Fire danger ratings needed: survivor

A Kinglake survivor has told the Victorian bushfires royal commission that residents
would have been better prepared for the inferno if fire danger ratings had been
given to the public.
Jesse Odgers and her two young daughters fled their home the day before it was
destroyed by a bushfire that ripped through the town of Kinglake, killing 38 people.
She told the commission on Tuesday it was "absolutely essential" that fire danger
indexes, which rate the level of threat, be given to the public.
Her evidence came as day two of the commission heard the small town of Strathewen,
near Kinglake, was given no official warning of the approaching fire.
Ms Odgers said she knew her family was in danger before the fires, which killed a
total of 173 people across the state, started on February 7.
The weather forecast was extreme and her house was on a ridge overlooking the
national park.
But she had no idea of the fire danger index, which was 328, which was described by
authorities as "off the scale". A rating of 50 is considered extreme.
"I feel that information is absolutely essential ... because they are going to
assist me in making a more informed choice about whether to leave," Ms Odgers told
the commission.
"The more information that we can receive, the more informed we'll be and the more
informed choices we can make."
Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief officer Russell Rees gave evidence on Monday that
general warnings, such as extreme fire danger, were more useful than indexes because
the public didn't understand what the numbers meant.
But Ms Odgers said indexes were more helpful than a "broad message, such as 'it's a
total fire ban day' or 'it's a day of extreme fire danger'".
She said every house in her street was destroyed and although those who stayed to
defend their properties survived, they were traumatised.
Earlier the commission was told Strathewen never received an official warning on the
CFA website that the fire which killed 27 of the town's 200 residents, was coming.
Counsel assisting the commission Jack Rush QC asked Mr Rees if this was because the
incident control centre didn't know where the fire was.
"I couldn't make that judgement, I wasn't there ... so I couldn't say they didn't
know where the fire was," Mr Rees said.
He said warnings were given to the Whittlesea and St Andrews areas and Strathewen
was right in the middle.
There was also a warning for Arthurs Creek, near Strathewen at 4.35pm, he said.
As the commission examines whether adequate warnings were given to residents, Mr
Rush said towns in the path of the Churchill blaze in Gippsland were alerted to the
bushfire but not warned that they would be directly hit within a few hours.
Mr Rees could not explain why this was so.
"The information they had at the time during that process, they gave warnings as
best they could," he said.
The commission heard that fire chiefs had predicted that the Murrindindi fire, which
obliterated Marysville, would storm the town with the southwest wind change.
The fire started spotting in nearby Narbethong at 4.30pm, but it was 5.27pm before
Marysville was warned it was in danger.
Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin told the commission that authorities
can direct media to broadcast a warning siren to alert listeners in a major
emergency.
But the system was not used on Black Saturday and is subject to a national review.