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Hello Tony,  Thank you for bringing your team to Mallacoota.  I thought the meeting was very effective and the messages to you clear.  The Meeting Notice was Effective  Attendance was representative of the Mallacoota and District and the numbers sufficient to allow all people who wished to do so to recount their experiences and views.  I have worked with many of the attendees over many years.  Their recount of experiences were clear, consistent and germane.   I was very pleased to find that several others have been making representations to the 'Responsible' Authorities, and have found as I have, nothing effective happens.  We need another way.  I have copied this email to my neighbour who may wish to make a submission relating to their dealings with the East Gippsland Shire Council and others.  Additional Correspondence with the Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville.    I'm a retired RAAF Wing Commander and retired from the APS as an Senior Executive Service Officer Band 2, so am experienced with government responses to Ministerial correspondence. Out of respect for the Minister, I did not include my correspondence with Minister Neville in my Royal Commission submission as she has not yet replied to my second letter.  As Emergency Management Victoria reports to Minister Neville, I can provide you with this correspondence.  You have a copy of my letter to Minister Merlino which was passed to Minister Neville.  Her response is attached.  To be brutally frank, this letter can be summarised as 'boiler plate' and a 'hospital hand‐pass' to the East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC).  I make this assessment, as, despite a detailed follow up with Mr Turner as suggested, nothing effective was done.  This is the experience of many of the other attendees.  Victoria needs a difference approach.  My second letter to Minister is attached, and gives the same suggestion as I have to the Royal Commission on National Disaster Arrangements: change from 'Watch and Act' to 'Plan ‐ Prepare ‐ Protect'.  A draft Mallacoota Protection Plan was also part of the correspondence to Minister Neville, and a copy is attached.    

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Part of the Protection Plan was to re‐purpose Victorian Loggers into a Forest Protection Force, with some members living in Mallacoota to provide ongoing maintenance of the adjacent forest as suggested by several attendees.  In my research I have found assessments that these jobs are costing the community up to $5 million per job.  Here is a scathing assessment of Victorian  logging activity:   How to lose money, waste water and wreck the environment   Minister Neville and the Andrews Goverment has the opportunity to turn a  native forest logging liability into a Forest Protection Force asset.  To Burn or Not to Burn?  Many advocated cool burns as that is a millennia‐old practice and one that has been effective in recent times.  My response is 'burn if it can be done safely'.  However, when observing the trends in Australian Temperature as shown in the attached Australian Temperature Anomaly JPG, once can see that increased temperatures are making Victoria's flammable forests unlit incendiary bombs ready to explode into uncontrolled firestorms after sustained drought.  http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Temperature  Having read references like Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu (he is a Mallacoota District resident) I admire the land management practices of Australia's First Nations' people.  Some commentators have suggested that the invasion in 1788 started an extermination of the First Nations' people through Frontier Wars, pestilence and land dispossession, and that was the date on which effective forest management started to cease.  Colourful language, but there is an element of the truth there.  Fuel load has increased proportionally with the cessation of forest management.  If Victorian towns and critical infrastructure can be protected as proposed, then the risk from a runaway cool burn is diminished, and using fire to de‐risk the forest can resume.    For Effective Control of Firestorms Take Local Command  As a military officer I have studied employment of Command and Control to combat enemies.  I learnt a vital lesson on 'Command Responsiveness' as a junior officer on staff at Headquarters Butterworth as the Viet Cong over‐ran Saigon.  Prime Minister Whitlam assumed and subsumed military command  and from Canberra issued personal commands to Hercules C‐130 crews to rescue people from outlying areas.  Had his commands been obeyed, many Hercules and their crews would have been captured, as the fast pace of the war meant that his information and commands were 2‐3 days behind the battlefront.  Many at the meeting made essentially the same observation.  'Post Officeing' up the chain‐of‐command and waiting for an authorization meant that directions were not keeping pace with the rapidly advancing firestorm.  The 'fog‐of'war' made the messages inconsistent and at times false.  Here is a link to the Emergency Management website on the subject:  https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/about‐us/locations/state‐control‐centre‐scc  I make three suggestions.  Firstly, a hierarchical system is effective for planning, but not to effectively command forces against a rapidly advancing enemy.  Secondly 'Control' is just a means to an end.  What is needed is 'Command' to direct allied resources to effect Control.  Thirdly, because of the Response Issue, Command needs to be local , especially when communications can be cut by dense smoke clouds and physical destruction of communication infrastructure.  There was some discussion about destructive tension between local agencies.  I also comment that it is unwise to put Non‐Commissioned Officers in Command positions for which they are not trained and are not competent.  

