I reckon fire bunkers will start to become mandatory in certain areas.
Making things mandatory does necessarily make them happen.
I would prefer to see it that all new homes in bushfire prone areas be manufactured from fire resistant materials (like the house near Bendigo(?) that survived the blaze when all the houses around it perished) (and be eco-friendly, but that is another soap-box for me to stand on later!) and each property shall have a fire break system around the boundaries (and where necessary inside the property boundaries on larger properties) and there shall be a mandatory clearing around the residence. In addition, each property shall be required to provide and maintain a water supply and pumping system for firefighting on their own property. There might be a lot of others measures that could save lives and property too, from fires in fire prone areas, and from floods in flood prone areas, and storms in storm prone areas, and cyclones in cyclone prone areas etc. People have been talking for years about climate change and its effects on the weather etc, but no-one seems to be doing much to combat the effects? All the talk is about the causes. Last-resort shelters and other systems might also be considered, but I believe a lot of preventative measures should be in place first. As the saying goes, "An ounce of prevention is better than a ton of cure."
These measures may seem draconian, but there are some councils in Australia where similar measures are already in place. Where my father used to live (near Northam, WA) very similar measures were required. But here is the key:
Whatever mandatory requirements are introduced (or maybe already exist?) they must be enforced. The requirements were my dad used to live were policed by the local council and volunteer firefighting brigade who reported back to the council. "Audits" or surveys were conducted quite regularly, I remember two visits from the council in just a couple of months. Failure to meet the requirements was a serious issue; large fines were (allegedly) regularly issued until full compliance was achieved.
I remember before a particularly hot summer in Perth some years ago, the head of the fire authorities in WA flew in a helicopter over the houses in the Perth hills and was exceptionally saddened/angry at what he saw: despite the warnings from the councils, fire authorities and the weather bureau about an impending bad fire-season and looming hot summer, many houses still had trees overgrowing their roofs, scrub up to the door step, no water on property and no means of pumping water without relying on mains power. Call it Murphy's Law, but just a few weeks later a fire raced through the area and many of the houses we had just seen mentioned were razed.
So how do we force people to do the right thing? (Why is necessary to need to force people to do the right thing anyway? To answer my own question, because "common sense" is unfortunately not that common, hence the need for laws outlawing the lighting of fires on hot, dry, windy days.) Making laws without enforcing them is pointless. Maybe the insurance companies should be the ones flying over the houses and making the surveys; people who don't comply have their fire-insurance voided until they meet attain full compliance? Is this the best answer? Don't know (probably not) but something has to get people to be responsible for their own lives and properties.
My heart goes out mostly to one man who was a CFA firefighter. He had done all the right things on his own property before the fire season started (clearings and water etc) but was out fighting the fires at another property (surrounded by trees and grass, on the wrong side of the slope on the hill, etc) when his own house burned to the ground. (I am sure there were more instances like this, but this was one report I actually watched on the news). Had so many resources not been required to protect the residence of someone too apathetic/lazy/stupid/whatever to do the work required to make his residence defendable against a brush fire, the firefighter(s) might have been able to be at their own places, defending them against the same blaze.
I am not sure a Royal Commission is going to resolve the issues either. I don't believe a Royal Commission is going to save lives should another bushfire start somewhere in Australia. All I think the Royal Commission is going to achieve is to listen to a lot of heart-breaking stories about how houses burned down and people died, and how under-resourced the firefighters are. I don't think there will be any useful outcomes to make self-protective measures mandatory and enforceable; it is an unfortunate part of our society today that so many people think all our ills and misfortunes are someone elses fault and someone else should always be responsible for the actions of others.
Too harsh? Maybe. But I hate seeing what should be taken as "a wake up call" be overtaken by knee-jerk reactions that have little long term benefit, or effects that are not remembered long after the emotion dies away. We all remember the ANZACS on ANZAC Day, but how many remember them the next day/week/month until the next ANZAC Day? The Victorian bushfires, however horrific, should be the impetus for some positive changes with long term benefits. Maybe some real changes can save some lives the next time some idiot starts lighting fires. (That's another soapbox for later, too).
$0.02
wabbit