Analysis of Bushfire Impact and Building Provisions: A Report

This report provides an analysis of building practices in bushfire-prone areas, focusing on the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 in Victoria and the Wye River/Separation Creek fires of 2015. It investigates the causes, aftermath, and the effectiveness of building regulations and provisions implemented in response to these disasters. The report examines the impact of the Black Saturday bushfires, including the loss of life and widespread destruction, and the subsequent Victoria Royal Commission's recommendations. It then assesses the Wye River/Separation Creek fires, highlighting the failures of some bushfire protection measures despite existing building standards, and the criticisms of these standards. The report also explores the importance of factors such as vegetation management, building materials, and the implementation of BAL (bushfire attack level) ratings. The report concludes by assessing the success and failures of existing provisions, emphasizing the need for improved building standards and comprehensive risk management strategies in areas susceptible to bushfires.

Running Head: BUILDING IN BUSHFIRE PRONE AREAS
Building in Bushfire Prone Areas
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BUILDING IN BUSHFIRE PRONE AREAS
The Black Saturday Bushfires in Victoria; it’s cause, aftermath and the
Victoria Royal Commission provision
On 7th February 2009, the Australian State of Victoria went suffered through a series of
bushfires, termed together as the Black Saturday bushfires because it happened on Saturday. It
can be taken as Australia’s worst bushfire tragedies. The main reason behind such disaster is
high bushfire weather condition which took away hundreds of lives from the heart of Australia.
In the bushfire, it has been surveyed that almost 180 people died, 414 were highly injured due to
the fire. There were 400 more fires subsequently on the day(abc.net 2018). Since then, taking
into consideration, the day and its aftermaths, the date is widely referred to as Australia’s Black
Saturday.
The structure of more than 3,500 buildings were completely devastated causing damage
to few places. The most affected towns were Kinglake, Narbethong, Flowerdale, Marysville,
Strathewen were highly damaged due to the event (Orr 2018). The reasons behind such fires can
be attributed to the climate change in Australia in summer 2009. It has been surveyed that the
temperature of Melbourne broke records by exceeding 45 degrees Celsius (113.2 degrees F) on
30th January, considered to be the third hottest day in the History of Australia (Orr 2018). The
southeast part of Australia where the majority of population resides is susceptible to fires. This
area experiences the Mediterranean weather, rainy in winter and hot-dry inn summer. Rains help
to grow greenery but the parching heat waves and draughts invite fires. The strong wind helped
to spread the fire around.
It has been observed that most of the houses which were within 100 meters of the
bushlands were burnt down and the houses which were within the 700 meters of the bushlands

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got affected by some way or the other. First of all, the building premises needs to be kept clear
up to 40 meters (Kelly et al. 2016). Having less shrubs around will reduce the propensity to catch
fire. The garden should also be kept clean of dry leaves and the plants should be regularly
watered to avoid dryness within the leaves (Cao, Boruff and McNeill 2015). The roofs of the
houses are not supposed to be made of fire-leaned materials. It is better to use concrete roofs.
The modern fire shelter can also be used as survival safeguard. It is made of two layers of
aluminum and silica between the air gap. It absorbs the convective heat and reflects the radiant
heat and protects the user from fire.
The disaster like Black Saturday bushfires became a catalyst for the Victoria Royal
Commission to change some strategies. The commission decided to examine the surroundings of
the State of Australia. The final report helped by spreading the bushfire warnings identifying the
risk, by distributing the knowledge among masses of how to relocate under such fire conditions.
The ‘stay or go’ policy enables the majority to stay or leave since not all houses can defend fire
(Handmer and O’Neill 2016). A special technique to build houses in bushfire prone areas is
provisioned by the Victorian government. These steps would be helpful in eradicating further
damages and deaths caused by bushfires.
Wye River/Separation Creek fires; the scenario, the cause, intensity of loss
and the success/failure of the Bushfire construction provision
The location of Separation Creek is in the coastal area of Shire of Colac Otway, Victoria,
Australia. It is a small village situated on the Great Ocean Road, which also connects Wye river
with the place. On 25th December of 2015, the Wye river bushfire burst out and rapidly spread
out all over the place. The fire probably sprang up from a lightning strike (theguardian.com