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My suggestion therefore is to change the name to 'Incident Command Centres', train Emergency Management Officers in the practice of local Command, change the legislation if necessary to ensure the ICC Commander has the necessary legal and command authority over the local allied Response Services.  To support the ICC Commander, a (helicopter) deployable Command Centre must be developed.  This would include a power source, imagery, maps, and communications equipment that can direct the response agencies: CFA, SES, DELP, ADF, FPS and patch into the local communication systems.  Senior Constable Tregellis and I put a lot of time into this.  One of the simplest concepts was for 3 MGB to be the centre for warning and recovery information.  Each resident would be advised to have an FM radio and spare batteries and listen continuously to 3 MGB.  These radios cost $10‐20.  If the local radio station is destroyed, then the ICC equipment should include an FM transmitter to take over the function.  Cate Tregellis suggested patching into social media.  My wife and I were on a cruise in South America as Mallacoota burned, but did manage to follow the progress of the firestorm and recovery via Face Book.  That being said, many people, myself included' find that the lack of discipline in Social Media can lead to false news and misdirection of the community.  The ICC Commander should be the sole authoritative source of information which should be communicated via FM radio, and backed by Internet Technology.  A Communications Officer should be part of the ICC.  Is the East Gippsland Shire Council a Competent Emergency Management Authority?  If you had taken a vote on this matter during the meeting, you can reliably predict that the result would have been: attendees to zero.  We have all had experience in attempting to advise the EGSC and receiving a nil result.  My take on EGCS's Emergency Planning position is twofold: 'It is too expensive for EGSC's budget' and 'if EGSC does this for one, it must do it for all'.  This is specious argument. and unconscionable conduct for a designated Responsible Authority  The correct response is to place Protection of People as the highest priority, Triage the risks and promptly attend to the most urgent within the available budget.  Many people, myself included, have proposed using the Town Hall as a Neighbourhood Safer Place (NLP)  / Place of Last Resort (PLR)'.  The cost of fire‐hardening the structure is low, it is positioned in a location where most of the firestorm airflow would pass over it, and it is central to the town and caravan park.  My suggestion to the EGCS was to collocate the overflow PLR with the Town Hall, protect it with steel fencing and a Fire Appliance.  EGSC's response was to declare an open space well away from the Town Hall a PLR, which divided and expanded the areas to protect.  Had the wind not changed then of the people gathered fully exposed on the wharf, several hundred could have been killed and injured.  No doubt that a Coroner's Hearing would have come to a conclusion of Criminal Negligence.  The EMV Investigation should examine the competence of the EGSC as a designated Emergency Management Authority as advised to me by Minister Neville.  Hindsight is a powerful method to ensuring that past disasters do not repeat.  Conclusion  'Watch and Act' does not work.  'We'll make it up on the day' does not work.  Relying on a chance deployment of fire appliances is not a reliable plan.  Having a NLP / PLR in the open to protect thousands is criminally negligent.  Relying on Nature to change the wind and save the people is unconscionable.  Victoria needs a different strategy:  

Plan ‐ Prepare ‐ Protect Sincerely,   Chris Mills, AM, MSc, BSc 

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MALLACOOTA FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING AND

MANAGING NATURE FOR A MORE SECURE FUTURE

INTRODUCTION

Firestorms have ravaged Mallacoota twice in living and local memory. The second firestorm was more severe than the first: the surrounding forest had a heavy fuel load and was tinder-dry because of extended drought conditions. An intense firestorm was the consequence. Climate change will exacerbate the future risk.

The Mallacoota environs and those parts of Australia that are subject to future firestorm attacks, need to be managed in a very different way from the practices of the past several decades. A hotter climate means drier, more inflammable forests, and a shorter ‘controlled burning’ season. Australia may already be beyond the time when the risk of ‘controlled burning’ becoming uncontrolled exceeds the benefits of fuel-load reduction.

This paper suggests four risk remediation actions:

- Fire Barriers / Deflectors;

- Fire Breaks and Emergency Services Access;

- Protected Wildlife Reserves; and

- Repurposing the Logging Industry to Fire Hazard Reduction.

FIRE BARRIERS / DEFLECTORS

After the devastating 2003 Canberra firestorm, a Bushfire CRC was funded, and conducted extensive research. The CRC found that steel fences provided an effective barrier against radiant heat and fire ingress to property:

https://www.bushfirecrc.com/news/media-release/fence-against-bushfire-attack-research

A quote from this report:

In our study solid steel fences did incredibly well at repelling fire and radiation attacks. The protection may be enough to prevent

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combustible items near the fence from igniting, thus reducing the chance of fire spreading into the inside of the property boundary.

