The Victorian Bushfires: Account, Preparedness, and Response

This article discusses the account, preparedness, and response to the Victorian Bushfires that occurred on 28 February 2019 onwards. It analyzes the elements of disaster preparedness and response, community, multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral relationships, and the negative implications of bushfires to health. The article also highlights the recovery funding arrangements and the government's preparedness to deal with bushfires in Victoria.

Running head: THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES 1
Victorian Bushfires of 28 February 2019 Onwards
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Introduction
The Victorian Bushfire started on 28/02/2019 and lasted for almost more than a week
causing great damage to the properties and displacement of people. Victoria State is in Southeast
Australia which remains amongst the three-most fire-susceptible region on the globe. As global
warming makes the country drier and hotter, drought has become increasingly likely, and
bushfires remain anticipated to be more intense, frequent, and dangerous as well as costly.
Bushfires in Australia have increasingly claimed lives and significantly cost the county billions
of dollars in the recent years. Indeed if Australia’s heat-trapping emissions continue to surge at
the present rates, scientist have projected additional severe droughts for the southeast Australia in
the 1st half of the century. This implies that Victoria State remains much probably to encounter
heightened bushfire risks (Handmer & O’Neill, 2016).
Account on Victoria Bushfires: 28/02/2019 Onwards
The Victorian Bushfire encompassed a series of devastating bush fires which swept
through the southeastern state of Victoria. It destroyed multiple properties and compelled
thousands of individuals to flee their respective homes. The blazes stood triggered by strikes of
lightning according to the commissioner Andrew Crisp for Victorian Emergency Management.
Crisp indicated that as of Monday morning, nineteen fires remained burning following the
incident. It was a challenging time for Australians as it remained an extremely busy time for the
Victorian firefighters as well as emergency services crossway the state to put off the fire. The
state emergency management authorities issued a range of warnings in the days leading to the
disaster that gave warnings and urged residents in danger to immediately act to survive. Officials
with Australia’s Country Fire Authority (CFA) called Trevor Owen warned that it was hot, dry

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and smoke in the air on Sunday and proceeded to show that it was tough and dangerous work,
and gave credit to the firefighters.
The disaster saw over 2000 firefighters being deployed to fight the raging blazes and
more than 1000 individuals had been evacuated by 4/3/2019. By Monday following the start of
the fire on 28/02/2019, the Cardinia Shire government’s website had indicated that one of the
fires-especially in Bunyip State Park-had covered over 11,500 hectares (almost 28,400 acres).
Indeed, much of the park and the regions to its south stayed under the evacuation order as of the
morning of Monday. The blaze was described by Graeme Moore, Cardinia Shire Mayor as
devastating when interviewed 9 News Australia, an affiliate of CNN.
9 News reported that the owner of Jinks Winery, Andrew Clarke, inside the park
indicated that he watched his vineyard burning up on live TV despite having lived and worked
there for more than 40 years which shows the great loss caused to people by Victorian Bushfires.
It caused distress as indicated by Andrew Clark that it remained pretty distressful having his kids
there and observing their reactions to all of it-it stood horrible and really bad news to the family.
Crisp indicated that authorities had some luck in fighting Bunyip fire as they managed to
downgrade it from the emergency warning to watch and act.
Analyzing Elements of Disaster Preparedness and Response
The disaster preparedness and response remains a fundamental role of the Emergency
Management Victoria (EMV), which spearheads the emergency management in Victoria. This is
done by maximizing the ability of the sector of emergency management to work collaboratively
and strengthen the communities’ capacities to plan, respond as well as recover from the
emergencies.

