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Wit.3004.003.0130 WIT.3004.003.0130 -y A nisiury 01 rvesearcn into r>uiiuing rerioriiiajiue in Australian ousniires rage i pio CONFERENCE ^^.oa^o PROCEEDINGS BUSH FIRE 90 Australian BusKflre Conference, Albury, comlri!,ht July 1999 ~ife A History of Research into Building Performance in Australian Bushfires JusJnE.L^^ CSIRO Building, Construction and Engineering, POBox 56,Highett, Victoria 3190 <& Abstract From the time of white settlement up to and including the 1939 'Black Friday, 'fires, the destruction of buildings in bushfires was looked on as inevitable, with surviving buildings being viewed as 'miraculous escapes-'. The first scientific house-by-housestudyofbushfirebvi^ took place after afire at Beaumaris (Vic.) in 1944, in which 66 houses were destroyed, George Barrow (1945), from CSHLfthe progenitor of CSIRO), conducted apainstaking survey arid interview project which identified the major mechanisms involved in bushfire attackon buildings >r Unfortunately Ms - results were not widely promulgated and the lessons had to be releagned; jby the wider community in thejyake ofsubsequent.bushfires. These included, bushfires with major building loss inHobart (1967), the Blue Mountains, (1968), the Otway and Macedon Ranges (1983), and Sydney (1994). R&eargh following these and some intervening bushfires has provided clear information on the . mechanisms of bushfire attack on buildings. It has also given guidance on landscaping and building design strategies that can be employed to mitigate the effects of bushfires on buildings. This paper discusses the research activities and'the various means by which the findings Tiave been communicated to residents in bushfire-prone areas. It also comments pn r-esulting changes in community responses to bushfires. # Introduction For the first 150 years of white settlement in Australia, the destruction of houses in bushfires was taken as inevitable, and it appears few efforts were made to investigate t>r improve Jhe performance of buildings in bushfire-prone areas. The lessons learnt in the wake of the 'Black Friday' bushfires of 1939, however, brought sufficient order to bushfire prevention and suppression that the community could begin tb.Iook towards solutions to the destruction of houses in bushfires. The required knowledge was gathered piece by piece from studies of a series of bushfire disasters over the next 6 decades. Table 1. Australian bushfires involving major house loss, since 1939 Date Location House loss Research into building loss January 1939 Victoria 1300* Nil 1 http://www.csu.edu.au/special/bushfire99/papersAeonard/ 21/11/2008 WIT.3004.003.0131 A History of Research into Building Performance in Australian Bushfires Page 2 ol % ..- CFA.300.032.0131 January 1944 Victoria '.'..'...•_:.,. : 527 (Beaumaris) (58) G. Barrow, CSJJR, selective survey December 1957 Leura,NSW 123 Nil ':1— January 1961 Dwellingup, WA 132 A G. McArthuf, general stifvey January 1962 Dandenong Ranges, Victoria 454 Nil February 1967 Hqbart 1300+ PEBS/CSJJRP, questionnaire 1967/68 Dandenong Ranges, Victoria 53 Nil November 1968 Blue Mountains Some R. Cole, CEBS, selective survey January 1969 Lara 251* Nii J February 1977 Western District, Victoria 116 CSIRO/CFA, rate of siweacl only January 1983 Victoriaj SA 1511 (Mount Macedon, Victoria) (234) A. Wilson, in-depth survey (Otway Ranges; Victoria) (729) CSIRO, inrdeptn -survey j . .,. ] Jan 1985 AvocaTMaryferough 61 CSIRO, general survey Jan 1994 Sydney and surrounds 202 CSIRO, in-depth survey . Jan 1997 Dandenong Ranges, Victoria 40 CFA, in-depth survey * 'Structures', hot necessarily houses. •> Australian bushfires since 1939 involving major housing losses are listed in Table 1. This data and information for the following discussion come from a number of sources (Luke 8c McArthufe 1977; •? Foster 1976; McArthur 1982; CFA 1983a; 1983b), and from CSIRO on-ground surveys. Victoria, January 1939 Catastrophic bushfires across Victoria in 1939 resulted in a marked change in community attitudes to bushfires. Prior to these fifes there was, thfoughout Victoria, 'an attitude of apathyto fire prevention and, apart from the bush and country fire brigades, few people had ah interest in the subject. Townships had been allowed to become encroached upon by the scrub, with no attempt in many cases to render them safe by clearing or the conservation of available water. Efforts to establish brigades had failed. The law relating to fire prevention had failed because it did hot fit the widely diverse conditions,and circumstances in Victoria and because the people had neither understood nor been instructed in it'(Noble 19l7). Judge Stretton, the Royal Commissioner into the fires, recommended the establishment of a State Fire Authority and local fire authorities. He recommended that the Forests Commission have http://www.csu.edu.au/special/bushfire99/papers/leonard/ 21/11/2008 WIT.3004.003.0132 t\ ni»u>iy vi jKcscamii uiiu oujiuiiig rciiuiuimux m jtuMsinmim DUSJUIUCS Jrase JW o CFA.300.032.0132 complete control pf all forests (contrplprevipusly split withthe Lands Department) and made suggestions for the early detection,of forests ^aprpgrampf created widespread publicint^es^^ :... outbreakofWorld W^iII-itSsreppmnien^ations were-.not immediately implemented, "Widespread, bushfires in 1943 and 1944 refocused attention .on the problems and led'.