Industry has responded – this is one example of a commercially available Colourbond fire barrier:

http://fencit.com.au/bushfire-protection-with-steel-fencing/

The potential for residential fencing systems to act as a barrier against radiant heat, burning debris and flame impingement during bushfire is of the utmost importance to those whose homes rest in bushfire-prone regions.

The design of fire barriers should be developed and tested. For example, a vertical barrier will have turbulence behind the structure. A sloped structure might be more effective as a ‘deflector’, turning the airflow and embers up and over the protected area. An ‘S-Shaped’ fence is another possible design that could scoop up a fire front and toss it to protect building behind.

Google Earth is an excellent tool for visualising terrain and forming protection plans. Annex A is a Google Earth image of the Mallacoota area. Mapping the houses lost in the 2020 firestorm shows (unsurprisingly) that houses in close proximity to bushland were most vulnerable.

The proposal is to erect contiguous steel fire barriers /deflectors along the lines of houses adjacent to bushland to provide protection towards the fire threat axis – an arc from about 020 degrees anticlockwise to 180 degrees around Mallacoota.

FIREBREAKS AND EMERGENCY SERVICES ACCESS

Immediately behind the Fire Barriers, roads should be graded to provide a Firebreak and Fire Access Roads for Emergency Services Vehicles.

Once the Fire Access Roads are in place, the edge of the bush can be pushed back to reduce a firestorm heat load as the fire approaches the Fire Barriers / Deflectors. Safe firebreak widths will be determined by analysis and experiment – 500 metres could be a starting point.

Several years ago, timber around the Mallacoota airfield had to be cleared to provide regulated take-off and landing clearance angles. Timber piles were made and much of the timber was recovered for firewood. The remainder was pushed into piles and safely burnt.

One option is to recover and sell firewood to offset land management costs and mulch the remainder. Mulch suppresses grass and regrowth and tends to smoulder rather than flame when fire passes over. Mulched firebreaks both look attractive and reduce land management workload.

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Another example of forest safety management is the protection of Mallacoota’s electricity supply. Land corridors have been cleared and are regularly slashed to reduce the risk of a fire interrupting power supply.

The proposal is to push the bush back from the Fire Barriers / Deflectors, grade the land where possible to facilitate fuel load maintenance, and safe-burn or mulch the resulting timber piles.

FENCED WILDLIFE RESERVES

Even with the risk reduction created by Fire Barriers and Firebreaks, there are three large areas of woodland inside the protected residential areas. Ember attack could ignite these areas and create a fire risk at the core of the residential areas of Mallacoota.

Worldwide, there has been immense grief for the loss of Australian wildlife to the raging firestorms. Mallacoota is host to a diverse population of native animals and birds. Koalas were introduced from Phillip Island to Middle Creek many years ago and have since thrived in the area.

The proposal is to fence the domestic woodland areas, remove predators such as deer, cats, foxes and wild dogs, and change the nature of the woodland to a ‘cool burn’ area, with a high canopy of selected trees (that also provide food for koalas), an open grazing area for kangaroos and wallabies, and habitat for animals such as the potoroo and the East Coast Spotted Quoll.

http://animalia.bio/long-nosed-potoroo

The three largest areas of woodland offer the potential to create protected Wildlife Reserves with different habitats: mountain, timbered grassland and coastal.

REPURPOSING THE LOGGING INDUSTRY

The Premier of Victoria, the Hon Daniel Andrews announced in 2019 and end to native forest logging:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-06/native-timber-logging-in-victoria-to-be-phased-out-by-2030/11678590

The announcement was hailed by those with an interest in preserving forest flora and fauna and met with dismay by those whose livelihood depends on forest logging.

The proposal is to repurpose those in the logging industry and the forest management equipment they use, to reducing the risk of

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future firestorms ravaging towns such as Mallacoota. They would become a ‘Forest Management Force’ and would erect Fire Barriers /Deflectors, grade access roads, push back forest growth from dwellings to create effective Firebreaks, safe-burn or mulch timber piles, slash regrowth and convert woodlands inside domestic dwellings to fenced Wildlife Reserves. These forest management activities would provide permanent employment, and Forest Managers would become a revered element of a community facing increasing risk from firestorm as Climate Change heats the planet.