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In the case of Victoria Bushfires, EMV supported the Emergency Management
Commissioner to lead as well as coordinate the emergency preparedness, response as well as
recovery across the emergency management sector in Victoria in collaboration with
communities, agencies, government as well as businesses. EMV remains an integral part of the
wider emergency management sector and shares significant responsibility with array of agencies,
departments, and organizations for making sure the systems of emergency in Victoria remain
sustainable, effective as well as community-oriented.
The EMV appears to be fully prepared to swiftly respond to the bushfire. This case
started by early warnings and advice on what people needed to do and with frequent updates.
Such a watch and act system enabled people to get informed with latest information and what
and where they needed to be in case of the emergency. This demonstrate that EMV and the
Commission are always prepared to inform the people to remain out of any risk that might result
from the bushfire.
In terms of preparedness, Victoria has a working and efficient warning system in place that
provides info and warnings to community via a range of channels. Through the EMV, this
integrated approach to emergency management has seen effective warning system being used in
the case of Victorian Bushfire. The Victorian’s warning system shows high level of preparedness
to deal with bushfires because it is an integrated system that provides information as well as
warnings to the community via an array of channels.
For example, the Vic Bushfire Watch and Act (Shoreham) was effectively used in
warning the residents about the looming bushfire. This watch and act message was issued for the
Shoreham and replaced the advice issued at 1:00 PM by the Country Fire Authority. It was
indicated that a bushfire existed at Punty Lane (Shoreham) which was never under control

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already. The residents received an explanation about how the bushfire was travelling in south-
easterly directions headed toward Tucks Road and Higgins Lane regions. Moreover, the people
got information update about how the firefighters had managed to halt the spread of the fire and
advised that staying close to the building for shelter remained safest options as conditions could
suddenly change. The residents were also effectively told to continue staying informed and
monitor the conditions and also showed what they needed to do (Rich, Booth, Rowlands & Redd,
2016).
For instance, they were given information on the need to monitor changes to the situation
including surged speed of wind, alteration in direction of wind, poor visibility of smoke, all
which indicated the chnaging situation. They were also warned never to return home if they were
away. If the situation altered, they were also advised to quickly leave and also told what kind of
plans they needed to embrace. These included taking their pets, medication, mobile phones as
well as charger. They were also told to travel home of friends or family that remained away from
the warning region. The message was also given that emergency services might never be capable
of helping the people in case they chose to stay.
The information was also supplied on the impacts in your area. Specifically, they were
given information about how spot fires and embers were beginning up to ½ kilometers ahead of
the major fire at Punty Shoreham and showed that bushfires could generate extreme heat. They
were also immediately warned that such heat could kill even before the fire reaches the residents.
The bushfire has negative implications to the health of individuals. Apart from the deaths
resulting from both fire and the generated heat, smoke when smelled has great negative impacts
on health. For instance, individuals with pre-existing health problems, lung or heart conditions
amongst them asthma, children, older persons as well as pregnant women remain increasingly

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sensitive to effects of breathing-in smoke. Individuals with pre-existing lung or heart conditions
including asthmatic people need to follow their treatment plan as advised by the doctors (Pyke,
Law, De Lacy & Jiang, 2017). The health information was thus issued to the people. For
example, it was clear that in case of medical advice for the burns or smoke exposure, people
were told to seek medication advice or even call the Nurse on 1300606024. Any person who
experiences chest tightness, wheezing, alongside difficulty in breathing were informed to call
Triple zero. Where they were unable to smell smoke, they were informed they were never
probably to be exposed to smoke and hence were safe (Oloruntoba Sridharan & Davison, 2018).
Australia is also prepared to deal with bushfires since it has a working incident
management system anchored in law under section 50 of the Emergency Management Act 2013.
This has ensured that Emergency Management Commissioner develop operating procedures.
These procedures were useful in containing the Victorian Bushfire. Moreover, the consequence
management is also effective with the sole objective of minimizing adverse consequences to the
users of services as well as infrastructure triggered by interruption to such services or
infrastructure due to bushfire emergency. This has ensured that people are given alternatives on
how to ensure they continue to benefit from the health services even during the emergency. This
is why the call numbers were issued for specific nurses to be called to offer continuous services
(Harms et al., 2018).
Victoria State is also prepared to deal with bushfire because it has effective standards in
place like community smoke air quality and health standard which helps effectively manage
exposure to substantial carbon monoxide emissions. The Victoria government also demonstrated
its preparedness to manage bushfire emergency because it has established EMV which is
mandated to implement the government’s emergency management reform agenda (Ulubasoglu,

