Page 14 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 11 February 2020
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communication efforts of the Emergency Services Agency. This work was started before the bushfires arrived on Canberra’s doorstep and accelerated as we declared a state of alert.
Our responses this season have shown that we have all learned from 2003. Since the 2003 fires, the ESA, supported by the ACT government, has ensured that it has improved its operations and capability to manage emergencies. This is an agency committed to continually improving services to the community, and we have seen this commitment in action this season. Lessons, of course, have been learned from the past and the agency has grown into a more cohesive and collaborative organisation. We heard loud and clear calls from the community for more timely and detailed information about bushfire threats following 2003.
The communication and insight provided by the ESA made it amongst the best in Australia. In addition to its social media outreach, it put boots on the ground, doorknocking houses in bushfire-prone areas and staffing booths at shopping centres across our city. The ESA responded to the community feedback over the summer and continued to enhance its communication. Once we are safely past this year’s storm and bushfire season, we will review and look to make our engagement with the community even better.
We have made other changes. The government has strengthened the ACT’s legislation and policy to improve the safety of this city and the surrounding region. The Emergencies Act 2004, under which we operate, is now reviewed as part of best practice in emergency management.
The development and implementation of the strategic bushfire management plan, or SBMP, has enabled the agency to identify and manage bushfire risk. The SBMP focuses our attention not only on our response to bushfires but also on preventing bushfires, mitigating their impact, coordinating across government during emergencies and focusing on recovery.
This planning has allowed us to bring the community together to combat the threat, manage the consequences of its impact, aid in emotional recovery and rebuild the things that are valued. The government has made a large investment to significantly upgrade our fire trails and this has allowed immediate access to bushfires not only for fire tankers but also for transporting heavy machinery, bulk water and people into remote areas quickly and effectively.
A range of resources that were not available in 2003 have been heavily utilised this season. These include massive aerial attack, in the form of large and very large air tankers, on remote bushfires, and the bulldozers to get to remote fire lines, providing for swift and secure containment of the fire edge in advance of forecast extreme fire weather conditions.
In 2013 we provided a new headquarters for the ESA and have continued to invest in new vehicles and equipment, new stations and station upgrades. There has also been an investment in communications technology and sciences to identify risk, including the special intelligence helicopter, or SIG. We have also made that investment in
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