The coming fire season !

This past weekend, Mother Nature gave Wollongong a taste of what the future holds.   In the last month of winter, a lightning strike and the usual August wind storms saw 1600 hectares around Darkes Forest reduced to cinders.  The F-6 was closed in both directions and many rural properties were threatened.

The Illawarra is blessed with the escarpment as a backdrop to the city.  It forms a natural amphitheatre and this vast panorama of trees absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen to cleanse our atmosphere.  Some would call it " the lungs of the area ", but it also poses an enormous fire threat when summer temperatures arrive.

The escarpment last burned in 1968 - and hence another visit by fire is long overdue.  When that last happened we were a much smaller city.   It's steady expansion has drawn people to build homes further into the tree line and in fact nestling amongst the trees has become a feature of combining that rural aspect with the glorious sea views from elevated positions.

We have been lucky in past decades.  This state has had disastrous fires, but the Illawarra has been spared.  We will not always be so lucky and one glaring possible disaster is waiting in the stretch of Lawrence Hargreave drive from Thirroul to Stanwell Park.

On this stretch of the coast the combination of housing and trees is served by a single entry and exit road, and both ends have natural bottle necks that would ensure disaster in a fire emergency.  Sooner or later a combination of events will coincide - and that disaster will visit the Illawarra.

We need a fire plan drummed into the heads of residents to ensure that when a fire does pose a danger they know how to safely react.   The most disastrous decision would be to try and flee the area by car.   The road could not cope - as we have observed  when a sudden thunderstorm saw people jump in their cars and try and exit the beaches, only to become involved in a traffic jam that lasted for hours.

The residential strip on Lawrence Hargreave drive is both long and narrow.  The beaches and  foreshore are within easy reach of the residents and that is the natural safety point.    We need to promote a fire safety plan to ensure when - rather than if - a major fire event occurs in this region the residents are trained to respond in a way that saves lives.

That does not seem to have priority at present - and unfortunately we are seeing incidents of arson increasing with each years fire season.   All if takes is for some careless person to drop a match when the conditions are right, and we would have an overwhelming disaster rip through the escarpment backdrop destroying many homes.

It may not be possible to save those homes, but with a good fire plan, lives may not be lost !