I don't think Olinda but it is changing so often. You can check here
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/incidents/incident_updates.htm
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/incidents/incident_updates.htm
I wouldn't worry about this - when insurance claims in a particular area exceed a certain level as a result of a single event it triggers a special type of insurance that insurance companies have in place to protect themselves in circumstances such as these. It's called catastrophe cover and is generally seeded with a number of reinsurers. These are usually Global companies (eg. Lloyds syndicates etc) that are required to meet certain standards such as minimum credit ratings. The insurers themselves are required to keep cash on hand (or low risk, highly liquid investments) at a minimum to the level at which this cat cover kicks in.2) I'm starting to be concerned about the state of our Insurance funds. Queensland in flood disaster mode; Victoria has lost hundreds of millions if not billions in property, lives, farms and community infrastructure and the stockmarket has melted. How solvent are the companies in these circumstances? We'll find out quick enough...
To all those here that have criticised people for electing to stay, need to reconsider. The fact is you don't know how you'll react when something like this happens.
I was involved in the bad fires that hit the Perth hills in Jan 2005. We managed to get the all horses out the day before it hit. That evening we were told we were safe , but at 5am the next morning the fire suddenly and unexpectedly changed direction and the fire was burning back toward us. Faced with the choice to stay or go, we stayed and fought fires all day and night. We were quite lucky in that the house was surrounded by a well watered, nicely spaced orchard and we had a dam, our own pumps and plenty of diesel but there were some hairy moments. The fire brigade couldn't get through. The sound of the pine plantation exploding at the back of the property isn't something I'll soon forget.
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The scale of the tragedy has been shocking. Obviously the fires I referred to weren't as bad, but let me tell you, at the time, I'd have said there was nothing like it and I wouldn't wish it on anybody.I must add that in no way am i comparing the perth fires to current victorian tragedy as it does not even measure on the ricter scale , i am merely pointing out that it is an experience that should not be experienced by anybody
I don't understand why people would risk their lives to save a house.
Houses can be rebuilt.
I don't understand why people would risk their lives to save a house.
Houses can be rebuilt.
So unless all of country Victoria was evacuated, this tragedy was always going to happen given the horrific conditions that were occuring Saturday morning. .
I don't understand why people would risk their lives to save a house.
Houses can be rebuilt.
you can't evacuate a whole state.
some of the things people here are suggesting are physically impossible to implement.
1: no one knows where the fires will start.
2: huge amounts of people live in 'high risk' areas
3: those 'high risk' areas increase in size as the temp increases and rh decreases.
3: as people have been mentioning - there wasn't enough time to implement individual fire plans (so how the hell do you evacuate whole towns??)
We don't know why a lot of these people died.
What we aren't hearing about is how many people survived because of their plans.
The media is doing a swell job of focussing on the negatives.
We do know that (again) a lot were caught out in their cars, which shouldn't have happened.
CARS DO NOT PROVIDE AN EFFECTIVE BARRIER TO RADIANT HEAT AND ARE FULL OF TOXIC PLASTICS.
I think a lot of you should put you blame finger back into your pocket until we know what were the reasons behind these people's deaths.
The CFA constantly reviews it's policies after every major blaze.
It is not like the government.
if it finds a better system - IT WILL IMPLEMENT IT.
The only reason I think that Adelaide escaped it (our hills are within 7k's of the CBD) was because we had a cool change at 1.30 pm.
No one is looking to a volunteer organisation to fix these things it's up to the State Govt.
People keep harping on about how you cant evacuate a whole state, well no ones saying that.
Whats being said by me and it's now in the media is that the warnings were not strong enough. I walked out of my house in suburban Melbourne on Saturday morning and was hit by a blast furnace of heat combined with strong winds.
I knew then that Saturday would be trouble, but the authorities did not stress the urgency enough for people to understand that their lives were at stake.
Furthermore the forecast should have been enough to act on with these warnings, the previous week had already had several 40+ days.
The conditions Saturday were the worst I've ever seen and look at the result, so why didn't the authorities hit the panic button the day before ???
There will be a Royal Commission now, I usually think they are a waste of time but I fully support this one and the findings will be as above I've got no doubt.
The conditions Saturday were the worst I've ever seen and look at the result, so why didn't the authorities hit the panic button the day before ???
I regularly drive between Willunga to Mt Barker to Gawler.
During the last outbreak of 37c+ days I have never seen such a police/EFS presence on the roads. Dozens of them everywhere.
Plus the Harrowgate arsonist (a 40 yr old mother!!!!!) is in jail.
We were lucky this time.
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