The past few days have brought a flurry of queries regarding the Fire Districts. There are two districts relevant to bushfire which have different boundaries.

Total Fire Ban District – for legislation governing lighting of fires & use of equipment to prevent ignitions of fire.

Yarra Area / Region 13 is [...]]]> Hi All,

The past few days have brought a flurry of queries regarding the Fire Districts. There are two districts relevant to bushfire which have different boundaries.

Total Fire Ban District – for legislation governing lighting of fires & use of equipment to prevent ignitions of fire.

Yarra Area / Region 13 is in CENTRAL

2. Fire Danger Ratings District – for prediction of likely bushfire behaviour, impact potential & advice on action.

The FDR district is based on the weather districts of the Bureau of Meteorology. The advantage of this is being smaller districts they are more localised, however there still may be a large variance in the conditions across the district. People on the borders of districts should consider both districts.

Yarra Area / Region 13 is in CENTRAL

The maps provide information about 2 different things although of course the declaration of a Total Fire Ban is dependant on weather conditions.

Your planning for bushfire should be considering the Fire Danger Rating as well as if it is a TFB day. The triggers people use will vary – some use all TFB days as their trigger, others have different plans for different levels of FDR.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Bureau of Meteorology also has the specific Fire Danger Index in chart format which lists the individual weather stations. – this has caused some confusion.

The design of the chart lists the individual weather stations first then the district as a footer underneath. ( If you read it incorrectly with the district as a header it will read as though Coldstream & Dunns Hill ( Ferny Creek ) is in Nth Central.- wrong )

The most relevant weather stations in Central District to Yarra Area / Region 13. are

Dunns Hill ( Ferny Creek )

Coldstream

These 2 weather stations are recording the weather conditions at these 2 sites so it is very localised information.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hope this helps in your planning & in understanding predictions & negotiating the new ratings.

Regards Helen

Helen Wositzky

Community Fireguard Coordinator.

CFA Yarra Area

18-22 Lakeview Drive

Lilydale, Vic. 3140

Hope you all had a good Christmas & New Year.

As you will be aware we are heading into a few hot days, keep aware of the Fire Danger Ratings and particularly local conditions over the weekend & into early next week. I urge everyone to make sure their [...]]]> Hi to all FireGuard members.

Hope you all had a good Christmas & New Year.

As you will be aware we are heading into a few hot days, keep aware of the Fire Danger Ratings and particularly local conditions over the weekend & into early next week. I urge everyone to make sure their preparations are done and to activate their Bushfire Survival Plans.

Community messaging systems.

There are a number of community developed messaging and alert systems that are currently in operation using text messages to mobile phones, emails or web based messages. ( apart from your localised CFG group phone trees ). A few of these I am aware of are 19Fire and Firelinx, some CFG groups and individual CFG members have subscribed to receive messages through these systems.

It has come to our attention that some text and email messages received by people through some of these community developed systems have got CFG in the messaging. I have received some enquiries regarding this and for some people this is causing confusion regarding the origin & source of the messages. To clarify this please note the following:

· Community developed & organised communication systems allow individuals to subscribe if they choose to receive information through these systems.

· The messages are community generated messages from within the community and shared to those who have subscribed.

· These systems are not part of the official Community FireGuard program, although CFG group members are of course free to subscribe to them if they wish.

· These messages are not official CFA messages, they are not authorised messages from CFA and messages are not sent from the CFG program or authorised by the CFG program.

· CFA or the CFG program has no input regarding the content of these messages, the frequency of messages sent, or the timing of when a message is sent.

· All Bushfire Advice, Watch & Act or Emergency Warning messages that are produced by the CFA are authorised and distributed to the official channels such as the CFA website, Radio and TV.

Gaining as much information through as many sources as possible regarding bushfires is an important part of your bushfire plans and community generated messages may be a valuable tool in gathering information. We are not discouraging people from subscribing to any community generated messaging systems they feel may be of benefit, however it is essential to understand the information provided is coming from other community members not CFA.

Hope everyone is good & stay safe over the coming weeks.

Regards Helen

Helen Wositzky

Community Fireguard Coordinator.

CFA Yarra Area

The fire weather estimates for Thursday 19 Nov 2009 are looking a little concerning.

The Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) for the North West of the State is in the 60 – 90 range, the Grass Fire Danger Index (GFDI) is in the 40 – 60 range. Both of [...]]]> Article from David Packham

The fire weather estimates for Thursday 19 Nov 2009 are looking a little concerning.

The Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) for the North West of the State is in the 60 – 90 range, the Grass Fire Danger Index (GFDI) is in the 40 – 60 range.
Both of these indices are such as to cause serious fire behaviour.
The predicted rate of spread would be around 3 kph in the forests with heavy fuels. The predicted flame heights are around 40 metres with spotting up to 3km. The Byram Fire Intensity for the forests about 50 Megawatts per metre some twenty times greater than firefighting capability (2.5 Megawatts per metre being the limit to direct attack).

The very dry areas around Bendigo and Shepparton are somewhat similar but the grass greenness is keeping the GFDI at a manageable level, in other words good firefighting in the grasslands should be successful but not so in the heavy forests and I might add along the neglected roadsides.

The central areas, for example Tullamarine, look serious for forests with FFDI just reaching the 50 mark, the GFDI with an estimated curing of around 50% ( half the grass stalks are still green) is sufficiently low to be initially manageable with good fire fighting and very early response. I would not be surprised if the curing did not rise rapidly during the day as happened during the Lara Fires in 1969.

The West, Northeast and Gippsland both look difficult except for the grasslands in the West where the grass is still apparently all green .

The serious concern for me is the synoptic situation which like Ash Wednesday 1983 is proving difficult for the forecasters. They have gone for a “more pessimistic forecast” thus the analysis above could be worse than what actually occurs.

The problem is our old enemy the Southwest wind change. If it is a prolonged and nasty one like Ash Wednesday the results could be very difficult. The problem being the response times of the fuels which remain dry just after the wind change even though the FFDI and the GFDI show them becoming much more moist. That is because we are using the models beyond their capability.

I would suggest that we watch carefully the developments in the systems over the next few days whilst preparing for a possible big fire event on Thursday (due to the heavy grass and forest fuels and the ignored roadsides). On Thursday the major threat would come in the late afternoon and the timing of the wind change will be critical.

This early in the season normally I would discount any real fire problems but the dryness continues and we could be in for an unpleasant surprise.

With a little luck the forecasts may change as the weather systems develop and the day may pass us with a whimper rather than a shout.

Once again I hope the above analysis turns out to be wrong.

David Packham

Just wanted to update you on a few things, hope everyone is OK and getting prepared for the coming fire season.

CFG Forums. “ Understanding Black Saturday” Sunday 6th December

Kangaroo Ground in the morning  -  Lilydale / Montrose area in the [...]]]> Hi to all the CFG leaders & members,

Just wanted to update you on a few things, hope everyone is OK and getting prepared for the coming fire season.

CFG Forums. “ Understanding Black Saturday” Sunday 6^th December

Kangaroo Ground in the morning  -  Lilydale / Montrose area in the afternoon ( exact venue to be confirmed).

The annual forum this year will focus on understanding the events of Feb 7 ^th , this will include a panel of CFG members who will share their stories and experiences and give us an insight into our own preparation and planning for bushfire. Full details to follow – keep this date free !!

Fire Restrictions – ARE NOT IN YET

There seems to be some confusion regarding this – Fire Restrictions have NOT been declared in any of our Municipalities yet, you are still able to burn off according to your normal local regulations. The 100 days countdown that the State Gov’t promoted was about getting prepared for summer not fire restrictions.

It is anticipated that this may be around the start of December but it depends on the weather & rainfall on a daily basis. There is a process of gazetting this approx a few weeks ahead of approval – our operations manager always lets me know when this happens so you get a bit of an earlier notice.

CFG Courses – Some of these are booked out – so if anyone is wishing to attend these they will need to book quickly. ( note * these are refreshers for people living in a CFG street) Bookings by email or fax as per the booking sheet in the last Fireguard Newsletter.

Fire Ready Workshops – there will be a number of FRV Workshops held throughout the region mid November – mid December. These will be put up on the CFA website shortly & are for general public, bookings will be required.

Royal Commission.  The commission has recommended hearings into a range of other matters, before handing down a final report next July. For accurate reports of what is said in the commission and the context in which statements are made, consulting the daily transcript of proceedings is recommended. This is available at http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au

Some of the items from the interim report such as Neighbourhood Safer places were covered in the last Fireguard newsletter. These are in the process of being assessed and when an announcement is made we will let you know of the outcome.

Fireguardian Newsletter – next edition

An additional edition of the Fireguardian will come out in November, if you would like to contribute anything or have a suggestion as to what you would like to see included in this edition please contact me ASAP. It will need to go top print Monday 9^th Nov.

We have had a very busy start to the season – we already have over 200 referrals for people wanting to start CFG groups or join existing groups and the facilitators are doing a fantastic job, some groups will have to wait a while as we are allocating them out according to their risk environment, we are keeping up with the priority areas though. We are also having a trained CFG facilitator meet with all of our established groups this season. It is great there is so much interest.

