Page 172 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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reduce the fire threat. I quote from a letter sent to the Chief Minister on 23 September 2002:
The members of this corporation request the areas be given some attention to make them respectable and eliminate the fire risk they now pose.
I again quote from a letter sent to the Chief Minister on 17 August 2003:
It is just a matter of time before some thoughtless person sets a fire in this overgrown mess.
I quote from a letter sent to the Chief Minister on 19 October 2004:
We again bring to your attention the growth of blackberries in the old brickyards. This again is out of hand. Please arrange to have the area cleaned up, the blackberries removed, to reduce the fire hazard in this area.
I quote from a letter sent to Urban Services dated 17 November 2005:
Please arrange to have the overgrowth of vegetation cut back and controlled to reduce the fire hazard which now exists.
I finally quote from a letter dated 13 January 2006 sent to the Chief Minister some two weeks after the Yarralumla fire took place:
For some time we have addressed you and the Department of Urban Services on this topic to no avail. The mowing carried out by the contractors under instructions of your subordinates leaves a lot to be desired ... What was done? Mow a strip a few feet wide between the poisoned blackberry bushes, dead trees, high grass and the residents.
From my observations I would say that that strip was more than a few metres wide—it was probably 10 to 20 metres wide. But the problem is that at the back of that there was untouched long grass and blackberries. That minimal action was taken to maintain the urban edge around the brickworks after more than three years of correspondence just astounds me. But it does not astound me nearly as much as it astounds the residents of Yarralumla. This was another fire just waiting to happen thanks to the neglect of this government.
Emergency services personnel and police did an excellent job in responding to this emergency and should certainly be praised for their quick and comprehensive response. It is not the efforts of the response teams that we are concerned about or criticising. They did a magnificent job. What I am concerned about here is the lack of comprehensive prevention measures and the fact that this government has not done all it can to prevent such fires from occurring. The government’s lack of preventive planning makes it that much more dangerous and difficult for our emergency services personnel, who already have a hard enough and dangerous enough job to do. There are many sites that contain dangerous levels of long grass and scrubby fuel. Much of the grass across the ACT has “cured”, making it highly flammable. In fact, so neglected are some of these areas that I have received numerous complaints and I will cite some examples later.
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