Just a response to some things yfrontz brought up regarding the Victorian bushfires and the investigations into how it happened.



I think Kinglake had two minutes warning because the CFA didn't even know that fire existed. I don't know if they suspect that one was arson, or if it started from a spark travelling in the wind from another fire, but it certainly started up out of nowhere and roared with a vengeance right over that town. There are so many people there who died holding hoses and running for their cars, so many bodies found near cars with keys in the ignition.

I was reading an interview the ABC did with a News Limited journalist who got caught in the fire. He was monitoring the CFA website like they tell you to, his wife was watching the valley outside to look for flames approaching. They still only had two minutes warning before the little sparks started falling and the sky went black. At first they thought it was coming from another fire because they could still see nothing and there was nothing on the website, they just tried to put out the little sparks coming through the doors. A couple of minutes later it got so creepily dark that they decided to leave and when they walked outside all their back trees were on fire. They couldn't save their dog, they only had enough time to run into their car.

Later he discovered that if they'd left straight away instead of trying to put out the small sparks for five minutes, they would have been dead on the street in the fire wall that killed so many people and melted those cars in place. Instead they got stuck on their property, surrounded by flames, and had no choice but to drive through the fire onto scorched ground, hoping it didn't come back (damn that's clever!). They just watched while their house burned down. If that ground hadn't been scorched and the fire hadn't moved on to their house they'd be dead.

He said they had so little warning that the only way the town would have been able to avoid such a death toll was if citizens just assumed a fire would be there when they were told conditions would be bad and left before the fires had started.

If an eyewitness can say that then I don't know how far they are going to get pointing fingers and deciding whether the CFA policy of 'stay or go' is right. We've never had a fire like this before; never had one move so fast with such intense radiant heat. And we've had REALLY bad fires before. Bushfires are an annual thing, heck, our eucalyptus trees only germinate in fire - they've evolved to be burned. The fact this is so much worse than Ash Wednesday and Black Friday is horrifying because those fires were terrible.

This area had fires in 2003 and 2006 and many of the residents that stayed probably had some experience and thought they could save their house as they had in the past. They predicted it would be bad but no one could have predicted how bad, and I'm not sure there's much point trying to lay blame like they're bound to with this royal commission (unless it's on arsonists). I'm all behind trying to get better plans in place but this was such an extraordinary disaster that I'm not sure they could have done anything to save the people of Kinglake.

They could always change the policy to compulsory evacuation. The problem with that is that many people would fight to stay. The police and the CFA can't waste time arguing with people to abandon their homes when they should be fighting fire. And it totally would happen. Some people are just so stubborn or they have no insurance or they're that heroic. Some people have such love for their town and their home that they are willing to risk their life (heck, plenty of the guys in these communites are part of the CFA) and we can't call that stupid even though it's easy to from a distance. If it's death or my house, I'll pick my life every time. But that still wouldn't have saved Kinglake since the CFA didn't even know the fire was there until Kinglake was already engulfed.

I think that no policy will unanimously save lives because hindsight is 20/20 and people can't know when they make the decision to stay or go how bad the fire will be until it's on top of them and then it's too late to leave. Sure, there are people just bugging out now because Kinglake has already happened and they know their house isn't worth their life. But when you're standing in your home and you can only see smoke and you have to make a decision....people can't possibly know how bad the fire is and whether or not they'll be able to save their house like they've saved it in the past. They have seconds to make that decision and it's impossible to judge them for whatever they decide to do. I sincerely hope that the blame game doesn't emerge out of the rage and bitterness bound to come out of all this grief.

Just to put it in perspective. One of the most tragic stories was of the man from another fire ridden area who drove his kids to Kinglake to stay at his in laws while he tried to save their house. He thought they'd be safe there because there was no fire heading in that direction and he didn't want them to be at the house just in case he didn't succeed. This guy is so prepared he has fire hoses attached to tanks at the back of his house. His neighbours come over and they save the house from this horrible fire against all odds, because he doesn't just have a piddly garden hose - his house is prepared to fight fire. He saves the house only to discover Kinglake is levelled. The only survivor from his family is his mother in law who has severe burns because she tried to run back into the house to save his kids.

I mean that's INSANE rotten chance. It couldn't have been predicted and he'll be messed up by what-ifs for the rest of his life. But he's not to blame any more than anyone else. The fire was beyond belief, unpredictable and unforgiving. They called it hell on earth, a holocaust, the fallout after a nuclear blast. Journalists tend to use over emotive words but none of the witnesses are disagreeing this time.



Here's an idea of how much of the state is or has been on fire, thanks to Google. The embedded map doesn't appear to be working.

As you can see that is not a small amount of ground these fires covered in such a short amount of time. Don't forget to donate whatever you can to THE RED CROSS BUSHFIRE FUND.

The kiwi and aussie cricket teams are donating all their pay from todays game to the cause which is awesome. The kiwis may "hate" us but I do love how our relationship is like a great sibling rivalry. We give each other heaps, but when we're in trouble we are always there for each other. The kiwi boys certainly didn't have to follow the aussie cricketers lead but they did. There are cricketers walking around in the crowd with donation buckets and they're also donating their shirts so they can be auctioned. We have assholes arsonists living here but it's good to know that so many people are willing to make sacrifices to help other people too.