Page 3972 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 17 November 2015
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Recommendation 22 is a vexed issue. It is often very unclear from what the government tells us how many level 3 controllers there are. These are the controllers that govern major events. For instance, in 2003 you had a fire that ran the best part of seven days once it was out of control. If you do not have controllers to run shifts and control multiple fires in different locations, you put yourself at a disadvantage. The advice we were given is that you need a minimum of five trained, experienced, accredited level 3 controllers—that have the appropriate and current accreditation as a minimum. It is up to the government to ensure that that is the case—and that they are experienced. They need to have the appropriate experience to be able to do this. It is not that you have done the course and therefore you are there when a crisis strikes; you need to make sure that the people who are commanding, particularly, the volunteers on the ground know what they are doing.
Recommendation 23 is to review the applicability of the fitness test by which RFS staff and volunteers are assessed. I do not have data for Australian bush fire fighters, but in America one stat I saw said that half of the deaths on fire grounds are from heart attacks from older and overweight men who perhaps should not be on the fire ground. That is not to discourage volunteers, but if you are going into arduous conditions, often very stressful, in a crisis situation, then if you are not fit, not only are you a risk to yourself but, if you are ill or incapacitated, it often takes a whole unit off the fire ground, which leaves other units at risk.
So there is the question of the test. Some say, “I just drive a tanker; I do not need to be able to do the walking or the running.” But let us come up with something that is more consistent with what the firefighters undertake rather than a test. For instance, to be a moderately fit firefighter, you have to walk, I think, 3.2 kilometres in 30 minutes carrying 11 kilos. Most volunteers, I would suspect, do that quite easily. But are they the sort of conditions that we work under? A pump pack on the back has somewhere between 12 and 16 kilos of water. If you are lugging hoses up a hill or if you are carrying a rake hoe through the bush, there are different standards of activity that we undertake. Perhaps it is time the test was reviewed.
Recommendation 24 says:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government detail to the ACT Legislative Assembly on the first sitting day in September every year a detailed summary of the preparation for the approaching fire season including an explicit list of resources and equipment available for the season based on checks of equipment prior to the commencement of the fire season.
That is a very important recommendation. There were cases some years ago where, for instance, half of the tankers, the heavy capacity of the Rural Fire Service, were not available for use on day one of the fire season. They had not been checked; they had not been prepped; they had not been repaired. That situation cannot be allowed to happen again.
There is also, given the weather assessment that the government might get, the growth factors, the curing factors and the rainfall over the winter period. As we approach the season, it is up to the government to assure the people of the ACT, through this place,
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