When fires raged through southeastern Australia in February 2009, the stunning display of destruction was like a modern-day hell on Earth. Hundreds of infernos ignited on Saturday, Feb. 7 and spread under torturous weather conditions. Communities were assaulted in the states of Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. 
   
The region’s residents already were suffering through a heat wave — temperatures climbed north of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Melbourne was scorched by three consecutive days above that threshold in late January before hitting 115 degrees on Feb. 7, the city’s hottest day on record — actually lower than the 118 degrees recorded by Avalon, Victoria, the same day. Winds of more than 60 mph compounded the hazardous conditions. When the blazes began, the gales fanned flames faster than residents or firefighters.
   
The parched environment and the blazes’ ferocity exceeded everything fire agencies had experienced previously, according to Steve Warrington, a deputy chief officer of the Country Fire Authority (CFA). “We know that a fire will go so fast under certain conditions. Of course, when you’re working in conditions that you haven’t seen before, it’s very hard to predict what that fire’s going to do,” he said.
         
More than 4,000 firefighters from different agencies were dispatched. Many came from the CFA or the Victorian government’s Department of Sustainability and Environment. In some places, witnesses reported seeing flames leaping more than 300 feet high and melting aluminum. The convection effect from fire plumes generated winds that appeared to unscrew trees from the ground; the bushfires occurred primarily in rural areas and grasslands.
   
“It was well beyond the norm,” Warrington said. And that experience is being felt worldwide as climate change, population growth and other factors increase the danger from wildfires.
   
In Australia, news outlets chronicled the catastrophic damage. The Irish Times reported on Feb. 9 that flames scorched more than 1 million acres, and the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported the same day that 1,300 homes were lost northeast of Melbourne. According to a Feb. 8 Brisbane Times story, up to 80 percent of Marysville, Victoria, was destroyed by flames. An article in The Australian, also dated Feb. 8, reported that only one building in the entire town was left standing.  
   
Firefighting efforts continued for days as temperatures cooled. Casualty reports varied, but a March 9 press release from the Victoria Police confirmed that 173 lives were lost.
   
Although some fires began before or after Feb. 7, that date that month saw the most ferocious blazes. Consequently that day is widely called “Black Saturday.”

Photo: Australia’s Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre researchers wanted to learn more about a house that was successfully defended by its owner amidst the firestorm in Strathewen, Victoria. Courtesy of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre.

California’s ‘100-Year Blazes’ Show Australia the Way

Victoria can do nothing but recuperate and prepare for the next big blaze. Californians know this well.
   
More than 340,000 acres in California were burned by fires from Aug. 1 to Sept. 7, 2009. Flames from the Station Fire in unincorporated Los Angeles killed two firefighers and destroyed more than 160 structures in about a week. In another example, then-Lt. Gov. John Garamendi declared a state of emergency in August for the Lockheed Fire — a blaze that prompted the evacuation of approximately 2,400 people in the Santa Cruz Mountains and destroyed nearly 8,000 acres. Those were just two fires among thousands in California in 2009. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 6,000 fires burned from Jan. 1 to Aug. 29. In 2008, 4,500 burned in the same period.
   
“Before the last five or six years, it was, ‘Well, this is a once-in-a-100-year event,’” said Lou Paulson, a fire captain for the Contra Costa County Fire District and president of the California Professional Firefighters. Previously 15 years or more would pass between notable wildfires. “They’re now coming all the time,” Paulson said.
   
That means authorities might have to rethink fire mitigation and preparation since these scorchers are becoming more frequent. In Victoria, Australia’s government didn’t waste time getting to work. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission was formed on Feb. 16 to investigate the fires’ causes, and to address preparation and response for the next one.

The commission has engaged citizens for their views and is working with researchers, emergency services personnel and other public-sector entities. The commission released an interim report in August. “It was released with the hope that some changes could be made for this fire season,” said Professor John Handmer of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University). He’s also the director of the Centre for Risk and Community Safety, which conducts research for the Royal Commission.
   
The interim report doesn’t address key issues like fuel management or how to remove and relocate dry wood, grass and other natural materials that can strengthen flames. However, the document includes recommendations for improving emergency notification for the 2009-2010 bushfire season. The final version of the report is due July 2010.
   
The Victoria fires sprang up in several rural locations. Victoria’s rural population comprised more than 1 million people in 2007. Although Victoria has more than 5 million residents, most live in the capital city of Melbourne, which was largely unaffected by the catastrophe. 
   
Warrington said ground forces were so blindsided by the fires that they couldn’t get a handle on them quickly, much less make speedy assessments for the public.
   
“It went faster, longer and harder than we’d predicted,” Warrington said. “When you’ve got a 15-minute window to warn a community that they’re about to be engulfed by fire, it becomes very, very difficult. It’s not just about the window. What do the people do under those circumstances? You can’t evacuate them. You can’t put them on the road. You just hope like heck they bunker down in that environment.”
   
This difficulty impeded the government’s ability to relay information quickly enough. “It was faster than we were able to know ourselves as a firefighting service,” Warrington said of the fire. “And therefore, if we didn’t know, we couldn’t communicate that to the public, so we were criticized for that.”
   
The interim report revealed that no emergency warning signal was used to alert the public and that “other avenues for issuing and raising awareness were not encouraged, such as the use of local sirens or the use of commercial radio and television.”
   
But in California, many of those communications lessons already have been learned. The Los Angeles Fire Department has received attention for using Twitter for crisis communication in real time. Los Angeles fire personnel used Twitter to help tackle a fire in Griffith Park in May 2007.
   
Brian Humphrey, a public service officer for the department, read tweets about the fire sent by citizens, some of whom were on the opposite side of the blaze from the firefighters. They tweeted about wind conditions and fire behavior, so Humphrey tweeted back asking them to call him. They did and told him information about the fires that he then passed along to firefighters, which ultimately aided their containment strategy.
   
Warrington wants to use the Internet’s power similarly in Victoria. “We’ll be looking at, obviously, how we can increase the speed and accuracy of our messaging,” he said. Ideas include creating a comprehensive Web site for bushfire information. The interim report disclosed that existing Web sites and phone lines had incomplete or outdated information when the Victoria fires hit.
   
He also wants to use Twitter for real-time information exchange. “How can we use that to try to find out where the fire is? How quickly it’s going? What’s going on? We’ll look at every possible means to try to inform the public,” he said.
   
Warrington mentioned other strategies, including sending automated messages to phones with fire-related information. He also spoke of unique protection plans and approaches for each town that’s at risk for fire damage and death. The Royal Commission’s interim report recommended that the country be more open to using national warnings and notifications during major fires.