Have received a wonderful - and wonderfully swift - response from the CFA to my complaint of false information in Fire Ready.

This just-in email from Deputy CO Steve Warrington:

'The Chief has been quick to act on your advice, forwarding his support for your concerns to our media and publications people. 

In reinforcing your position the Chief has cited the International Journal of Wildfire  “Pages 841-849 of this Journal have a paper by Whittaker, Haynes, Handmer and McLennan.  The paper reports that research shows a survival rate of 77% for houses that were defended by one or more household members! and 44% for houses that were unattended.” 

The Chief goes on to say “There is danger in having inflexible wording…” and has tasked our people to review it and consider alternative wording.

'Thanks for bringing this matter to our attention Joan.' www.bushfiresafety.blogspot.com.au

CFA’s Website

contains

false information 

    

on the survivability 
of homes during bushfire.

The statement

‘If you live in a high-risk bushfire area

your home will not be defendable 
on a Code Red day.’¹

has absolutely no basis in fact.

It can lead to unnecessary loss of homes.

Picture Katherine Seppings

Research by bushfire scientists

into 2009 Black Saturday house losses found that:

Ø        80% of Black Saturday home defenders succeeded²

Ø        Over 2/3 of houses in the bushfire areas survived³.

1http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/fm_files/attachments/plan_and_prepare/frk/prepare-for-bushfire.pdf

2 Issues in community bushfire safety: http://www.bushfirecrc.com/publications/citation/bf-3160

3 John Handmer, Bushfires Royal Commission http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/getdoc/0232b6c7-1998-4001-a2d9-de82b6630134/Transcript_VBRC_Day_139_27-Apr-2010