And if the IMT has enough trouble getting timely and accurate information about where the fire is and what it's doing, how can they be expected to warn the public?
Not only that, but at a big fire, just how do you describe the position of
something which surges & halts randomly along its flame-front? Assuming you can
even tell where the flame front is amongst 1 or 2 km deep of multiple &
increasing spot fires? Is it even relevant?
How do you -accurately- describe its location relative to a number of urban
interface streets when, by the time you have read the list of streets, it has
already moved several hundreds of metres? But only in some places.
Methinks the media is willfully misleading the public as to what is possible.
Never let reality stand in the way of manufacturing a good "scandal".
Chap before the commission on 3rd June (on page 101) made a good point about
official warnings. Dry officialese standard approved messages simply don't
convey reality to listeners.
"Listening to the - it was almost immune, you were almost
immune to the warnings because it is the same - you get
football commentators, when they are talking about a
football match, they are using incredibly colourful and
creative language to describe a guy who jumps up in the
air and grabs a ball. He becomes a hero, he becomes a
world class player at everything. Okay, it's exciting,
but people have become immune to this type of colourful
language and when something is extreme, it doesn't get any
worse than extreme on any other day, whether it is a 27
degree day or whether it is a 30 degree day and we have a
north wind blowing. The factors that go into making an
extreme fire danger day are not described to the people
who really need that warning."