CONCLUSION

Mallacoota has been ravaged by firestorm. The future can be changed from one of fearful anticipation of a future firestorm annihilating houses and properties, to a town where fire risks are minimised by Fire Barriers / Deflectors and Firebreaks, and in-town Wildlife Reserves protecting native fauna and flora, with locals and tourists enjoying a nature experience.

Chris Mills, AM, MSc, BSc

20 February 2020

Annex A – Mallacoota (Google Earth)

20 February 2020

Minster for Emergency Services Hon Lisa Neville MP 8 Nicholson Street, EAST MELBOURNE, VIC, 3002

Dear Minister,

VICTORIAN FIRESTORM POLICY:

PREPARE AND PROTECT versus WATCH AND ACT

Having survived Mallacoota’s firestorm, and having pleaded for effective firestorm protection in the past with no result, I am asking this question: is there a better way?

Enclosure A makes suggestions on ‘fire hardening’ Mallacoota. There will be extreme fire risk in the future as the forest regrows and climate change makes the area hotter, drier and more flammable. This proposal could be used as a pilot for other ‘at-risk’ areas of Victoria.

The proposal generates political capital for the Andrews Government, as it recommends repurposing native forest loggers to use their skills as a Forest Management Force to build and maintain fire barriers and firebreaks to protect ‘at-risk’ towns and infrastructure across Victoria.

I have assessed the need for a new firestorm policy from an analysis of the devastating Mallacoota firestorm. Enclosure B was a letter to Minister Merlino dated 2 October 2018 describing possible catastrophic event if a firestorm passed over Mallacoota during the peak holiday season where some 6,000 people are exposed. Your letter dated 24 January 2019 advised me that the East Gippsland Shire Council was the responsible authority and that Mr Shane Turner was the Emergency Management Coordinator.

I took your advice and had what I thought was a productive exchange of correspondence and conversation with Mr Turner. While touring Victorian towns, I found that the Shires managing fire risk at Beechworth and

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Corryong had prepared a Place of Last Resort (PLR) and had signposted each. I took photographs, sent them to Mr Turner, asked why the East Gippsland Shire Council had not prepared a Neighbourhood Safer Place (NSP) and PLR. I made suggestions for fire-hardening the Town Hall.

I should state that I am not being critical of Mr Turner – I consider he made his best effort. What is obvious is that there is a Victorian State policy vacuum that results in some Councils making a good effort to protect their citizen, while other fail to do so. This policy gap should be closed by the Victorian Government directing Councils on NSP / PLR matters.

What was the result of these several representations to take effective action to counter firestorm? In a single word: NOTHING!

What occurred at Mallacoota on New Year’s Eve was accurately described in my letter to Minister Merlino. Thousands retreated to the wharf in the open and in cars, unprotected other than by fire appliances. They were saved by a wind change. Had fate not intervened, a catastrophic loss of life and injury could have occurred.

The Town Hall was filled to capacity, mostly with the aged and infirm. There was no fire hardening of the building, and a friend got onto the roof during the passage of the firestorm to clean gutters choked with leaves. There were water tanks, but no fire-fighting fittings (e.g. Storz fittings) access to the water. Generators were placed with exhausts injecting fumes into air intakes. Report were that it was extremely uncomfortable inside the building.

Mallacoota was saved by the decision to deploy about 20 fire appliances to protect the town. The performance of these ‘Fireys’ and the ADF was legendary. Individuals protected their and neighbour’s homes, many were saved, but 127 were lost. Had Mallacoota been protected by one or two fire appliances, the result would have been vastly different.

Enclosure E was posted on John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations on 27 December 2018 – the post can be accessed online. As a retired member of the ADF, I know what a valuable contribution the ADF can make to civil emergencies. However, there was a delay in deployment, which the Prime Minister blamed on State Governments delaying a request for civil aid. This inadequate response highlights the need for a change of posture from ‘Reaction’ to ‘Preparation’.

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Conclusion

I apologise for deluging you with historical ‘warning documents’, but these form a body of evidence that a reactionary ‘Watch and Act’ posture is ineffective as a strategy when climate change will make our Victorian Towns increasingly ‘Un-safer Places’.

Please have your staff experts look critically at my proposed ‘Prepare and Protect’ plan for Mallacoota, with a view of wider application should it be assessed as feasible and effective.