Cheers Helen

Helen Wositzky

Community Fireguard Coordinator.

CFA Yarra Area

18-22 Lakeview Drive

Lilydale, Vic.  3140

Phone: (03) 8739 1315

Fax (03) 8739 1382

If you go to http://www.warrandytechat.com/dr-tolhurst-videos/ you will find that after you have logged in you can either download the video in parts from the site [...]]]> Dear Fireguard Members,
Just to let you know that the video of the talk given by Dr Tolhurst at Warrandyte Community Church on 6th August is now available.

If you go to http://www.warrandytechat.com/dr-tolhurst-videos/ you will find that after you have logged in you can either download the video in parts from the site or you can order a DVD from me at a nominal charge of $5 to cover costs. The whole video lasts 2 hours and I am just about to add 2 more videos of 15 minutes each with presentations by Professor David Karoly and Dr Tolhurst of The University of Melbourne from April 09.

Also from this page on the site you will be able to download the Prediction models used by Dr Tolhurst.

Please pass this on to your friends/family that might be interested

Dear Fireguard Leaders

Hope that everyone is OK.

Enclosed is the Fireguardian Sept 09 newsletter for you to distribute to the households in your Community Fireguard group.

CFG courses during October & November require booking, the number of attendees at each is limited and we anticipate the demand for these courses [...]]]> [Edited letter from CFA]

Dear Fireguard Leaders

Hope that everyone is OK.

Enclosed is the Fireguardian Sept 09 newsletter for you to distribute to the households in your Community Fireguard group.

CFG courses during October & November require booking, the number of attendees at each is limited and we anticipate the demand for these courses will be high so it is important this information is out.

10/30 clearance rule.

Since the newsletter was written this has been gazetted. Over the past few days we have seen a very strong reaction against this on both the environmental impact and the fact that fine fuels are the primary fuel that sustains fires. Removing trees is no guarantee of your personal or house survival and can be counter productive to bushfire safety with increased wind speed, removing ember traps etc . How you prepare the building structure against ember attack is just as important as evidenced by homes in cleared paddocks burning down.  The issues that have arisen out of this announcement include concern that a “one size fits all” vegetation clearance option takes no account of actual risk of individual properties which varies immensely according to fuel type, slope, aspect and location. Whilst it is important to manage fine fuels as part of your bushfire safety plan please consider very carefully the impacts of clearing all vegetation, take the time to assess your risk and develop a plan that considers the many factors of risk and the full range of preparation that contributes to safety.

Networking with other groups and local brigades.

Many groups are wanting to network and share ideas with their neighbouring CFG groups. Due to privacy laws we cannot provide CFG leaders contact details unless you have given us permission to do so. If you have not filled in the form please contact us and a form will be posted to you. I encourage you to do this as the benefits of networking are many.

CFG Forums

There will be CFG Forums again this year – probably late Oct / early November. Once these are organized I will send you invites for your group.

Lets hope for a safe summer, get prepared now, and thank you for your continuing commitment to the CFG Program as your group’s leader.

Regards  Helen Wositzky. CFG Coordinator Yarra Area.

Kruses Road Community Fireguard Group held its first neighbourhood Rakeathon today to welcome new residents to the community.

With 20 members of the group plus Mathew’s parents Nick and Barbara and about 13 of their friends all helping out the atmosphere was terrific.

Works got off to a prompt [...]]]> Welcome Matthew and Eleanor

Kruses Road Community Fireguard Group held its first neighbourhood Rakeathon today to welcome new residents to the community.

With 20 members of the group plus Mathew’s parents Nick and Barbara and about 13 of their friends all helping out the atmosphere was terrific.

Works got off to a prompt start at 10am and piles of leaves and fallen timbers were rapidly stacking up before going into a 4” chipper Matt had hired.

A short break around 11:45 for tea and cakes was very welcome before getting straight back into it.

Elle and Barbara were very busy in the kitchen preparing a magnificent lunch at 2:00 pm with Nick manning the barbie.

A change of shift at the same time meant that momentum was kept going and many of us pressed on through to 4:30pm leaving the family with some final tidying up.

For a first time event we must be absolutely chuffed that it went so well.  It was not without opportunities to learn for the next time but all agreed that working together was a great motivator, fun and good for the community as a whole.

Click here to see PowerPoint presentation

the presentation which identifies Warrandyte and North Warrandyte as “The highest risk areas for this fire [...]]]> Thanks to Jim Child’s Council Watch for posting these items:

Brumby to give owners right to clear bush property an article in the Herald Sun on 21/08/09

Click here to see PowerPoint presentation

the presentation which identifies Warrandyte and North Warrandyte as “The highest risk areas for this fire season“