All 2019/20 bushfire comments here.

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Originally Posted by bob10

Did you visit the practical fire fighting facility set up at Nowra? It was set up during my tenure as the fire fighting instructor, RAN. [ there was only one official instructor, at that time. It was taken as a given Senior Sailors of the Engineering branch would fulfill the role at sea. ] We used to task students to extinguish large pans of oil on fire with a hand held water extinguisher. Doable, with the correct technique. There was a mockup of a ships superstructure, where students with breathing apparatus had to extinguish various fires, A B & C class, and recover " bodies ". Designed to give a basic grounding on fighting ship board fires, it was pretty basic, but nonetheless gave them something to move forward with. You can talk all you want in a classroom, but put them in a dark and smoky compartment, with flames and the rest, moving by touch, organising boundary cooling , made it more real.

From memory, there were only a very few major fires on RAN ships around that time. One was on a DDG, when stokers failed to secure the oil filter assembly correctly, and fuel oil under pressure sprayed out over steam pipes, another was on another DDG, when a dockyard worker left a BIC gas lighter up near the relief valves on a boiler. When the boiler was flashed up, the Lighter heated up, and went off like a bomb. The most tragic fire was on the fleet oiler, Westralia ? I think. During refit of the main engine, the fuel lines to the injectors were replaced by non spec lines. They burst, a couple of sailors lost their lives. They nearly lost the ship, but good work by the fire parties prevailed. Fire at sea is a sailors nightmare.

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Similar circumstances to these Evacuation attempts.


I certainly realise that this is a tragic event but the other side of the coin is where would the ADF have the opportunity to learn mass evacuation procedures under normal circumstances? They wouldn't. It has never happened. The same as calling up ADF reservists. That has never happened here before either.

This sad event will bring out all the shortfalls, deficiencies & procedures that were constructed in a non violent other world. Emergency Portable HF Radios (something like SA & some other States have with the GRN. Government radio networks in Australia - Wikipedia ) HF or VHF I know not but whatever.... . springs to mind & were the concerns of a lot of residents when interviewed on TV who were cut off for days.

Or Sat-phones available in a secure & permanent location in each town/village. **** the phone towers, it seems they can not be protected & relied upon to be available.

Every agency will learn something & hopefully benefit by this real Life scenario. What the shiny arses thought would work doesn't, & what they thought wouldn't, does. Surprise surprise.

We all know there will be many, many lessons learnt with this, good bad & indifferent. ie. Committees, Coroners Inquests, Boards of Inquiries et al & where the **** it all went wrong & why & what can be done for the next time? There will be a next time, but maybe not for a few years but it will happen & we all know that. I'm afraid we have seen the final gasps of the world we once knew.

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Originally Posted by 4bee

Similar circumstances to these Evacuation attempts.


I certainly realise that this is a tragic event but the other side of the coin is where ........................................

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No offence, you're intelligent, but it's got to the stage where there there is no other side of the coin.

DL

There is you know, & it must be considered.

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No offence, you're intelligent,

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Jeezuz! don't let 'er indoors hear you say that she thinks I'm a ****wit.[biggrin]

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Originally Posted by cjc_td5

Hi Mike.
It is the radiant heat through the windows that gets you in a car. The firies in the truck put up screens to shield from this heat. They can let the fire pass then exit when able. In a car you can use a blanket to shield from radiant heat through the windows the same way.
Chris.

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But please do ensure it is a pure Woolen Blanket not acrylic stuff.

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Originally Posted by Roverlord off road spares

Just watching the TV and they have said that 2 people have died on Kangaroo Island from this fire. They where in a car and got over run by the fire. Please everyone stays safe if you are in any of these affected areas where all these fire are

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I am sure that some of you will know these people;


https://au.news.yahoo.com/wellknown-father-and-son-identified-as-two-killed-in-kangaroo-island-bushfires-083151097.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9hdS5uZXdzL nlhaG9vLmNvbS8_X2d1Y19jb25zZW50X3NraXA9MTU3ODEyODc zMw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMzILZx9DGUrN9r6CTaE_jqi mL2zQ9QcCQVpY7SnkUJawUIVQUAZl9HALYr4oK0HULojDLYKJG lyUgR9xnHE-CTbJI_0NM_bUcVjXxfkyp9hGuBoT5dXbDm7Clw9W1htZYq6oJ-925oVpTdHIIlQgaL5BFComvbAHdxvrnA9rcRk&_guc_consent _skip=1578128773

The two people killed in bushfires on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island have been identified as a well-known bush pilot and his plastic surgeon son.Dick Lang, 78, and his son Clayton Lang, 43, were caught by a ravaging fire that ripped through the island on Friday, destroying more than 150,000 hectares.Their burnt out car was found on the Playford Highway at Gosse.A body was discovered inside the vehicle while another was found nearby.

