Australia state creates more than 1000 bushfire safe havens
By JONATHAN DART, October 10, 2009 MORE than 1000 properties across the state are expected to be earmarked and prepared as shelters of last resort in case of a bushfire. In one of the largest collaborative projects between the state’s Rural Fire Service and emergency services, the ”neighbourhood safer places” will be chosen, prepared and advertised by the end of next month. The sites will range from school halls to sports grounds to community halls and will meet tough fire standards. In the event of a moderate bushfire, they would be subject to safe levels of radiant heat, which under Rural Fire Service standards would be no greater than 2 kilowatts per square metre for outdoor areas and 10 kilowatts per square metre for buildings. Senior Sergeant Ben Millington, of the NSW Police’s emergency management unit, said the sites would be identified by committees in each one of the state’s 152 local areas by the end of the month and then passed on to the Rural Fire Service for inspection. The plan comes weeks after the Premier, Nathan Rees, told the state to prepare for what ”could be the highest risk summer that we have ever faced”. The Rural Fire Service’s assistant commissioner, Rob Rogers, said the places would be published on its website (http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/), by next month and advertised for people to include in their fire management plans. ”In a typical suburb of Sydney or up and down the coast, there might be three of four in every suburb,” Mr Rogers said. ”You might have a football oval, a large park, a community centre, public tennis courts – all those things that are away from bushland. It’s so that people, if they panic, if they were going to stay and suddenly they decide to leave, they will suddenly think, ‘This is the safe spot to go to and police and other community services will know that they congregate there.” … ”These things can’t be absolutely guaranteed. The standards are designed for what we believe is appropriate and with an additional safety margin. But as we saw in Victoria, fires can do some pretty incredible things and there are no guarantees in this.” …