When facing the might of an angry Mother Nature, no place can be completely safe. However, we can ‘fire harden’ the perimeter of our towns, mitigate fire risk at in-town areas at risk from ember attack, and at the core of the town, create a Neighbourhood Safer Place / Place of Last Resort, well prepared to protect refugees from a firestorm when all else has failed.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Mills, AM, MSc, BSc

Enclosures:

A: Mallacoota Fire Protection Engineering and Managing Nature for a More Secure Future - 20 February 2020

B: Preparing ‘Extreme Risk Mallacoota for an Extreme Fire risk Summer - 2 October 2018

C: Summer Season Preparedness for Mallacoota - 24 January 2019

D: Mallacoota: Place of Last Resort- 24 April 2019

E: Australian Defence Organisation Combat Climate Change Effects in Australia – Posted on Pearls and Irritations on 27 December 2018

CHRIS MILLS: SWOT Bushfires: Harvest Renewable Forest Undergrowth for Soil Regeneration, Hydrogen Gas

and Aviation Fuel

SWOT Analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – is used by strategic analysts to solve wicked problems. Australia’s vast eucalypt forests are becoming existential threats as climate change heats and dries. Wickedly, extended bushfire seasons prevent forest managers from making cool, safe burns. Overlap of bushfire seasons between the hemispheres deny firefighters access to airtankers to extinguish fires before they rage out of control. Controlled for millennia by aboriginal fire management, since colonisation started in 1788, forest undergrowth has accumulated, and what once would have been a controlled mosaic brush clearance becomes a deadly crown fire raging over thousands of hectares. The scale and danger of massive ‘controlled’ burning is such that this is no longer an accessible and acceptable practice.

What might be done? Apply SWOT to the future management of Australia’s eucalypt forests:

- Strengths: conversion of undergrowth to biochar for soil regeneration, hydrogen gas and aviation fuel is possible and as forest undergrowth is a solar-powered, it is a renewable ‘forever fuel’;

- Weaknesses: Simple burning undergrowth is becoming increasingly dangerous and the scale required is becoming beyond the capacity of volunteer fire authorities;

- Opportunities: European agricultural practices have degraded soil, specifically soil compaction and loss of carbon; Australia could use forest biochar to meet its Paris Agreement target of CO2 equivalent emissions of 441 million tonnes per annum; long-range aviation needs a carbon-neutral liquid fuel that can be extracted from forest biomass;

- Threats: the proximity of highly flammable forests to urban settlements and an increasing temperature and decreasing moisture results in an ever-escalating risk, now at ‘catastrophic’ for the first time; expect large cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to be exposed to catastrophic conditions much more often in the future.

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One of the powerful and effective practices of SWOT Analysis is to turn Weaknesses into Strengths and Threats into Opportunities. This conversion can be achieved for future forest management. Here is how.

Project your mind forward to 2050, where the IPPC objective is Net Zero carbon emissions. Throughout Australia ‘Forest Refineries’ process undergrowth into three products: biochar (carbon), liquid fuel and hydrogen gas using pyrolytic processing. Foresters are innovative and make ingenious machines to harvest timber – think of the machine that grabs a large tree, and in seconds cuts it, strips the bark and sections it into precise lengths for transport over a network of forest roads. A purpose-designed undergrowth harvester would cut and chip feedstock for the refineries. As there is no burning, native animals in the area being harvested would not be threatened, habitat refuges could be maintained, and carbon dioxide not released to the atmosphere by burning.

At the refinery, wood pyrolysis would be designed to process eucalypts which have a high oil content. QANTAS has announced a goal for Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050 and eucalyptus oil and biomass oil could be part of the jet-fuel mix. (That would transform the smell of airports for the better!)

For a treatise on the benefits of biochar, I refer to Patrice Newell’s well-researched book ‘Who’s Minding the Farm? (In this Climate Emergency). This book documents the cost of degradation of Australian agricultural soils, and how animals fed biochar spread remediating soil carbon in their droppings. Animals with biochar in their digestive tracts also emit less of the powerful greenhouse gas methane. This reduction will be very good news for the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Beef Industry which has announced a goal of zero carbon emissions by 2030. Forest biochar will provide bulk supplies of feedstock to achieve this goal. Some 25 million head of beef cattle and 70 million sheep will consume and spread a lot of carbon across the land, provided bulk carbon feedstock can be produced and distributed. A cattle truck might arrive with a load of biochar and leave with a load of cattle, providing two-way revenue for hard-pressed truckies.

A Gippsland farm is the first in the world to be eligible for soil credits and forest biochar can support widespread ‘regenerative carbon farming’. Biochar might be pelletised and included seed hoppers during planting.

Refineries are designed to produce the most profitable mix of products from the feedstock. One of the gasses that can be produced is hydrogen.