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Originally Posted by 4bee

Similar circumstances to these Evacuation attempts.


I certainly realise that this is a tragic event but the other side of the coin is where would the ADF have the opportunity to learn mass evacuation procedures under normal circumstances? They wouldn't. It has never happened. The same as calling up ADF reservists. That has never happened here before either.

This sad event will bring out all the shortfalls, deficiencies & procedures that were constructed in a non violent other world. Emergency HF Radios (something like SA has with the GRN.) HF or VHF I know not but whatever.... . springs to mind & were the concerns of a lot of residents when interviewed on TV who were cut off for days.

Or Sat-phones available in a secure & permanent location in each town/village. **** the phone towers, it seems they can not be protected & relied upon to be available.

Every agency will learn something & hopefully benefit by this real Life scenario. What the shiny arses thought would work doesn't, & what they thought wouldn't, does. Surprise surprise.

We all know there will be many, many lessons learnt with this, good bad & indifferent. ie. Committees, Coroners Inquests, Boards of Inquiries et al & where the **** it all went wrong & why & what can be done for the next time? There will be a next time, but maybe not for a few years but it will happen & we all know that. I'm afraid we have seen the final gasps of the world we once knew.

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The ADF has had experience providing assistance to civil authorities, in times of natural disaster. They have practised for such a contingency for some time, and recent deployments to Fiji, and the Phillipines put that planning into practise .With respect, I reject your statement that this is in any way remotely similar to instructing ship board fire fighting . I see no comparison. If you want an example of the ADF's support to the civil authority capability, look no further than Darwin , 1974, after Tracy. Yes, this situation, at this scale, is unprecedented. Yes, reservists are not trained for this , and indeed it is not their job. Their job is to flesh out regular divisions in time of war, to provide a trained force to supplement the regular Army. To that end reservists have successfully served overseas in peace keeping roles. The role they are asking them to do in this disaster is something they will work through and do well. I suggest that any problems would come from the civil side of things. The ADF will do what it does best, it will adapt, it will improvise, and get the job done.

Just an example of HMAS Choules on overseas disaster relief. Admittedly not taking on refugees.

YouTube

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Originally Posted by cjc_td5

Hi Mike.
It is the radiant heat through the windows that gets you in a car. The firies in the truck put up screens to shield from this heat. They can let the fire pass then exit when able. In a car you can use a blanket to shield from radiant heat through the windows the same way.
Chris.

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That fire truck was not a RFS vehicle but a metropolitan pumper that should not have been where it was - no protection at all - they did not learn from the Canberra experience where the metro pumpers got disabled because the plastic inlet/air filters just melted in the heat and disabled the vehicles. Metro pumpers do not go into fires, RFS vehicles may have to and are set up accordingly - well in most cases.

Garry

Hi all

Thanks Garry about this info:
> not a RFS vehicle but a metropolitan pumper that should not have been where it was

It's that sort of info that helps to understand what really went wrong.

Yes our blanket in the car is woollen. Pure wool. Bloody expensive these days too :-) It's an old one.
We realise that we would need to get down low in the back seats, behind the front seats with the blanket covering us, to protect ourselves from the radiant heat which will get though the windows. I'd image that in a D4 the glass would also break at some point. We also have a 20L water container to soak the blanket and ourselves down as well. Water is also to drink as throat might be rather inflamed from smoke.

Also in the box is cotton tea-towels to wet and wrap abound our faces to breath through, gloves and cotton trousers and long shirt in case I get caught out with a nylon short shirt on. Hopefully we'd be parked in a wide fire-resistant area like a road or bare dirt area. Lights on, hazard lights on.

I would have no idea on when to exit. If the main fire had passed I would not know though if the tires wire on fire or something under the bonnet like a diesel fuel line or if the car was about to burst into flame. I suppose its a bit risky to pop your head up out from under that blanket too early.
(Like at night dangling your feet over the bed when your a kid, there are things under the bed.)

Mike

I saw the video from within the truck on TV driving up the road with the fire all around it and thought not such a big issue. However the next day there was video of the truck burnt out and a story how the crew had to abandon the vehicle and make a hasty retreat and that the brake system had melted but not sure if that was before the vehicle actually caught fire. The media then went on to explain that the truck was a metro fire truck that had been brought in from outside the area and I guess found itself at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Garry