Burning properties in Rainbow Flat after fire from the Hillville Fire broke containment lines and crossed the Pacific Highway.Credit:Dean Sewell
On Friday,the NSW Rural Fire Service sent out an alert that fires were creating thunderstorms – pyro-convective events. In my 47 years of fighting fires I don’t remember this happening much. Now it happens quite regularly. On Friday,the atmosphere was relatively stable and therefore shouldn’t have been conducive to these wildly unpredictable and dangerous events. Yet it happened. Unprecedented.
The drought we are facing is more intense than the Millennium Drought,with higher levels of evaporation due to higher temperatures. This has dried out the bush and made it easier for fires to start,easier for them to spread quickly,and as we saw on Friday,enabling spot fires to start twice as far ahead of the main fires as we would normally expect.
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Warmer,drier conditions with higher fire danger are preventing agencies from conducting as much hazard reduction burning – it is often either too wet,or too dry and windy to burn safely. Blaming"greenies"for stopping these important measures is a familiar,populist,but basically untrue claim.
Together with 22 other retired fire and emergency service chiefs,I spoke out earlier this year. We felt we had a duty to tell people how climate change is super-charging our natural disaster risks. I wish we were wrong,but we’re not.
I’m confident that our national government,when the smoke and dust settles,will finally see the obvious and understand the word"unprecedented". I’m sure it will then start to take decisive action to tackle the base cause – greenhouse emissions - then use the high moral ground to lean on other countries to also do the right thing.
In the meantime,please,please play it safe,and act on the vital fire service warnings.