WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

http://dunsboroughbfb.googlepages.com/b ... wnfire2009
Lots of pictures and a story on their website.

Wow, thanks for that link Nick...took about 10 minutes out of work time :P and I just arrived, better get on with it! :lol:

Great link thanks for that

i salute this guy.

great story and pics

Great link. Now i understand why it was such a balls up on friday night. and again i say well done to all involved.

As long as people learn from b----ups they're worth it. I saw quite a few over east and after each one there was improvement.

We had crews out from thursday night to yesterday evening.

Its a bit scary that there was such a lack of information and control early on.

Toottoot wrote:Its a bit scary that there was such a lack of information and control early on.

Remember, that page is only one persons comments and opinions. None of us can judge either way without having been there ourselves.

Fastlane wrote:

Toottoot wrote:Its a bit scary that there was such a lack of information and control early on.

Remember, that page is only one persons comments and opinions. None of us can judge either way without having been there ourselves.

Yes you are correct it is only one person's comments and opinions, and I am relying on these comment's and opinions in the same way a court would. This person was allowed (or assumed permission) onto the fireground and by their own admission:

"we finally met the "Sector Commander" that we were supposed to be reporting to. Several hours later, we met another "Sector Commander" who thought that we were in her sector. It was pretty disorganised about then. We discovered that we were not in sector Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, One, Busselton, or North, we were in Sector East."

"At least the battleboard was more up to date(except that I could not log off, because I wasn't on there???)"

To me that suggests that had something happened to them they could have been left for dead because nobody realised where they were or what they were doing. I wish to take nothing away from the efforts of anybody, however there was the potential for this event to end in tragedy.

Volunteer firefighters have been killed in the past and there is no reason that we should lose any more.

No, you're not imagining it ... things have moved

I've split off the discussion parts of the Bridgetown thread from the incidents sub-forum. Just a reminder folks, that the incidents area is for "breaking news" type stuff. In here for the general discussion stuff


Cheers,

It is my experience that the when a fire rapdily escalates from something that can be handled locally with a single IC running all the IMT functions, to a full fledged blow up, there is often a "fog of war" until the full IMT is generated and gets up to speed.

I don't want to presume too much here, this is only my opinion, but I suspect one of the factors in getting the Ferndale/Lewanna fire contained so quickly was because there was already a fully operational and well resourced IMT with the ability to direct resources efficiently and quickly. This IMT also had access to mapping (not guessing) and air intel for near real time fire info.

It is unfortunate, but understandable given the cost, that most local areas don't have the ability to stand up a full IMT and still balance resources between a major incident and local coverage. Even if they can, it will be rare they have heaps of experience doing this. As most learning is through experience, stuff ups and information fog will happen.

Training locals in IMT functions and pre planning can help, as can drills involving simulated strike team deployment and tasking (the strike team structure lends itself really well to sectorisation) but they also need experience. This might say, require someone from upper stickville to work on a capital city fire or vice versa to get that experience.

Hope I haven't offended anyone too much.

I felt sorry for the incident controller who did 30hrs straight when his drop kick of a replacement locked himself in his vehicle and didn't make squeak to say he was in charge so the other poor bugger can go home for some sleep!

dlcat1 wrote:It is my experience that the when a fire rapdily escalates from something that can be handled locally with a single IC running all the IMT functions, to a full fledged blow up, there is often a "fog of war" until the full IMT is generated and gets up to speed.

I don't want to presume too much here, this is only my opinion, but I suspect one of the factors in getting the Ferndale/Lewanna fire contained so quickly was because there was already a fully operational and well resourced IMT with the ability to direct resources efficiently and quickly. This IMT also had access to mapping (not guessing) and air intel for near real time fire info.

It is unfortunate, but understandable given the cost, that most local areas don't have the ability to stand up a full IMT and still balance resources between a major incident and local coverage. Even if they can, it will be rare they have heaps of experience doing this. As most learning is through experience, stuff ups and information fog will happen.

Training locals in IMT functions and pre planning can help, as can drills involving simulated strike team deployment and tasking (the strike team structure lends itself really well to sectorisation) but they also need experience. This might say, require someone from upper stickville to work on a capital city fire or vice versa to get that experience.

Hope I haven't offended anyone too much.

dl you have given an accurate summary of what needs to happen i can count numerous times that i have attendeed IMT trainning drills in different areas and found people to be complacent when it comes to this subject!!!


This should be a reminder to everyone no matter what your rank if you a the first arriving appliance and it looks like it is going to be ball teareer stop and set up and IMT straight away even its only for a small fire it gets everyone into the practice of doing this quickly and the right way

the same thing happens at every large incident, the incident runs like crap untill the Control Point is set up and running smoothly. once that is done then the incident runs smoothly, but like most of us all know, that is easier said then done.

but hey at the end of the day, it does not matter if you are in sector, this that or another, just as long as the job is done.
also congrats to the IC, 30hours on shift, that is dedication, and that could be why you could not log off, as yeah in one pic he had ya 'T' Cards and yeah fatigue may be setting in, but anyways, congrats for that dedication mate.