Commented [CM1]:

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Australia is on the cusp of a hydrogen export industry. A refinery could first distil the eucalyptus oil, then at higher temperature produce hydrogen. Exported, hydrogen is a zero-pollution energy source in fuel cells and combustion where it becomes water. (H2 + O > H2O.) Biochar might also become an export to countries such as Japan with limited farmland and forests unsuitable for producing biochar. Australia’s huge area of native forest is a renewable resource that can support agricultural industry in such countries. Exporting carbon as pollution-free biochar is much preferable to exporting carbon as polluting coal.

Which companies might build–own-operate Forest Refineries? An energy strategist might observe that as transportation and industry is electrified, the demand for fossil fuels will decline. An ‘Oil Company’ could redefine itself as a ‘Fuel Company’. Forest undergrowth is a renewable resource, and a Forest Refinery could continuously harvest undergrowth on rotation. The aborigines mosaic-burned the forest regularly; a Fuel Company operating a sustainable Forest Refinery would do the same.

Good quality, permanent jobs in rural and regional Australia are highly valued. Forest Refineries producing ‘forever fuel’ and ‘forever biochar’ would be a ‘forever industry’, and young people, now abandoning country for city, might be encouraged to pursue a career in forest management.

The vexed question of research, development, capital and operating costs must be addressed. Those with vision not only look at the current costs, but also the opportunity cost of not adopting sustainable, long term forest management practices. Can Australia afford near annual massive forest fires with the consequent loss of life and property, the ongoing cost of firefighting aircraft and the fatigue of diminishing pool of volunteer fire fighters?

A mirror funding option is to charge the carbon polluters causing the problem. In Europe, the Carbon Price per Tonne is currently about €25. A Climate Emergency demands an urgent response. Industries burning carbon could pay a Carbon Pollution Charge, and the revenue placed into a Climate Remediation Fund with the development of Forest Refineries as one of the beneficiaries. Logically, it is fair to for any Nation contemplating remedial action to charge the enterprises causing the problem as an to offset of the remediation costs. If ever there is a time to put a price on carbon pollution, the out-of-control forest fires across Australia suggest that time is now. The benefit for the Coalition Government is that raising revenue for a Climate Remediation Fund positions the project as ‘off budget’.

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Australia is at one of the most important cross-roads in the Nation’s modern development. Do we continue as ‘business as usual’ in the clear knowledge that this is a path to ongoing death and destruction from out-of-control forest fires? Or, do we learn from our First Nations’ People, and start on a strategic campaign to return to sustainable forest management, with the renewable undergrowth as feedstock for Forest Refineries producing biochar, aviation fuel and hydrogen gas? Beneficiaries include the flora and fauna of the environment, people living in ‘at risk’ locations, rural and regional communities, soil remediation in agricultural industries, zero-carbon flying, manageable ‘first responder’ workloads, export opportunities and a substantial contribution to meeting Australia’s Paris Agreement promise of an emission rate of 441 million tonnes of CO2 (Equivalent) per annum.

Chris Mills, AM, is a MSc in Systems Management and is a systems designer and builder. [Category: Environment and Climate] [Status Draft] [End]

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Hi Heather,  Always ready to make a contribution to Commonwealth ans State considerations of our future.  The IG might find these attached files useful as a prediction of future Australian forest climate, the propensity for firestorms and hence the 'burn or not burn' question.  The first is NASA's 800,000 year measurement of atmospheric CO2 obtained from Antarctic ice cores.  For 800,000 years, the value bounces around 180‐300 ppm, crossing ice ages and warm periods.  Circa 1950, CO2 level soar are a result of anthropomorphic fossil fuel burning.  The next NASA graph is a measure of global temperatures.  Note the rise starts ~1970, after the CO2 had built to levels that trap the Sn's radiation.  If you overlay the Australian measurement, you can see they are very similar.  The Department of Environment & Energy's projections of Australia's rate of emissions of CO2 on Million Tonnes (equivalent as it includes methane from LNG bores) show that the Commonwealth will not get within a bull's roar of the Coalition's Paris target of 441 MT(E) CO2 emissions per year. You will find this graph and the 441 MT(E) buried deeply in the DOEE's website.  The last is an unpublished paper that proposes ‐ inter‐alia ‐ refining Australia's eucalyptus forests into aviation fuel and biochar to fix carbon into soil and make the land more productive.  Frankly, I think it a but fanciful because of the scale required, but it could be possible for the Forest Protection Force I proposed to use it on a larger scale to convert the forest that must be cleared for the protection of Victorian towns and infrastructure into useful products.  Needs more work but the Andrews Goverment might consider a pilot plant to measure the costs and demonstrate the benefits.  Happy to do more research and make comment if IG Pearce requests.  Kind regards,   Chris Mills  On Fri, 20 Mar 2020 at 11:48, DJCS‐IGEM‐Contact (DJCS) <IGEM@igem.vic.gov.au> wrote: 

Hello Chris 

  

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Your submission has been received, and is much appreciated. 

