With a Mountainous Backdrop of Iridescent Red & Yellow, a Fire
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` Plate One: With a mountainous backdrop of iridescent red & yellow, a fire tornado approaches Canberra. The 2003 fire tornado killed four & destroyed 491 houses. After being told they were safe & to remain in their homes, horrified residents witnessed winds of 200km/h, temperatures up to 1,100C, exploding houses, fire rivers & hurling roofs. Over 100 people were rescued by chance rather than strategies of emergency managers. Mounting questions of liability led to coronial recommendations for criminal investigations of nine bureaucrats. In its defence, the ACT government spent $250,000 to accuse the coroner of bias & exceeding her jurisdiction. The bias charges failed & the coroner continued her inquiry one year later. 1 ABSTRACT Black/white/male/female struggles over knowledge correctness and who is brave are examined inductively in the field of bushfires. The paradoxes of a white male icon are linked to contradictions in gender theories in disaster. In mainstream literature, assumptions of innate white male superiority in bravery justify white women‟s diminution and white male domination. In feminist theory, women‟s diminution is the problem and their bravery for struggling against hegemony applauded. Philosophies of bravery are explored in 104 semi- structured interviews and 12 months‟ fieldwork as a volunteer bushfirefighter. There is great variety in the ways volunteers cope with bushfires. However, evidence of white male hegemony emerges when volunteers complain of state and territory indifference to preventing property and environmental damage and injury and death. Evidence is examined that Indigenous Australians once managed bushfires better than a sprawl of bureaucracy. Bushfire service claims that Aborigines knew nothing about hazard reductions are contradicted. This debate over bushfire management leads to the discovery of a third epistemology breaking with claims of white male iconic bravery and bureaucratic mastery. To generalise about the habitus of claims to knowledge and bravery, I analyse Newcastle Herald articles from 1881-1981. Three competing knowledge fields and their associated struggles are examined; Indigenous Australians and white womens‟ emancipatory struggles confront data on bushfirefighting. Bushfires emerge as a serious problem, a bureaucratic power base and a white male icon from the 1920s. 2 Plate Two: Fed by high fuel loads, flames engulf treetops in a firestorm. Aerial water bombing & fire truck hoses are of little use in fires of this intensity. Only a weather change or adequate fuel reduction will make such fires extinguishable (photograph courtesy of Kurt Lance). 3 PROLOGUE Based on interviews, feminine bravery introduces the area of bushfirefighting and the 1993/4 fires. In a midnight backburn, rural brigades with a high percentage of women leaders defy paid hierarchy orders to save a small settlement. Firefighting women leaders’ egalitarian status and firefighting experiences are described… 0.1 A Snapshot of Female Bushfirefighting Bravery in 1994, the Cessnock Region, New South Wales… In tall forest with smouldering scrub on either side, the red fire truck bumped along a ridge. Its crew‟s brows dripped, dampness spreading in cooling patches under overalls, trickling over boots into pools on the floor. They were in great danger with temperatures of 40C to 50C on a remote national park firetrail. With an ever-fiercer wind and rising temperatures, their worst fears began. The fire “crowned” or leapt from the undergrowth to the crowns of trees. The change from low intensity burn to wildfire marked a sharp rise in temperature and danger. Fire truck driver Mike Grainger had seen similar fires in Adelaide and told his captain he did not want to go down into the crowning valley to defend an empty house… an opinion she shared wholeheartedly. Thirty-year-old medical student Captain Penny Sutherland talked on the radio to her distant operation leader. Yep, we‟re making slow progress because the trail has been on fire everywhere, and we've had so many halts for wildfire we‟ll reach the end of our shift before we get to the house... have to head back. Over. (There is a loud tearing creak. A burning ironbark fell behind them with a bomb-like crash, blocking escape). Shit! It was about three in the afternoon, but despite the flames, it was dark, black smoke masking the blue of the summer‟s day. The fire roared. “I'm still not reading you Pen. I can hear your voice, but can't understand what you're saying”, the voice crackled faintly. Captain Sutherland replied cheerfully, with all the courage of youth and its notions of invincibility. A huge tree has fallen behind us. I think the bush should burn itself out in a few hours and be easier to get through. By the time we get 4 rid of the tree it will be time