An interview with Vic Jurskis by by 2GB’s Jane Marwick on Thursday evening 12th December 2019.
3D Continuous Fuels
Why the RFS won’t pay for ‘game-changing’ respirator masks
Volunteer firefighters spending extended periods battling NSW bushfires say they are having to cough up significant sums of money for upgraded respirators, amid fears the disposable masks issued by the Rural Fire Service aren’t providing enough protection for the severity of exposure.
Performance of the Fair Air Fire Mask
This post compares the performance of the Fair Air fire mask (Fair Air) against the requirements of AS/NZS 1716:2013 (the standard) for masks rated as P2. It also provides some detail regarding ISO 9151:1995(E) and ISO 15025:2000 which are international standards for fire resistance for protective clothing. The Fair Air fire mask is the only respirator to have passed,or could pass, these two standards (according to the experts at the CSIRO).
‘I can only do this for so long’: Calls to pay volunteer firies
“You get a lot of volunteers… who say they don’t feel remuneration is appropriate because it would damage the volunteer ethos. But there are many others who say ‘I can only do this for so long’.”
“We need to really start thinking about out-of-pocket expenses at the very least.”
NSW Government bushfire inquiry to focus on failures in hazard reduction
Claims that “green tape’’ worsened an already “difficult and dangerous’’ fire season will be investigated at a special inquiry that will probe the state’s bushfire hazard-reduction strategies, including land clearing and burn-offs.
The federal government has also bowed to pressure to investigate if the ongoing deadly fire season was fuelled by a failure to properly manage vegetation in national parks, forests and on private properties with temperatures expected to soar.
Prescribed burning ‘key to controlling fires’
A forestry expert, Vic Jurskis has condemned bushfire prevention strategies in an open letter to the Prime Minister and premiers, saying it is entirely within their power to put an end to the situation by prescribed burning.
VFFA Vice President, Mr Williams says that the hazard-approval process is stuffing the whole process.
Unprecedented?
People are losing their lives, and we are experiencing unprecedented environmental, social and economic destruction as a result of bad politics. It is entirely within your power to put an end to this abhorrent situation. Instead, Australians are being told that fires are uncontrollable in extreme weather, and there’s nothing we can possibly do.
However, Aborigines arrived about 65,000 years ago and established the world’s most durable culture. They maintained healthy and safe landscapes across Australia through 40,000 years of sometimes extreme climate change. They didn’t need boots, overalls, hard hats, smoke goggles, fire engines, waterbombers, computers, incident controllers or emergency services.
Rural Fire Service firefighter wins compensation for PTSD from State of NSW
A volunteer firefighter has received compensation for chronic PTSD in a settlement with the NSW government in what is believed to be the first of its kind.
The NSW RFS has a duty of care for all of its workers and the majority of those are volunteers.
Recent bushfire events have highlighted the level of reliance upon our volunteer firefighters, but the NSW government has been asleep at the wheel in these matters.
Volunteer firefighter suffered chronic PTSD after attending 772 traumatic incidents, court told
Simon Andrews, a volunteer rural firefighter with the NSW RFS developed PTSD during the course of attending more than 772 traumatic incidents over seven years was never told he was at risk of developing the disorder, court documents say.
RFS Welfare Manager, Paul Scott saw him once a month for a number of months but Mr Scott didn’t recommend Mr Andrews to see a doctor, psychologist nor psychiatrist.
Mr Andrews, is seeking damages at the Supreme Court in Sydney from the State of NSW for the suffering he says he experienced.
Many other volunteer firefighters have been abandoned by the NSW State Government.
It is high time bureaucrats and politicians stopped blaming climate change for a bushfire crisis that is very much of their own making and is putting lives at risk
No one is denying the gravity of what people and firefighters have been through now, but it is no use gilding the lily here.
You can’t have a fire without fuel.
Two factors above all else come into play here.
In NSW, when Bob Carr was the minister, and later premier, he ratified moves to have fire trails abandoned.
Carr’s moves prevented access to those fire trails by the Rural Fire Service, under the pretext he was keeping four 4WDs and campers out.
The government put locked gates on these national parks and planted big rocks at the entry to the fire trails.
Understandably, the fire trails are now overgrown with regrowth forest, impenetrable to everybody except native and feral animals.
Yet it was these fire trails that enabled the fire fighters to get to the heart of a fire.
They could then create back burning and land clearing.
Fire fighters could mobilise earth-moving equipment and successfully put the fire out.