  

Thank you for contacting the Inspector‐General for Emergency Management, and for your interest in the Inquiry into the 2019‐20 Victorian Fire Season. 

  

  

  

  

  

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Level 29, 121 Exhibition Street, Melbourne VIC 3000  |  DX 210077 www.igem.vic.gov.au |  Follow us on Twitter: @IGEM_Vic 

  

  

From: Chris Mills  Sent: Thursday, 19 March 2020 12:41 PM To: DJCS‐IGEM‐Contact (DJCS) <IGEM@igem.vic.gov.au> Cc:   Subject: Additional Material from Chris Mills, Mallacoota 

  

Hello Tony, 

  

Thank you for bringing your team to Mallacoota.  I thought the meeting was very effective and the messages to you clear. 

  

The Meeting Notice was Effective 

  

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Attendance was representative of the Mallacoota and District and the numbers sufficient to allow all people who wished to do so to recount their experiences and views.  I have worked with many of the attendees over many years.  Their recount of experiences were clear, consistent and germane.  

  

I was very pleased to find that several others have been making representations to the 'Responsible' Authorities, and have found as I have, nothing effective happens.  We need another way. 

  

I have copied this email to my neighbours  , who may wish to make a submission relating to their dealings with the East Gippsland Shire Council and others. 

  

Additional Correspondence with the Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville. 

  

  I'm a retired RAAF Wing Commander and retired from the APS as an Senior Executive Service Officer Band 2, so am experienced with government responses to Ministerial correspondence. Out of respect for the Minister, I did not include my correspondence with Minister Neville in my Royal Commission submission as she has not yet replied to my second letter.  As Emergency Management Victoria reports to Minister Neville, I can provide you with this correspondence. 

  

You have a copy of my letter to Minister Merlino which was passed to Minister Neville.  Her response is attached.  To be brutally frank, this letter can be summarised as 'boiler plate' and a 'hospital hand‐pass' to the East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC).  I make this assessment, as, despite a detailed follow up with Mr Turner as suggested, nothing effective was done.  This is the experience of many of the other attendees.  Victoria needs a difference approach. 

  

My second letter to Minister is attached, and gives the same suggestion as I have to the Royal Commission on National Disaster Arrangements: change from 'Watch and Act' to 'Plan ‐ Prepare ‐ Protect'.  A draft Mallacoota Protection Plan was also part of the correspondence to Minister Neville, and a copy is attached.   

  

Part of the Protection Plan was to re‐purpose Victorian Loggers into a Forest Protection Force, with some members living in Mallacoota to provide ongoing maintenance of the adjacent forest as suggested by several attendees.  In my research I have found assessments that these jobs are costing the community up to $5 million per job.  Here is a scathing assessment of Victorian  logging activity:  

  

How to lose money, waste water and wreck the environment  

  

Minister Neville and the Andrews Goverment has the opportunity to turn a  native forest logging liability into a Forest Protection Force asset. 

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To Burn or Not to Burn? 

  

Many advocated cool burns as that is a millennia‐old practice and one that has been effective in recent times.  My response is 'burn if it can be done safely'.  However, when observing the trends in Australian Temperature as shown in the attached Australian Temperature Anomaly JPG, once can see that increased temperatures are making Victoria's flammable forests unlit incendiary bombs ready to explode into uncontrolled firestorms after sustained drought. 

  

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Temperature 

  

Having read references like Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu (he is a Mallacoota District resident) I admire the land management practices of Australia's First Nations' people.  Some commentators have suggested that the invasion in 1788 started an extermination of the First Nations' people through Frontier Wars, pestilence and land dispossession, and that was the date on which effective forest management started to cease.  Colourful language, but there is an element of the truth there.  Fuel load has increased proportionally with the cessation of forest management. 

  

If Victorian towns and critical infrastructure can be protected as proposed, then the risk from a runaway cool burn is diminished, and using fire to de‐risk the forest can resume.   

