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passionpop I fully agree with the people of Roleystone after todays fires in Henderson. FESA are inept and something needs to be done before more tragedy unfolds
I spent today checking the FESA website for details of the fire after finding out through various news sources that the fire was about 2-4kms from my house. A 'Watch and Act' warning was current, but not for my area. my suburb, Wattleup wasnt even mentioned.
when I looked closer during the day, I discovered that one of the roads mentioned, the eastern border of the 'Watch and Act' line, was infact in my Suburb (Wattleup) and is about 1km from my home. The only suburbs that were mentioned in the warning were Henderson ( where the fire was) and Munster (to the north and north east of the fire).
This was not the only inadequacy in the warnings
By FESA'S own definition, 'Watch and Act' warnings are updated every two hours. The first warning I looked at was updated at 8.05. I constantly kept and eye out for warnings. The warnings came through at 10.23, 1.15, 4.10 and 7.25. there were no other warnings updated in between these. You would expect that two hours would be the maximum between updates, but it appears to be the minimum
I think we have the best volunteer bushfire-ies in the world here. I could rabbit on about them for hours, however they lack the support infrastructure that FESA should be providing.
A friend of mine lives in Orelia, and a few years ago when there was a fire in The Spectacles, by the time the physical alarm sounded at the scene, it was too late to evacuate.
The fire commanders on the scene have to watch the fire, their men, the population and communicate with FESA. the whole point of communicating with FESA is so that someone else can prompt the evacuation before it is too late, and the people on the scene don't have to waste valuable man power forcing an evacuation when they should be fighting the bloody fire.
it is time for FESA to Fess up to their inadequacies and do something about it.
I spent today checking the FESA website for details of the fire after finding out through various news sources that the fire was about 2-4kms from my house. A 'Watch and Act' warning was current, but not for my area. my suburb, Wattleup wasnt even mentioned.
when I looked closer during the day, I discovered that one of the roads mentioned, the eastern border of the 'Watch and Act' line, was infact in my Suburb (Wattleup) and is about 1km from my home. The only suburbs that were mentioned in the warning were Henderson ( where the fire was) and Munster (to the north and north east of the fire).
This was not the only inadequacy in the warnings
By FESA'S own definition, 'Watch and Act' warnings are updated every two hours. The first warning I looked at was updated at 8.05. I constantly kept and eye out for warnings. The warnings came through at 10.23, 1.15, 4.10 and 7.25. there were no other warnings updated in between these. You would expect that two hours would be the maximum between updates, but it appears to be the minimum
I think we have the best volunteer bushfire-ies in the world here. I could rabbit on about them for hours, however they lack the support infrastructure that FESA should be providing.
A friend of mine lives in Orelia, and a few years ago when there was a fire in The Spectacles, by the time the physical alarm sounded at the scene, it was too late to evacuate.
The fire commanders on the scene have to watch the fire, their men, the population and communicate with FESA. the whole point of communicating with FESA is so that someone else can prompt the evacuation before it is too late, and the people on the scene don't have to waste valuable man power forcing an evacuation when they should be fighting the bloody fire.
it is time for FESA to Fess up to their inadequacies and do something about it.