to head back. No damage to the truck. Do you read me? Over. Fire control could no longer hear her; the fire had charged the air‟s ions, blocking radio waves out. Male voices distortedly screamed "GET OUT! GET OUT!!" from her transmitter. Later, Penny learned the screams were from a crew almost taken by a burning grove of ti-trees, which fire races through with deadly speed. On Penny‟s ridge, the wind changed to a southerly and flames from the valley below grew closer. She gave the order to turn around. Mike Grainger found a clearing and made a U-turn. Silently, three of her four-man crew doused their heads with water, and, at the sight of the seven metre fallen gum, paused to brace themselves before stepping into the heat. Androgynous in goggles and a wet bandanna around her neck, Penny's beanpole figure joined them. They followed her orders doggedly. With speedy deliberation they extinguished the log with their hoses, chainsawed it into pieces and kicked it off the trail with steel capped boots. The truck continued along the rough track, glowing reds and oranges lighting the strange darkness. It was a slow drive with many stops. Progress could only be made once fire burnt around the trail. This is known as staying in the black and a safety measure when wildfires are a threat. The swirling chaos of a firestorm makes its own weather and can turn on crews. Fuel loads were high and there was the chance of extreme phenomena such as lightning, fireballs and fire rivers. Burnt ground offers a greater chance of survival because its reduced fuel load reduces fire intensity to lower the chances of incineration from flames that can reach 1100ºC. Skin and fat can burn and liquefy, to drip from limbs. Hair can turn to cinders and flesh calcify to make joint movement difficult. Sometimes wildfires leave survivors psychologically damaged. Although physically unharmed, a wheat farmer from the Orange/Dubbo region said he expected to remain on anti-depressants for the rest of his life, while a farm labourer he employed experienced such trauma he committed suicide. The farmer blamed the trauma on a sense of treachery. Both the bushfire and national park services refused to extinguish fires at night when conditions were safe, he told me. During the day, it grew hotter, drier and windier. The fires 5 grew to deadly proportions. He felt deep-seated outrage over the waste of his council rates, insurance premiums and taxes funding bushfire services. As well as the psychological cost, he said he lost about $1.8million in produce and property. Unlike incident controllers managing fires in this man‟s region, Penny followed bushfire text procedure laid down decades earlier (see Luke & McArthur 1978, 1986). To the best of my knowledge, the rule to stay in the black when wildfires threaten has never been shown to be wrong. Penny said following long established rules brought a great sense of relief when she and her crew made it back unharmed and untraumatised. The thought of losing someone's life had been a source of anxiety, but she described being careful to appear in control. "Other than this I was not afraid because I had my men to back me up... Firefighting is just another thing to get my teeth into". Being the one to make the decisions presented no problem, as "liking decision making" was one reason she gave for becoming a captain. She said she was happy to listen to the men's ideas, particularly for knowledge that would optimise their chances. But in the end the final say was hers, and, as she explained in a commanding voice, "then, they had better bloody well do it!" She was happy to take her crew‟s advice when it was well informed she assured me, but also relied on her own detailed knowledge of bushfire behaviour from training, texts and manuals (see Bush Fire Council of NSW 1986, Bush Fire Council of NSW 1986a, Bush Fire Council of NSW 1986b & Luke & MacArthur 1978, 1986). Captain Sutherland related this incident to me several months later, as a positive experience where she gained a sense of bonding with her men on their first mission together. The escape “from dead man‟s land” as wildfires are known brought her local fame. The region‟s Fire Control Officer introduced her with pride after I asked to interview bushfirefighting women for a PhD on bushfires and bravery. A bushfire service fire control officer recommended the Cessnock region for my research because of its high proportion of women leaders and firefighters. The region had performed well in 1993/4 fires. Penny‟s survival strategies in the wildfire and her part in a midnight backburn met bushfire science textbook criteria for excellence (see Luke & McArthur 1978, 1986: 96-9… in a book Penny described as her bible). This literature describes backburns as a last resort against fire and safest done at night, when it is cool 6 and dewy and an inversion layer prevents flames being drawn up into a wildfire.