Fixed for you
We had 23 former retired experts in inner city building fires, who think they are experts in bush fires and newly acquired climate change skills, who didn’t take there opportunity when they had relevance, funded by a group lead by a bloke whose specialty is looking under rocks for bones and calls themselves the Climate Change Action group.
These experts have no other agenda than to be a nuisance whiles attempting to build their profile before standing for candidacy of some green political group at the next election.
I would much rather the advise come from current relevant operational experts.
I understand their former colleagues are shaken their heads in disbelief of these people.
I also understand that to date these experts have turned down the opportunity to meet with the relevant ministers of the government because they thought that only the PM should be engaged. Some would say grandstanding.
Not fixed Rags.
Grandstanding...I dont think so...seems they knew what was going to happen and had major concerns...All this 8 months before the fires.....Maybe if someone had listened less lives and property would have been lost. I dare say these people are more experienced than 99.9% on the forum. I think their comments are pretty well what everyone is talking about now. Anyone who thinks climate change hasnt contributed to the fire s are out of step with the majority of people. Even morrisson,s govt has backtracked and admitted it is real!!
Former fire chiefs warn Australia unprepared for escalating climate threat
This article is more than 8 months old
Major parties must recognise ‘national firefighting assets’ are needed to fight worsening natural disasters, say fire experts
Lisa Cox
Wed 10 Apr 2019 04.09 AEST
Last modified on Wed 10 Apr 2019 11.54 AEST
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Two dozen former fire and emergency chiefs from all over Australia want the next prime minister to ensure emergency services have the resources to fight natural disasters caused by climate change.
Two dozen former fire and emergency chiefs from all over Australia want the next prime minister to ensure emergency services have the resources to fight natural disasters caused by climate change. Photograph: Rob Griffith/AFP/Getty Images
More than 20 former fire and emergency chiefs from multiple states and territories say Australia is unprepared for worsening natural disasters from climate change and governments are putting lives at risk.
In a statement issued before a federal election date is announced, 23 former emergency services leaders and senior personnel have called on both major parties to recognise the need for “national firefighting assets”, including large aircraft, to deal with the scale of the threat.
The signatories include: Greg Mullins, the second-longest serving fire and rescue commissioner in New South Wales and now a councillor with the Climate Council; Neil Bibby, a former chief executive of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority; Phil Koperberg, a former NSW rural fire service commissioner and former Labor MP and NSW environment minister.
The document calls on the next prime minister to meet former emergency service leaders “who will outline, unconstrained by their former employers, how climate change risks are rapidly escalating”.
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The group also wants the next government to commit to an inquiry into whether Australia’s emergency services are adequately resourced to deal with increased risks from natural disasters caused by climate change.
They said some large firefighting aircraft were prohibitively expensive for states and territories and leased from the northern hemisphere, and access to them was becoming more restricted as fire seasons started to overlap.
“I started firefighting in 1971 and the bushfire seasons were extremely predictable,” Mullins said. “They’d start in Queensland and move south progressively.
“You knew when there was a bad season coming because there was an El Nino and drought. In the 90s, I stopped being able to predict it.”
Australia’s emergency resources were still equipped for “what was happening in the 1970s to the 1990s”.
“The first thing is we need whoever is in government nationally to take climate change seriously, rather than making jokes about it in parliament with lumps of coal,” he said.
“It’s just frustrating to hear the lip service being given to ‘Oh yes, we now believe in climate change and need to do something’ when every effort to do something about it is rubbished.”
Last year, in Australia alone, the NSW fire season began in early August, a heatwave led to fires in rainforest areas of Queensland in early December, and forest in Tasmania’s world heritage area caught fire in January, Australia’s hottest month on record.
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For the past week the government has been running attacks on Labor’s proposal for electric vehicle targets to reduce carbon emissions.
“You look at any of your headlines over the last six months,” Bibby said. “The hottest month. The hottest summer.
“We know the problem, and the only way to get politicians to do something about these things is put their jobs on the line.”
Bibby said an additional concern was that Australia relied so heavily on volunteers during natural disasters.
As extreme weather becomes more frequent, and fire seasons longer, that would put strain on the system and volunteers helping their communities were at risk of burnout.
There needed to be a review of the methods used to tackle large fires, cyclones and floods that was backed by research from experienced people working on the ground.
“We’re doing the same old things when things are getting worse. We need to find new ways to tackle this problem,” Bibby said.