3BUILDING IN BUSHFIRE PRONE AREAS
2015). It destroyed more than 116 houses in the seaside hamlets but fortunately nobody was at
home, thereby leaving no death records (theguardian.com 2015). There are many factors
responsible for the incident. The Otway ranges are among the driest area of Western Australia
prone to bushfires. The west part of Australia is full of fuels to catch fires.
There have been surveys depicting the failure of some bushfire protection construction
provisions. More than five bushfire rated constructions were burnt down instead of the
comparably less epidemic size of the fire than the Black Saturday in 2009 (Mannix and
Willingham 2016). It puts Victoria’ risk management policy into question. However, the
Emergency Management department claims that these policies worked truly well in an extremely
strong fire. BAL (bushfire attack level) provide a standard based on which new homes should be
constructed in the bushfire prone areas (Mannix and Willingham 2016). According to Stephen
Kip, one of the Bushfire Building Council members of Australia, says that the building standards
of the houses were faulty in the case of Wye river bushfire (Mannix and Willingham 2016). He
one by one points out that there was no requirement of gutter guards, no need to consider the
location of gas water heater, there was no prohibition on sing wood pile near the house. As a
whole BAL approval is not everything, it needs further consideration on related issues before
building house in bushfire prone areas.
The CSIRO researcher Justin Leonard highly criticizes the bushfire building standards in
his report to the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission (Mannix and Willingham 2016). He
minutely presents the problems saying- Ignitable timbers were allowed to be make doors and
window-frames. There were no requirements to use non-flammable materials to make stairs,
verandas and decks (Leonard et al. 2016). There was no need to plan for grassfires. The
Emergency Management Commissioner walked into the place just after the burns occurred and

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argued that though BAL rated houses underwent destruction, there were few which survived too
(Mannix and Willingham 2016). Hence, a mixture of success and failure of the provisions are
apparent in this incident. It worked to some extent but as a whole it could not resist the fire.

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Reference:
abc.net.2018. Black Saturday fires caused lasting mental health issues: report. [online] ABC
News. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-29/black-saturday-bushfire-study-
finds-mental-health-issues/8073514 [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].
Cao, Y., Boruff, B.J. and McNeill, I.M., 2015. Defining sufficient household preparedness for
active wildfire defense: toward an Australian baseline. Natural Hazards Review, 17(1),
p.04015021.
Handmer, J. and O’Neill, S., 2016. Examining bushfire policy in action: Preparedness and
behaviour in the 2009 Black Saturday fires. Environmental Science & Policy, 63, pp.55-62.
Kelly, M., Watson, K., Bennetts, I. and Leonard, J., 2016. Structural design options for
residential buildings in bushfire areas. In Australasian Structural Engineering Conference:
ASEC 2016 (p. 289). Engineers Australia.
Leonard, J., Opie, K., Blanchi, R., Newnham, G., Holland, M. and Authority, C.F., 2016. Wye
River/Separation Creek Post-bushfire building survey findings.
Mannix, L. and Willingham, R. 2016. Bushfire-proof houses burn down in Wye River and
Separation Creek as experts cast serious doubt on effectiveness of building standards. The Age.
[online] Available at: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfireproof-houses-burn-
down-in-wye-river-and-separation-creek-as-experts-cast-serious-doubt-on-effectiveness-of-
building-standards-20160225-gn3n9d.html [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].
Orr, S. 2018. Wake in Fright and Walkabout: is the threat of Australia’s landscape all in the
mind?. The Guardian. [online] Available at:

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/08/wake-in-fright-and-walkabout-is-the-threat-of-
australias-landscape-all-in-the-mind [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].
theguardian.com 2015. Great Ocean Road bushfire: homes destroyed as five towns evacuated.
The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/25/australias-
north-braces-for-christmas-cyclone-as-bushfires-threaten-south [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].