catastrophic Bushfire Warning in Northern S.A.

Hmmmm....the same weather as last week but no warnings then. Not even a Total Fire Ban for the North West Pastoral or Flinders.

Population density very sparse in said areas. Vegetation very sparse too. Tufts of dry grass and some low scrub. Mayby further north like at Marla where there is a fair amount of Mulga a fire could rage. But what would lie in the path of such a fire, should it occur?

Bit of scaremongering if you ask me. Hypotheticals may be? It was on local Adelaide ABC Talkback radio this morning. Someone had to have the first catastrophic warning!

Firebugs are mainly concentrated arounf populated areas

Isn't this a bit inaccurate?

The only deliberately lit fire is in Craigmore (Northen suburb of Adelaide). The Catastrophic Warning is for the northern regions of SA in case a fire does start - from whatever cause. No mention of any fires in the region right now.

Hope it stays that way.

Cheers,

While preparing for severe fire events is important, at some point people will get tired of packing everything up, stopping work, closing business's & travelling to somewhere 'safe'. If there are no fires on the day of the catastrophic warning people will over time become complacent & even curse the authorities for the loss of revenue.
Craig.............

Yep no fires here yet
Have to work tomorrow anyways so im not evacuating

North western NSW will have Catastrophic conditions in a couple of days.

So here we go again - more mis-information. People DO NOT have to evacuate.

CFS deputy chief officer Andrew Lawson says leaving is the best option for people in code red areas.

"Any fires that start in those two areas have the potential to be catastrophic, to develop very, very quickly, be fast moving, spotting well ahead of the main fire front and will be very, very dangerous fires," he said.

"So that's the message effectively, that the safest option for people if they're not well prepared is to go to a safer place."

"They need to be considering their bushfire survival plan and have in their bushfire survival plan where they're choosing to go, which is their safer place, how to get there and what triggers they'll use to put that survival plan in action," he said.

So if you are going to promulgate news items - please get it/them right. To do otherwise could cause many people to panic or make poor decisions.

Authorities have three options -

1. Decide what the danger will be and evacuate them by force - has happened in some instances.

2. Warn people what conditions are predicted and let them decide (what happened the day before the Victorian disaster)

3. Don't tell them how bad it's going to be - they might panic (what happened before 500 house were destroyed in Canberra in one day - read the Coroners Report).

What do you think is the best option.

At work on the day before Black Saturday (city office) a work colleague made some dismissive comments about the warnings issued, especially in regards to the Premier. I replied that it was OK for him, as he didn’t live in a fire prone area. He didn’t raise the issue again on the Monday

However, listening to the comments and opinions discussed at this time, I was left with the impression of how disconnected with the land that people had become, and that bushfire safety should become part of education curriculum and societal ‘lore’; much the same as water safety.

A “catastrophic’ fire day is simply a warning to the community of a simple concept. A fire on these days has the risk of getting out of control and no amount of intervention will get it back under control in the short term and, therefore, there are no guarantees of protection of property, and more importantly, life.

Accordingly, on ‘catastrophic’ fire days the guaranteed safest place from fires is to be nowhere near fire danger areas. Simple!

Fire risk is declared by the fire services in regards to a professional determination based on a number of factors including temperature, humidity, wind speed, fuel load, and the dryness of the fuel load. A dead calm 45 degrees day after a week of rain has a lower fire danger than a 30 degree day with 60 kph winds after 3 months of drought

You make your determination on whether to stay or go on the basis of the best information provided. Your decision

This forum is composed of people who have a love affair with the bush. One would hope that these people had absorbed a bit of an understanding of the nature of the land and plan and act accordingly

The replies in regards to this post seem to indicate that the Fire Services and the Government are fighting a losing battle in respect to community education.

Well I survived LOl
same alert for tomorrow-Thursday
forecast 45-47 c