  

For Effective Control of Firestorms Take Local Command 

  

As a military officer I have studied employment of Command and Control to combat enemies.  I learnt a vital lesson on 'Command Responsiveness' as a junior officer on staff at Headquarters Butterworth as the Viet Cong over‐ran Saigon.  Prime Minister Whitlam assumed and subsumed military command  and from Canberra issued personal commands to Hercules C‐130 crews to rescue people from outlying areas.  Had his commands been obeyed, many Hercules and their crews would have been captured, as the fast pace of the war meant that his information and commands were 2‐3 days behind the battlefront. 

  

Many at the meeting made essentially the same observation.  'Post Officeing' up the chain‐of‐command and waiting for an authorization meant that directions were not keeping pace with the rapidly advancing firestorm.  The 'fog‐of'war' made the messages inconsistent and at times false. 

  

Here is a link to the Emergency Management website on the subject: 

  

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https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/about‐us/locations/state‐control‐centre‐scc 

  

I make three suggestions.  Firstly, a hierarchical system is effective for planning, but not to effectively command forces against a rapidly advancing enemy.  Secondly 'Control' is just a means to an end.  What is needed is 'Command' to direct allied resources to effect Control.  Thirdly, because of the Response Issue, Command needs to be local , especially when communications can be cut by dense smoke clouds and physical destruction of communication infrastructure. 

  

There was some discussion about destructive tension between local agencies.  I also comment that it is unwise to put Non‐Commissioned Officers in Command positions for which they are not trained and are not competent. 

  

My suggestion therefore is to change the name to 'Incident Command Centres', train Emergency Management Officers in the practice of local Command, change the legislation if necessary to ensure the ICC Commander has the necessary legal and command authority over the local allied Response Services. 

  

To support the ICC Commander, a (helicopter) deployable Command Centre must be developed.  This would include a power source, imagery, maps, and communications equipment that can direct the response agencies: CFA, SES, DELP, ADF, FPS and patch into the local communication systems. 

  

Senior Constable Tregellis and I put a lot of time into this.  One of the simplest concepts was for 3 MGB to be the centre for warning and recovery information.  Each resident would be advised to have an FM radio and spare batteries and listen continuously to 3 MGB.  These radios cost $10‐20.  If the local radio station is destroyed, then the ICC equipment should include an FM transmitter to take over the function. 

  

Cate Tregellis suggested patching into social media.  My wife and I were on a cruise in South America as Mallacoota burned, but did manage to follow the progress of the firestorm and recovery via Face Book.  That being said, many people, myself included' find that the lack of discipline in Social Media can lead to false news and misdirection of the community.  The ICC Commander should be the sole authoritative source of information which should be communicated via FM radio, and backed by Internet Technology.  A Communications Officer should be part of the ICC. 

  

Is the East Gippsland Shire Council a Competent Emergency Management Authority? 

  

If you had taken a vote on this matter during the meeting, you can reliably predict that the result would have been: attendees to zero.  We have all had experience in attempting to advise the EGSC and receiving a nil result. 

  

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My take on EGCS's Emergency Planning position is twofold: 'It is too expensive for EGSC's budget' and 'if EGSC does this for one, it must do it for all'.  This is specious argument. and unconscionable conduct for a designated Responsible Authority  The correct response is to place Protection of People as the highest priority, Triage the risks and promptly attend to the most urgent within the available budget. 

  

Many people, myself included, have proposed using the Town Hall as a Neighbourhood Safer Place (NLP)  / Place of Last Resort (PLR)'.  The cost of fire‐hardening the structure is low, it is positioned in a location where most of the firestorm airflow would pass over it, and it is central to the town and caravan park.  My suggestion to the EGCS was to collocate the overflow PLR with the Town Hall, protect it with steel fencing and a Fire Appliance.  EGSC's response was to declare an open space well away from the Town Hall a PLR, which divided and expanded the areas to protect. 

  

Had the wind not changed then of the people gathered fully exposed on the wharf, several hundred could have been killed and injured.  No doubt that a Coroner's Hearing would have come to a conclusion of Criminal Negligence. 

  

The EMV Investigation should examine the competence of the EGSC as a designated Emergency Management Authority as advised to me by Minister Neville.  Hindsight is a powerful method to ensuring that past disasters do not repeat. 

  

Conclusion 

  

'Watch and Act' does not work.  'We'll make it up on the day' does not work.  Relying on a chance deployment of fire appliances is not a reliable plan.  Having a NLP / PLR in the open to protect thousands is criminally negligent.  Relying on Nature to change the wind and save the people is unconscionable. 

  

Victoria needs a different strategy:  

Plan ‐ Prepare ‐ Protect 

Sincerely, 

  

  

Chris Mills, AM, MSc, BSc