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It hasnt rained in 9 weeks, they all should go somewhere else for the day if possible.
Warburton is being evacuated with up to 70% of residents fleeing the town.
Sadly this most horrid of bushfire seasons still has some way to go. Spare a thought today for the CFA workers who will be risking life and limb battling this blaze. Also the residents who will be facing the uncertainty of property loss.
Makes me very sad to see our once beautiful garden-state reduced to a smouldering ruin.
Warburton is being evacuated with up to 70% of residents fleeing the town.
Sadly this most horrid of bushfire seasons still has some way to go. Spare a thought today for the CFA workers who will be risking life and limb battling this blaze. Also the residents who will be facing the uncertainty of property loss.
Makes me very sad to see our once beautiful garden-state reduced to a smouldering ruin.
VICTORIAN Country Fire Authority volunteers must be cringing after Kevin Rudd’s speech at the memorial service for the bushfire victims ("PM declares ‘sacred day’ for the dead”, 23/2). “Courage is a firefighter standing before the gates of hell unflinching, unyielding, with eyes of steel, saying, ‘Here I stand, I can do no other’,” he said.
Rural Fire Service/CFA policy was reversed a decade ago with the dumping of the Gallipoli Syndrome, which I criticised in these pages in 1998. Many volunteers had died under this strategy. The first priority now is firefighter safety. Firefighters are not permitted to fight raging fire fronts. Rudd desperately needs a speechwriter who can tell the difference between fine rhetoric and excruciating kitsch.
Frank Campbell
(former Australian editor of international Wildfire magazine)
Letters. The Australian Today
Fire crews on Wednesday will work to consolidate containment lines around existing bushfires ahead of what's expected to be the worst fire day since Black Saturday.
With temperatures expected to soar to 38 degrees celsius and powered by strong and changing winds, every effort is being made to prepare for another horror day on Friday, Victoria's Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) said.
Amongst Mr Rudd's promises at the time of the fires was a grant of $5000 to any tradesperson who had lost their tools. This seems a more than reasonable amount. Why, e.g. would a painter need $5000 of tools?
Today on the radio there was an interview with some bloke who has set up a "Tools for Tradies" fund appeal because "the $5000 from the government (read taxpayer, please) is not enough".
The question that occurred to me is why wouldn't any responsible tradesman have insurance to cover loss of work related tools, vehicle etc?
If your house burns down tomorrow, unrelated to any bush fire, do you expect the taxpayer to replace your tools?
I'm thinking maybe we should have a thread on why half our society - who take responsibility for insuring themselves against potential loss or disaster - continually seem to be also having to take responsibility for funding the other half who ignore their responsibilities.
Fires leave Brumby no cover
Article from: Sunday Herald
March 01, 2009 12:00am
THE clock is ticking for the Brumby government. Within days it has to make a decision that will spark anger, relief, confusion and questions about why those who took the risk of being uninsured should be rewarded with a new house.
After the emotion of the death and destruction caused by the bushfires, the Brumby Government must make a clear-headed, calculated decision about how to spend the $200 million bushfire appeal fund. So far it's spent about $50 million on immediate relief and basic comforts for the dispossessed, and the state and federal governments are paying to clean up every burnt-out site.
About one-third of the 2000 homes destroyed in the bushfires were not insured. Another 10 per cent were underinsured. That leaves about 800 families in total waiting on tenterhooks for a government policy decision about whether they will be bailed out by the bushfire appeal fund or left to beg a bank to lend them money to rebuild out of the ashes.
In the first few days after the fires, Premier John Brumby said every victim would be given assistance to rebuild. But he did not promise the uninsured would be fully backed by the government fund to rebuild replacement homes or, in some cases, rebuild investment homes that are rented.
This week the Premier talked about the insurance question being a complex one riddled with sensitivities and mentioned one of the words that sends shivers down the back of bean counters in the state Treasury: precedent.
The Government wants to help everyone affected by the fires. And so it should.
The public and corporate Australia have opened up their hearts and wallets. The money must be spent on the survivors. But how it's spent is the elephant in the room. If there are about 700 homes without insurance, to give every owner only $300,000 for a replacement home would cost $210 million, way more than is in the appeal fund being administered by a group of trustees, chaired by former governor John Landy.
If the Government bails out the landlord owned homes, there is no guarantee the current tenants will be able to stay there once their leases are up or the owner's wishes change.
The Government appears headed down the path of compromise and is likely to offer some financial support for those who failed to insure, without taking away the incentive for others to insure in the future. An across-the-board bailout of fire victims would send a strong signal to other home owners that they may as well not pay their insurance bill because the State Government will always be there to look after them after a fire.
The Government is also grappling with another watershed issue: new building regulations in fire-prone areas, including the prospect of requiring all rebuilt homes to have fire bunkers, steel window frames and fewer flammable materials.
But the tougher the restrictions, the higher the cost and bigger the burden on those trying to rebuild.
During the past three weeks, the Liberal and National parties have held a truce with the Labor Government, putting away their boxing gloves out of respect for the dead and destitute. From tomorrow, leaders of both the Opposition parties have signalled the gloves will be back on and allegations about government competence will fly thick and fast.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu has missed a big opportunity provided by the Government to fill the policy vacuum on the insurance question. But so far he's sat on the fence, too scared to act, waiting for a nervous government to lead.
So far it's spent about $50 million on immediate relief and basic comforts for the dispossessed,
Or stupid maybe!In Baillieu's case as, Prospector has illustrated, it is better to be regarded as gutless rather than heartless.
It is a problem for Brumby , how to give away 10's of millions to grab votes without making it look obvious, he'll probably call the expert on that one for advice, Rudd.
anyone else get the impression...they are playing down the latest fire threat...winds of 150kph....surrounded by 4 massive fires....big wind changes...
just wondering, am in the inner suburbs...some of those fires are only about 60klms away...so the fires could come right into the city...daylesford, and kilmore fires are north..with northerly winds....
like brumby said after black sat fires...need to evacuate the whole state...but thats impossible.......
my plan to go to the river is not on if winds 150kph.....
the fire weather professor said as much this morning....that they dont want us to panic.....
some who survived those fires said they had nowhere to go....ok drive the car down to a less timbered area....not sure where you go with winds of 150kph though ??? assuming you have nowhere else to stay but in the car
those firebugs will be out there tonight again...huge winds expected...
see this firebug out last Fri..when more fires were expected...did you know firebugs light almost as many fires as lightening strikes
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-...suspicious-melbourne-fires-20090302-8lu6.html
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