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2019). This has significantly driven how the emergency services organizations in Victoria train
together, work to shared operations standards, sharing common operational image, as well as
using equipment alongside standards which work collaboratively. The fire management planning
is also in place and outlines how the EMV works towards reduction of the fire impact in Victoria
whereas bushfire shelter options have also been explained to the community. Part of
preparedness has focused on showing the community of the lack of guaranteed bushfire shelter
options. However, it is clear in the minds of the residents that they sole survival guarantee is
leaving early. Where this is never possible or where other plans including staying to actively
defend the property has failed, people have shown that very limited shelter options stay available
(Mannakkara & Wilkinson, 2016).
During the disaster, there was a quick response from an integrated team which brought
together the community, multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral relationships. For instance, the
response was swift as more than two-thousand firefighters were deployed to fight the blazes
which saw thousands of individuals successfully being evacuated as indicated by the Victoria
Premier Dan Andrews. This is demonstrated by the fact people could see a Country Fire
Authority (CFA) crew on Bunyip of Princes Highway on Sunday in the Victoria state. Moreover,
the helicopters were also deployed to help drop water on the bushfire adjacent to Yiinnar in
Gippsland on Monday following the bushfire (Kennedy, 2017).
The quick and effective response saw the warnings for the fire burning at the Shoreham
being downgraded following the sky cranes’ successful battle to bring the blaze under desired
control in the afternoon of Feb 28. This followed the effective response by over 35 CFA unites to
the blaze which began adjacent to Punty Lane in Shoreham. Moreover, air support were also
called in as the authorities effectively fought the blaze over at least eleven hectares of grassland.

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The water bombers flown overhead all afternoon as indicated by Ian Cochrane working at
Shoreham Foreshore Campground. These water bombers were used to effectively smash the fire
as the residents adjacent to the Shoreham getting useful warnings earlier to bunker down, since it
was already too late to exit. This swift and joint effort helped to downgrade the blaze to an
advice message. However, the locals were still getting continuous and simultaneous advice to
remain informed as well as monitor the conditions (de Vet, Eriksen, Booth & French, 2019).
The Victorian State is also prepared in terms of recovery funding arrangements through
Joint Australian, territory and state government’s disaster recovery funding arrangement (DRFA)
which provided an array of financial help to natural disaster-declared regions in every territory or
state. For the Victorian Bushfires that began, the available help measures included;
Emergency relief assistance in five local government areas including Baw Baw, Cardinia,
Latrobe, Wellington and South Gippsland. The personal as well as financial counselling, counter
disaster operations as well as restoration of necessary public assets were also availed in fifteen
local government areas including Alpine, Baw Baw, Benalla, Cardinia, East Gippsland, Indigo,
Latrobe, Mansfield, Mitchell, Murrindindi, South Gippsland, Towong, Wangaratta, Wellington,
and Yarra Rangers. The engagement of community recovery officer was also available in five
local government areas including Baw Baw, Cardinia, East Gippsland, Latrobe and Wellington
(Block et al, 2019). All these shows how the government is prepared to deal with the bushfire
disaster in Victorian State (Gray, Rabbach, Miller & Valencia, 2019)
Discussion of Community, Multidisciplinary and Inter-Sectoral Relationships
The EMV has always been responsible in supporting a sector-wide approach to
accomplish joined up results which is community-oriented. It is believed that such disasters can
only be addressed by having agencies, industry, department, business, all government levels and

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community working collaboratively to realize a sustainable as well as efficient emergency
management system which decreases the likelihood, effect as well as consequences of bushfires
and other emergencies (Arnold, Murphy & Gibb, 2017).
As observed in the discussion, it is clear that community are fully informed and updated
on the steps being undertaken to secure them and their roles in ensuring they are safe. As for the
bushfire, the community help significantly when they leave earlier and stay informed as well as
monitor the conditions (Mannakkara & Wilkinson, 2015). Multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral
relationships is demonstrated since it brings many people and organizations together including
the NGOs, government agencies and professionals to help deal with the disaster. For example,
firefighters, police and charitable organizations always work together in evacuation to minimize
the damage and fatalities during the bush fire (Akama, Cooper & Mees, 2016).
Conclusion
The bushfire is a challenging problem in Victoria and the government needs to
increasingly get prepared and respond swiftly to minimize the destruction of property and loss of
lives. The Victorian Bushfire has been discussed in this paper based on its account, preparedness
and response as well as how it required the community, multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral
relationships to effectively battle the blaze.

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