Victorian Fires.

[Malacasta]

I'm guessing you read this one, Krav

CFA didn't want us: city crews

[Kravenar]

Well you beat me to posting the link......

I think I was pretty clear with my sentiments and experiences that we were being massively underutilized.

Ironically our Zone Commander was at my station last night and the discussion moved to what could have been done.

He discussed the following contingencies that were available and have been discussed, none of which were fully implemented.

* Recalling an entire shift at a time (300 fully trained personnel) for deployment.
* Depleting secondary appliances from stations (Was partly done, but were many more available)
* If required stripping every second station, and then recall staff to increase manning on the remaining trucks/stations to maximum possible (ie. 5 on a truck instead of 3 or 4)

All of these strategies were available and either not utilised or poorly utilized.

By comparision Canberra Firefighters sent down 75 crew to help out just a couple of days ago, one of whom was tragically killed by a falling tree. I was informed last night that the Canberra fire service only has about 7 stations - or around 1/7 the size of Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Brigade.

My only direct deployment to the bushfires was for part of a shift for which the CFA did not want us there, and in the end handed us off to operate under the Department of Sustainability and Environment - who then had nothing for us and we withdrew that taskforce (6 trucks) at 2am. Heallesville was back under direct threat and ember attack less than 24 hours later.

If they were waiting for the "Big One" I think they may have missed it....

I only hope the Royal Commission gets to the bottom of some of this bullshit. For 15 years or more the full time members of the services (MFB & CFA) have been calling for one united fire service. Perhaps this disaster is the catalyst that will see it happen.

[Kravenar]

For those not in on the loop here's the quick update.

Death toll at this stage sits at 210, with approximately 30 still listed as missing - although police are seeking to clarify this.

I think 5 large fires are still burning and not yet contained, with more bad conditions forecast for Friday (38 C with high winds) This is likely to present new fires and test containment lines on existing fires.

The area on the Eastern outskirts of the city remains an area of reasonable concern. Two large fires with no apparent cause on high fire danger days since "Black Saturday" suggest arson. A fire starting at the wrong place on the wrong day has the potential to run through Belgrave, Cockatoo, Beaconsfield and the other townships devasted by the fires in 1983.

In all likelihood, all this will not end until such time as Victoria sees significant rain.