Transcript of Proceedings Coroner's Court of The
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS CORONER'S COURT OF THE 5 AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY MS M. DOOGAN, CORONER 10 CF No 154 of 2003 15 INQUEST AND INQUIRY INTO 20 THE DEATHS OF DOROTHY MCGRATH, ALLISON MARY TENNER, PETER BROOKE, AND DOUGLAS JOHN FRASER, AND THE FIRES OF JANUARY 2003 25 CANBERRA DAY 1 30 10.05 AM, TUESDAY, 7 OCTOBER 2003 35 Transcript produced by: WordWave International Pty Ltd Level 8, 84 Pitt Street Sydney, NSW 2000 40 t: (02) 9229 2500 f: (02) 9229 2501 e: [email protected] 45 .CF154/2003 07.10.03 1 (c) WordWave Int'l [10:00am] THE CORONER: This is the inquest into the deaths of Dorothy McGrath, Allison Mary Tenner, 5 Peter Brooke and Douglas Fraser, and the inquiry into the fires of January 2003. MR LASRY: I am ready to proceed, your Worship, yes. Your Worship, soon after 3 o'clock on 10 Saturday, 18 January of this year, a fire which had begun about 10 days earlier in the Brindabella National Park in New South Wales in the vicinity of a place called McIntyre's Hut burned into the western edge of Canberra. 15 Having come over Mount Stromlo and destroying the installations there, it struck the urban area of Canberra in the vicinity of the intersection of Warragamba Avenue and Eucumbene Drive in Duffy. Over the next hour, two other 20 fires which had begun as three fires in the vicinity of Bendora Hut and Stockyard Spur in the Namadgi National Park also affected Canberra as part of what became a huge firestorm. 25 The fires which struck the urban edge of Canberra were in three separate sections - the main McIntyre's fire to the north, the Bendora fire south of that, and a breakaway from the 30 McIntyre's fire between those two which, I suspect, by convective force - and expert evidence will be given about this - appears to have been pulled between the two fires. 35 That meant that the immediately exposed urban area that was exposed to the fire threat in Canberra stretched from Duffy in the north to Gordon in the south, a straight line distance of about 15 kilometres. One of the spectacular 40 effects of this fire, and I say "spectacular" not in any other than perhaps a tragic sense, was that the fires were of sufficient intensity and force to generate what was genuinely a tornado. It began somewhere near the Pierce's 45 Creek plantation, proceeded into the Arrawang .CF154/2003 07.10.03 2 (c) WordWave Int'l Nature Reserve and then into the suburb of Chapman around the vicinity of Lincoln Close and that, of itself, as your Worship will hear, did some devastating damage. 5 Apart from the weather event, the evidence of the weather bureau witnesses, who will be the first witnesses called in this section of the inquest, will indicate that the fire on 18 10 January was of sufficient intensity to actually create its own weather cell, in effect creating its own thunderstorm, and the cloud plume from the fire reaching as high as some 42,000 feet. Over a period of some three weeks, 70% of the 15 entire Australian Capital Territory was burned by these fires. This was a devastating fire and it was a disaster that may have been preventable or at least its intensity lessened. 20 The evidence is likely to indicate that the ACT and its residents were very poorly prepared for this event, despite previous fires over the years and various warnings that such a disaster was possible and in the view of some 25 inevitable. The extent of that lack of preparation will be debated in the coming weeks and months during this inquiry. That debate will no doubt refer to concerns about complacency at certain levels, the suitability 30 of the structure of the fire authorities in the ACT and issues of fuel reduction and the extent to which that had or had not been satisfactorily achieved. 35 Additionally, and importantly, in the days leading to 18 January 2003, the evidence may well suggest that the ACT public were not given anywhere near the information they needed to cope with this catastrophe. If on the evidence 40 that turns out to be so, then of course the question will be why not. The question is highlighted by the fact that on Saturday, 18 January, four people were killed. Many more were injured and a phenomenal loss of property 45 occurred. Some of the injuries were very .CF154/2003 07.10.03 3 (c) WordWave Int'l serious, and their effects will be carried by those who were affected for life. For those who survived this trauma even without physical injury, the sheer trauma of the Saturday 5 afternoon will probably have left emotional and possibly psychological scars which may never heal. Under the ACT Coroner's Act, you are about to 10 embark on a detailed inquest of inquiry into these fires. On 16 June of this year, you outlined the basis upon which that inquiry would be conducted, which included the need to ascertain the cause and origin of the fires. 