Learning the hard lessons from history

NOW that the days are short and cooler and the nights are long it is easy for many of us to forget those frightening times when wild fires swept across our state.
However, it is much more difficult for families still living in makeshift accommodation and for those who will never recover from the loss of loved ones to forget.
Discussions during interviews I have had since Black Saturday indicate to me that we must avoid a policy of having people run from fires because mostly at the last minute there is nowhere to run.
If the decision is to leave, then the person making that decision should decide on that prior to the fire risk season.
Comments I recorded left little doubt in my mind of how suddenly these fires come upon people: “We had smoke everywhere for days and I wandered outside and found my shed on fire.”
“When I went out to check I saw fire everywhere around my house.”
“We had plenty of warning and we couldn’t see much for the smoke. Flames emerged through the smoke and the fire got to within inches of our house.”
“We had lovely blue sky and suddenly smoke came billowing over the hill.”
Reports from Black Friday 1939 say the fires were the result of a long drought and a severe, hot, dry summer and were “lit by the hand of man”.
“These fires swept rapidly across large areas of Victoria, fanned by extremely strong winds, and caused widespread destruction.
“Black Friday was the culmination of a long, dry and hot summer that followed a drought that had lasted several years. Many creeks and rivers had dried up and people living in Melbourne were on water restrictions. Heat and hot winds sapped much of the moisture from the ground, leaving forest floors and the open plains tinder dry.”
A report about Ash Wednesday 1983 said: “Severe rainfall deficiencies during 1982 produced drought conditions throughout Victoria. The 10 months between April 1982 and January 1983 were at that time the driest period on record. Mid-morning was hot and a dry northerly airflow from South Australia was strengthening rapidly over Victoria.”
These conditions have a similarity and will happen again and again.
We can’t stop the fires, but we can defend our lives against them, and the government has a duty of care to see that this happens.