing fire, it will take 50 years before recovery really starts and about 150 years before the trees and water supply are back to the way they were.

Fire fighting in the catchments focuses on aggressive initial attack.  Melbourne Water maintains 30 full time firefighters and adds 50 summer casuals and people out of the head office if needed when the season starts. They also maintain a ready supply of dozers, slip-ons (trucks with prepared modules that can just be slipped onto the truck) and other equipment so they are completely self-contained for firefighting. New fires are always lightning or non-arson because the catchments are closed and security is tight. 

Nigel talks about the critical role of roads
in the catchment as fire breaks.

Roads maintenance is a significant focus within the catchments.  There are some 1800 km of roads but they are only used by catchment workers so don’t impact the water and the roads people of Melbourne Water have depots within 60 minutes of any area of the catchment.  Some of the roads started as timber roads ages ago, but are now part of the road system maintained so they can get to a fire quickly with equipment and people.  They are started a Strategic Fuel Break Project to choose primary roads on ridge tops that are widened even further as fuel breaks.  All the roads are used to burn off of when necessary.

Fire would have an economic impact as well.  Upper Yarra Catchment is a completely untreated water supply and it gravity feeds right into Melbourne at a cost of about $20 per unit (I have forgotten the unit).  That compares to the water in treated and pumped catchments of $60 per unit so if something happens to the catchment and the water has to be treated or pumped, the cost goes up significantly.  Other impacts that are managed are the fire risk around the storage areas and the risk of pre-defined ‘slippage” areas where debris flows due to steep terrain impacted by severe fire, could impact the water supply.

Jill, with the Bushfire Risk Landscape Team, provided more information about a modeling tool called Phoenix Rapidfire.  Like FS Pro and other tools used in the US, it can spatially model intensity, convection, spotting and potential fire spread.  Across Victoria they have done modelling every 5 km, but in some critical areas they have now done modelling for every 1 km.  In those areas, they identify assets when running the model and use that to decide on planned burning to reduce risk to those assets. This is the benefit of having landscape level teams to look at risk and risk reduction, over and above jurisdictional boundaries.

We heard from Don Tompkins with CFA, or the Country Fire Authority, in the Yarra Valley area.  CFA is the equivalent of RFS in New South Wales and is responsible for firefighting and preparedness on private land. CFA relies on 65,000 volunteers and about 1000 paid employees, and has about 45 pieces of equipment.  About 400 of the volunteers are available at any one time, 24/7.  He spoke about fire refuges in communities and showed us a refuge in Powelltown.

Don Tompkins stands in front of the school in
Powelltown which is a fire refuge.

Refuges are a bit controversial.  They were requested and a few test refuges were built (the one in Powelltown is part of the pilot) after Black Saturday in 2009 when so many people were killed by bushfires.  But the focus toward private landowners has been personal preparedness, building resilient communities.  Some wonder if refuges make the community less resilient and more reliant, as some people just plan to go to the refuge.  Tompkins made it clear, they do not want people to include the refuge in their Bushfire Survival Plan.  It’s a place of last resort.

Don shows the control box available to
residents who enter the refuge during a fire.

The refuge in Powelltown is in the primary school.  Others are in fire stations or other buildings.  The refuge in the school is intended to let people survive an intense fire until it moves past; it is not a place to stay, has no food or water or other facilities for longer stays. But it is an impressive structure.  There is an entrance system connected to the state control center that has automated messages.  Inside, it will hold about 350 people (fairly crammed in) and has a cooling system to keep the building cool because it will be summer and because of the fire. 

Water tanks

There is a control box with step by step instructions on how to turn on power, turn on lights, turn on the air conditioner, and more.  They can monitor an emergency radio channel and communicate with the state control center. The glass in the building is specially made, all windows are mesh covered, outside is a cache of PPE, hoses, breathing apparatus, first aid kit, etc in case it’s needed.  There are two huge water tanks and a generator and 3 air conditioning units with an awesome amount of cooling power.
 Tompkins says its unlikely that more refuges will be built to these standards – this one was built when there were no standards. From now on, refuges will likely be a basic metal shelter or an improved underground bunker that are much less expensive to build.

At left is the generator and at right, one of
three, huge air conditioners

While in Powelltown we met a citizen, a woman named Pam who is a local government employee but also chairs the Powelltown Emergency Committee.  The community was asked if they were interested in being a pilot city to test the idea of community preparedness.  They said yes, and for about a year, the committee, met once a month to identify hazards and risks to their town. The committee is made up of about 10 or 12 interested people who were assisted by the Landscape team.  The regional team provided modeling information to educate the town about where fire would likely come from, what the intensity would be, and what assets it could potentially destroy.

Pam felt it was a goal of the community group to use this intelligence to inform the group on the best methods toward response and recovery and that it was the communities responsibility to be prepared.  They decided they wanted not just to survive but survive well.

Pam talks about her Community
Emergency Committee

First they looked at risks and bushfire was one but they looked at all hazards and assessed risks and consequences.  Second t hey looked at what they could do, alone and with help, to prepare and respond by looking at the skills of the people in town and the history of fire in the area. Pam says they tried not to duplicate the services offered by other agencies.  The focus not to find a way to stand alone, but to fill gaps in services and work as a partner to the other agencies that would already be responding.

They ID’s key assets, set up information points for residents, set up briefing and public meeting areas, identified informal shelter areas and identified where infrastructure needed to be improved to help with the plan.  After sending the plan to everyone in town, they had about 40% involvement.  However, after a fire Feb 9ht of this year where the plan was activated, they actually had about 60% involvement.

She says the key is the relationships with the other agencies which need to be rebuilt and maintained when key people move on. But she says community level preparedness is a large gap – there are state,  regional and local programs and help for individuals.  But help to allow a community to prepare together is not there.