15 You referred in the course of your remarks at that stage to the public interest in such an inquiry being held and predicted that you would make recommendations and may make comments on relevant matters that come within your 20 jurisdiction. Naturally, much of the public's attention has already been concentrated on the events of Saturday, 18 January, since that was the day 25 when the devastating losses occurred. As I've already said, there was a common theme about that day which was that there was a lack of public information about the tragedy which was to occur and how people might prepare for it. 30 The nature and timings of public warnings will be something that we'll examine with some considerable care later in these hearings. Much of that evidence we expect will be given 35 in the second phase of the inquest, which will be held in the first half of next year. As is well known to the people of Canberra because they lived through the smoke haze for the 10-day period, these fires began well before 40 18 January. This inquiry will, like others before it, examine the manner in which the fires beginning on 18 January in the Namadgi and Brindabella 45 National Parks were responded to and the manner .CF154/2003 07.10.03 4 (c) WordWave Int'l in which operational decisions about that response were made. And, going back a little further, some history may be at least briefly examined both as to the organisations 5 responsible for bushfire fighting in the ACT and on issues of fuel management and fuel reduction. As I've already said, we are concerned 10 effectively in this inquiry with four fires which became three fires. The primary source, as I understand the evidence, of the Canberra firestorm on 18 January was a combination of the fire which started near McIntyre's Hut in 15 New South Wales, another one which commenced in the vicinity of Bendora Hill, and two other fires, Stockyard Spur and Gingera, which started separately but combined on the morning of 15 January and became known as the Stockyard 20 fire. These fires were in a sense separated by a state border and, therefore, being dealt with by separate agencies, albeit cooperatively. The evidence may or may not indicate that that resulted in differences in available resources 25 to be applied for fighting the fires, as well as variations in the approaches or tactics that were taken in relation to them. Whether there were such differences and whether 30 those differences, if they existed, caused difficulty, will be a matter that will need to be examined. The fire obviously knew no state boundaries and, in this inquest, it may be that the question of whether or not the border 35 between the ACT and New South Wales is in some respects an obstacle to effective bushfire fighting might become an issue, and no doubt those issues will be dealt with in phase 2. 40 Another issue which has been raised in public discussion and in other inquiries is the issue of fuel loads, particularly in the national parks and the manner in which those fuel loads were managed or reduced or whether there was a 45 lack of sufficient fuel reduction which, in .CF154/2003 07.10.03 5 (c) WordWave Int'l turn, dramatically increased the intensity of these fires. We will of course examine those issues. 5 Amongst the material which forms part of the phase 1 brief are documents which trace the development of fuel management plans in the 1990s, and the nature of those plans and implementation, or lack of it, will be examined 10 during the hearings. And it is hoped that, by the end of the evidence, useful recommendations will be able to be made which will stand to the substantial benefit of the ACT on issues such as that. 15 It is appropriate to note at the outset that, as a result of these fires, four people died, and a number were injured. Those who died all died in the Duffy vicinity, the most severely 20 damaged area in these fires. Those people were Ms Dorothy McGrath, aged 76, of Cottage 5, Stromlo Forestry Settlement, 113 Cotter Road, Duffy. Ms McGrath died some time in the late afternoon of 18 January 2003 when the fire came 25 into the Stromlo forest settlement and she died as a direct result of the fires.