BY JIM GREEN
The NSW bushfires came with a predictable media script: "Heroes", most of them volunteers from the Rural Fire Service, battling fires started by "villain" arsonists. Important issues - such as inadequate resources for fire prevention and fighting, and the heavy reliance on volunteer firefighters (many inadequately trained) instead of paid professionals - received far less attention.
Another part of the standard script is to blame "greenies" for preventing controlled burning to reduce vegetation levels ("fuel loads"). Controlled burning is carried out at the direction of about 130 committees comprising a range of interested parties including firefighting organisations, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), NSW State Forests, farmers, police, environmentalists and local councils. These committees produce plans which are exhibited for public inspection and comment, detailing the property and natural assets that require protection and the plans for preventing and fighting fires. (Of course, different procedures apply for back-burning during bushfires.)
Undoubtedly there are areas where hazard reduction (including controlled burning) should take place but hasn't. However, it's an open question whether there is a pattern of inadequate controlled burning. Hazard reduction failed to stop the spread of some of the recent fires, and controlled burns can get out of control and kill people - four NPWS staff died in one such incident at Mt Kuring-gai in June 2000. To the extent that hazard reduction is insufficient, it has more to do with chronic shortages of resources than overzealous "greenies".
Overdevelopment and inappropriate development has clearly contributed to the recent crisis. Nick Galley, a fire ecologist for 20 years, told ABC radio on January 9: "Around the Sydney region, you've got this huge perimeter of houses which abut bushland. And one of the big issues with the number of fires that we've had is that the standards of fire cover that the authorities have deemed adequate becomes inadequate when you're dealing with such a large perimeter. It has been very difficult for a lot of firefighters to just get to the places they need to be to protect houses. This has been allowed to happen over the last 30-40 years and still developers are being allowed to encroach into bushland without adequate protection."
NSW Premier Bob Carr has responded to the bushfires by whipping up law-and-order hysteria and devising new punishments for arsonists. According to the NPWS, arson was responsible for 19% of fires in NSW national parks in the past five years and arson was suspected to be the cause in a further 17% of fires.
Carr's crusade against arsonists is designed to deflect attention from the number one villain in the bush fire crisis - the NSW government itself. An audit office report tabled in NSW parliament in December 2000 revealed that the NSW Fire Brigade, which employs professional firefighters, is wallowing in debt and is using capital funding reserves and insurance credits to continue operating after recording a deficit of $3.5 million in the 2000-01 financial year. The fire brigade has been using employee leave entitlements to operate and is breaching the 1989 Fire Brigades Act by using capital reserves to fund recurrent activities.
Bob Sendt, the NSW auditor-general, said, "The government clearly needs to address the poor financial position of the fire brigade to allow them to continue to operate in a viable way."
In early January, while the establishment media was heralding the arrival of interstate volunteers, about 1500 professional firefighters sat idle as there was a shortage of firefighting trucks.
Investment in infrastructure such as new fire stations has not kept pace with urban and regional development or with urban sprawl into bushland. The fire brigade used to be able attend all or almost all (urban) fires within five minutes. That "guarantee of service" was extended to seven minutes by the Coalition state government in 1988, then to 10 minutes by the Carr Labor government in 1996.
A 1997 report by the Evatt Foundation found that cost cutting in the NSW fire services takes various forms including delaying or abandoning capital works (such as fire stations) so that there is little public recognition of reduced service levels. The report noted that the westward shift of Sydney's population has not been matched by a commensurate shift of professional firefighters.
The heavy reliance on Rural Fire Service (RFS) volunteer firefighters is justified with the argument that the episodic nature of bushfires means they are best managed through the use of volunteer brigades comprising members of local communities.
However, it's not hard to find a compelling reason - i.e., public safety - for high levels of training. A performance audit into the RFS carried out by the NSW government audit office in late 2000 found that in the vast majority of the geographical area serviced by the RFS (especially west of the Great Dividing Range), training was largely inadequate and sometimes non-existent for up to half the RFS crews. Training is not mandatory for RFS volunteers.
Numerous urban fringe and regional growth areas are protected primarily by volunteer brigades, despite the NSW Fire Brigade's expertise in dealing with the main risks (built structures) in these areas.
The government contrasts heroic volunteers to "greedy", "self-serving" professional firefighters and their union, the Fire Brigade Employees Union (FBEU). Apart from direct savings through the use of volunteer labour, the existence of the volunteer-based RFS is used to try to drive down wages and conditions for professional firefighters employed by the fire brigade. NSW Fire Brigade employees are constantly reminded by senior management of the need for "reform" and "flexibility", and they are constantly reminded of the "competition" from the RFS.
Hundreds of off-duty professional firefighters, and those on annual or long-service leave, have been underutilised in favour of volunteers during the recent crisis. Only after the FBEU publicised this cost-cutting manoeuvre did the government partially redress it. Precisely the same thing happened during the 1994 bushfires.
The government uses the existence of the RFS to exert pressure on fire brigade employees and the FBEU to accept reduced working conditions, some of which have clear safety implications, such as minimum staffing levels.
During the recent crisis, the FBEU led the call for the introduction of specialised firefighting aircraft and it was at the forefront of the call for further Erickson S-64 Aircrane heli-tankers to be brought in. By contrast, RFS commissioner Phil Koperberg initially poured cold water on the announcements by the federal and NSW governments that they would be prepared to fund the purchase of several heli-tankers. Koperberg said it would be irresponsible to take advantage of the crisis to push for extra resources, whereas the FBEU understands that crises and their immediate aftermath provide rare windows of opportunity to secure resources that ought to be available in the first place.
Geographical demarcation, and demarcation disputes, between the RFS and the fire brigade are another source of danger. In January 2001, a woman died in a burning car following an accident near Coffs Harbour. Because of the demarcation rules, fire brigade officers just 10 minutes away from the burning car were unable to act, while it took 23 minutes for a RFS brigade to reach the scene.
The FBEU is routinely accused of wanting to wipe out the volunteer fire brigades, but the union is not anti-volunteer and it does not call for the closure of volunteer brigades. The FBEU is also accused - by Bob Carr among others - of a self-serving agenda to recruit volunteer firefighters to the union even though it is common knowledge that unions are unable to sign up volunteers under NSW legislation.
Following the 1994 NSW bushfires, deputy coroner John Hiatt spent two years on an inquiry and recommended, among other things, amalgamation of the RFS (then the Department of Bush Fire Services) and the NSW Fire Brigade to improve the protection of people and property. The FBEU has long argued for amalgamation.
Within an hour of Hiatt's report being released, Carr dismissed the recommendation for amalgamation, saying he wanted to "maintain the spirit of the volunteers". In reality, the government is concerned that in an amalgamated service the balance would swing towards professionally trained, paid firefighters and away from volunteers. An amalgamated fire service might also be better placed to fight for adequate resources for fire prevention and fire fighting. In short, an amalgamated service might not follow the script.
From Green Left Weekly, January 16, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.