-to thefprmationofthe Country Fire Authority (CFA) in April 1945. These activities brought about a change in community attitude towards bushfires themselves^ but did little to alter community perceptipn abput the fate of houses in the path of bushfires. Beaumaris, \lct0i*ia, 1$4# One of the many bushfires of 1944 occurred on the outskirts of Melbourne,at bayside, Beaumaris. It burnt anareanof 280 ha, directly threatening ll&hpuseSjOf whichis were destroyed .and 8 were damaged. A scientist from the Divisipn p£ Forest Products of theCouncU fpr Scientific and Industrial Research (GSIR)-elected to, carryput astudyof the affectedhous.es, in order..to detenninethe influence of the type and details p£«onstructionon the resistance of houses, to external- firehazards (Barrow 1945). This was the first occasion on which a scientific study of this nature had been attempted. Barrow worked alone, inspecting around 100 houses in the first week after the fire and interviewing approximately 200 house owners, occupiers and people involved in fighting the fire. On # the basis of this preliminary study, he selected 17 houses as being representative of the general damage and conditions, and he made a detailed study'of these houses. His findings contrasted sharply with the then-held community view of bushfire attack on buildings, which held that the-destruction bftimber-clad houses was virtually inevitable, with brick houses standing a better chance of surviving. Barrow deterrnihed that 'in' a fire of the type that swept Beaumaris, the chances of a house surviving are determined more by the nature of the surroundings and the details of construction than by the materials used in the walls. With two exceptions, all the really destructive fires started inside the houses* i.e., in the roof space, in rooms, or under the floors, the immediate cause pf ignition in such cases being the entrance of flame, sparks and burningrdebris through openings such as ventilators, eaves and windows'. Barrow suggested that simple precautions'such as enclosing the underfloor space of houses, cPvering ventilators with metal mesn^ enclosing the eaves and keeping stacks of fuel and trees and shrubs clear of walls, would greatly increase^the resistance of & house to fire with little, if any, increase in cost. These measures would be likely to be far more effective than such methods of protection as the use 6f non-combustible materials for walls. He was the first personto scientifically identify the <s ignition "mechanisms of bushfire attack on houses, and to document the fact that houses tended to bum down from the inside. His wPrk attacked existing myths about the destruction of houses in bushfires, and gave clear guidelines IP improving the performance of houses inbushfire-prone areas. It is more the pity that BarrPw's researchwent largely -unnoticed; His findings were published in a scientific journal and there-they languished.-The most important thing we can learn from Barrow's landmark work is the necessity to deliver the findings to the end-user* in this case the home owner or< occupier. Dwellingup, WA, January 1961 During the 1960/61 bushfire season in West Australia, 721 fires burnt out 405,000 ha, with just 6 fires being responsible for more than 8P% ,of this damage. The largest was at Dwellingup on 19 January, when 146,000 ha wer^ .burnt out and 132 houses were destroyed. Alan McArthur, a Fire Control Research Offiqer with the Forestry and Timber Bureau in Canberra, was at the scene of the Dwellingup fire very shortly after its.occurrence. He was able to make a close study of the weather and other factors associated with its origin an$ spread. He subsequently acted as Technical Assistant to the Rodger Royal Commission into these fires. When the fire front was north of Dwellingup the http://www.csu.edu.au/special^ushfire99/papers/leonard/ 21/11/2.008 WIT.3004.003.0133 I I I a e 4 0I A History of Research into Building Performance m Australian Bushfires ||I1||1I1|1|1||]|||||||I|1]1I(I|||| ' g $ CFA.300.032.0133 wind rose to gale force arid the fire'spread tapidlyj spotting heavily ahead Mdshowermg the town with burning debrisv Buildings^b^gah'catchmg alight lohghefdre the a outskirts: Ignitionappeared
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