Forced evacuation at bushfires

[CFS_Firey]

I noticed on the ABC's Lateline report on the Californian fires that the fire fighters are forcing residents out of their homes.
What are people thoughts on doing this, and does anyone know if the CFS has an *official* policy on telling people to evacuate?

As far as I know, Australia is the only country that actively encourages residents to have a bushfire plan, and prepare to stay and fight, and not leave at the last minute...

[Pipster]

I think the official plan is to either stay (as long as you are prepared, and believe yourself to be physically & mentally capable of dealing with a bushfire close up), or to go early, (eg, before there is a fire!.)  That may include evacuating places like Nursing homes, long before the fire - but I could only see that happening here in SA in extreme circumstances....

It would appear (at least from media reports) that the city generally is not prepared for bushfires, despite them occurring regularly!

Pip

[Zippy]

The Emergency Act 2005 would be a good place to look,  i read it once,  but have totally forgotten the facts  :-P...

http://legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/FIRE%20AND%20EMERGENCY%20SERVICES%20ACT%202005/CURRENT/2005.40.UN.PDF

[bajdas]

My guess is that the government can declare an area a disaster zone (not sure if that is correct terminology) and then SAPOL could enforce what the State EOC requests. Of course SAPOL would delegate the evacuation to other organisations (eg SES, CFS, St John, FamiliesSA, Health, Community Services, etc).

Within a declared area, an emergency officer has extra powers. But I do not think they have been really tried out yet (eg ability to use equipment), so not really sure. I doubt if an emergency officer could force someone to move.

Some evacuation centres have been activated previously (eg Starplex sporting complex during Virginia Floods). Hopefully emergency plans have been written so that evacuation centres & staging areas are known in advance.

Hopefully someone else with have more knowledge than myself....

[Zippy]

Partial Excerpt.

Subdivision 2—Exercise of powers at scene of fire or other emergency

97—Powers

(1) An officer of SACFS may take, or cause to be taken, any action that appears necessary
or desirable for the purpose of protecting the life, health or safety of any person or
animal, or protecting property, relevant services or the environment, or for any other
purpose associated with dealing with a fire or other emergency or the threat of a fire or
other emergency (despite the fact that the action may result in damage to, or
destruction of, property or any aspect of the environment or cause pecuniary loss to
any person).

[CFS_Firey]

Yes, we've discussed the powers we have at emergencies in other threads, my question is SHOULD we evacuate people, not CAN we.

Most bushfire deaths are from people evacuating, not dieing in their homes...

[6739264]

As far as I know, SOUTHAustralia is the only country that actively encourages residents to have a bushfire plan, and prepare to stay and fight, and not leave at the last minute...

The way they do things in the rest of this country are very very interesting, especially our Eastern States. The term 'cluster filtered' comes to mind...

To answer the question though, yes I think that the IMT should look at triaging neighborhoods and evacuating those people that wish to leave in an orderly fashion. The problem arises when you have people who want to stay and fight, then drop the bundle at the last minute and try to flee.

[chook]

I think we are now seeing fires that are beyond the stay and fight (Canberra for example) & Yep your right its the ones who have the sudden change of heart. I've always wondered about the stay & fight idea using untrained, under equipped people :|. cheers

[Crank]

why was a bushfire such as canberra not suitable to stay and fight? 

From footage i have seen one (maybe 2) person(s) saved an entire street (think it was a small street) from the firestorm....so it proves that a little effort is all that is needed.  And this guy did it wearing nothing but a singlet and shorts i think!

[Pipster]

There was a study done by the CSIRO after the Canberra fires, which looked at the survival of houses, in relation to a person being present at the house during & after the fire.....

The bulk of the houses that survived, - something like 99 % of them - had someone at the house to extinguish embers etc......

And of those who (tried) to stay & protect their houses, something like 30 of them (mostly men) suffered injuries from falling of their rooves, rather than burns / heat related injuries.....

Of the houses that burnt down in the Canberra fires, the bulk of them had no one present...

The findings of the study were that the survivability of houses related to a person being present at the house to extinguish embers etc.....

Pip

[chook]

Fair point I stand corrected, so you think the current idea is sound? Would there be a point where stay and fight is not an option?

[bajdas]

Most of the discussion so far has been on individuals in households.

Do the emergency services plan for notification for evacuation & assisting in evacuating of major local facilities where the people cannot do it themselves ? eg nursing homes, hospitals, schools, etc.

How much notice do you give to the local hosp[ital or school so everyone is out of the area safely ?

[6739264]

Interesting point you make, as I would assume that when there is a major bushfire impacting upon an area, evacuation such as that would fall to the Police and hence SES, rather than the fire service. The question is then, how much communication is there between upper levels of the fire service and the police force so as to enable such evacuations?

Mind you I would have thought that most places such as nursing homes and hospitals would adopt a protect in place strategy to avoid moving persons very susceptible to smoke and stress.

[CFS_Firey]

Fair point I stand corrected, so you think the current idea is sound? Would there be a point where stay and fight is not an option?

In my opinion, in all but a few cases, staying in your home will be far safer than "running for your life", (Or "running to your death" as some say). 
Even if your house does burn down, it will stay whole long enough to protect you from the fire front as the bushfire passes...

[bajdas]

....The question is then, how much communication is there between upper levels of the fire service and the police force so as to enable such evacuations?

I would assume that the AIIMS Planning Officer would complete the forward planning scenarios & thus identify the risk to infrastructure assets. For example, the protection of Renmark township assets by MFS & Helitanker during the Bookmark fires last year.

Within the co-ordinating structure you have liason officers from SAPOL, SES, SAAS, Health, etc at State Emergency Operations Centre, lead combatants State Control Centre and at the incident location AIIMS centre.

So if setup & operating correctly, communication will be at all levels.

But my assumption is that this type of evacuation would be using pre-written & agreed emergency plans. The facilities would have that for incidents at their facility (eg building fire, chemicals, etc).

But think about if you need to move them to another township several kilometers away from a wildfire or flooding risk for a few days  :-o

[6739264]

So if setup & operating correctly, communication will be at all levels.

Sadly your entire comment is irrelevant as the above statement *never* occurs.

[filtered]

The following link is the AFAC position on evacuations and other Community Safety issues.  This has been adopted by fire services Australia-wide...

http://www.afac.com.au/awsv2/publications/documents/PositionPaperonBushfiresandCommunitySafety.pdf

[chook]

Unfortunately it is so true, isn't a pity that communication doesn't happen.
How are we ever going to deal with the bad stuff thats coming in the future when the various services/ departments don't talk to each other - if the predictions are true no one service/ department will be able to do it all. Now is a good chance to get all of this multi agency stuff happening - it seems to me there is an opportunity gone begging. Anyway hopefully one day things will happen the Andrew describes.
cheers

[wombat34]

If you want to know CFS's stand on evacuations,get on a Suppress Wildfire course and pay attention to the Protect People Unit. It is all clearly layed out.

[bittenyakka]

whens the next course then?