Koperberg Disallowing or Disavowingt

DISALLOWING or DISAVOWING

By
SOS-Investigator

Thursday the 1st December, 2005 has a 2/3 page spread about the NSW Fire Commissioner, Phil Koperberg attempting to counter the growing dissatisfaction about his directions and those of his paid staff that they have taken the NSW RFS.

One section of this story by Lucy Skuthorp of The Land Newspaper stands out as a shining example of just how easy it is - from the position of top dog of the RFS as Mr Koperberg is - to mislead intentionally, or unintentionally, the public. We quote, "I cannot recall a single occasion where a locally devised strategy was disallowed," he said. "People will have differing opinions about the way a fire was handled, but those opinions are generally formed with the benefit of hindsight."

First it has to be noted that Mr Koperberg is constantly playing politics with his public statements. It is most notable that he uses, "I can't recall"- this being political speak for "I haven't got a bloody clue", or "just in case I'm wrong", or "I'm not lying about my memories", or "if one is in court" I am lying but do not wish to open myself to a case of perjury at a later time. For whatever reason, such a codicil from those in such eminent positions as Mr Koperberg, is far less than acceptable.

Add to this the following, "I cannot recall a single occasion where a locally devised strategy was disallowed," and we could now be left with the assumption that either Mr Koperberg's memory is seriously flawed, or he is intentionally playing politics with the information that he has at hand and would be reasonably expected to remember.

The most serious fire to ever occur on Australian territory in modern history was the 2003 holocaust that devastated almost the entire Snowy Mountains and the ACT, with the destruction of some 500 homes and the sad loss 4 peoples life in the ACT alone. Now keep in mind that there was a memorandum of understanding between NSW and the ACT, that should a fire emanate from NSW and threaten the ACT or its precincts, then NSW would do all in its power to protect the ACT from such a threat. A situation that is one that the details of are, and still should be, haunting Mr Koperberg and his team.

We are still to hear the findings from the ACT Coroner, Maria Doogan's Coronial Inquiry that all stops were pulled out in an attempt to shut down and/or narrow her ability by jurisdictional containment to identify the truth. A situation where it would be reasonable to expect Mr Koperberg to have the most clear of recollections of any fire his RFS have had to manage, especially as he personally attended the ACT Supreme Court on at least one instance, either that, or someone was playing a very good impersonation.

On the 8th of January 2003 a storm cut a swath across the Snowy Mountains delivering dry lightening strikes enmasse to many parts of the mountains igniting some 48 fires. One of these strikes caused a small fire to ignite on the eastern side of the Goodradigbee River. This fire was the McIntyre's Hut Fire. This fire was predominantly the cause of the destruction to the ACT. A fire that started in NSW and was therefore initially became an NSW RFS obligation to be controlled by NSW under the MOU. The local fire crew from the Brindabella Brigade were well aware of the now omnipresent dangers that these fires and the projected weather posed unless dramatic, strategic action was expeditiously carried. The Brindabella Brigade held in-depth, unsurpassed local knowledge and understanding of the terrain, the tracks, the weather, the risks along with necessary equipment and skills to successfully attend and commence containment of this fire on the 8th January 2003, some 10 days before Canberra burnt.

This fire crew understood the ramifications should this fire remain uncontained and hence spiral out of control. Not only were they prepared to attend and simply begin control of this blaze, but the Fire Captain caused an alert to be issued to all his personnel to gather their gear and attend a briefing and deployment.

At the time there were two immediate dangers to the Brindabella Valley the first being Browns Camp fire to the West of the Valley and McIntyre's Hut to the North. After sounding the alert for his fire crews to attend the station for briefing etc, the Fire Captain had telephone conversations with the FOC in Queanbeyan control in respect to receiving instructions for deployment. There were no orders given, other than to advise Brindabella Brigade to go home. This undoubtedly astounded the Brindabella Fire-Captain as he would have known only too well the dangers present and that they were the only Brigade that had the local experience for the areas where both these fires were burning.

The Fire-Captain rightly made the decision to comply with this instruction, as he knew that there had been aerial surveillance of the areas and considered that obviously Fire Control (Queanbeyan) had more information than he did and that some of the other many Brigades most likely had been despatched to these fires. A sound conclusion for the Brigade Leader to make being well aware that there was no other possible reason for such an instruction, "to go home" to be made. Standard Strategy for any fire is at the very least; get someone in on the ground to assess the situation. This means feeling the heat of the fire, not through a pair of binoculars from someone that has possibly never been on the ground pre-fire.

Had the Brindabella Brigade known that there was in fact no response to the McIntyre's Hut fire even contemplated, let alone ordered at this so crucial early time, Brindabella would not have stood down, but in fact could have attended to the Mc Intyre's hut fire, or in fact any other fire that was threatening their Brigade area, with results that most likely would have changed fire history in the ACT.

The Fire Control Centre, the Control Centre that was the focal point of management for the NSW RFS for this disaster, a disaster that destroyed some 1.8 million hectares of our mountains, effectively, with a simple instruction of, "go home" intervened in an active response already under planning an organisation from the most competent Brigade available to the RFS for that particular fire. Given the MOU, all it would have taken for Fire Control to instruct, was, " Brindabella, attend to McIntyre's Hut and report the situation back." Standard expected strategy.

Given the fuel loads present, the dry conditions, the stable favourable weather with a forecast to change dramatically for the worse in coming days, the need to contain such an outbreak early was not only paramount to sound bushfire management, but in this case was absolutely critical.

In accordance with the over riding instructions from fire control, the Fire Captain begrudgingly commanded his crews to return home. No fires were going to be attended to by Brindabella Brigade and this in an area where in fact fires were burning on the worst fire ground potential in history.

There can be no dissention of the chain of command in such an historically dangerous event as the 2003 fires and although the decision to instruct the Brindabella Crews to not attend the fire ground on that first night, but rather, "Go Home," was not only wrong, was not accepted as the correct one by all members of the Crew capable of commencing containment of the fire at the level it was at that time. The instruction was obeyed in the belief that those issuing such instructions had knowledge that Brindabella Brigade leadership did not.

The rest is history - a history that those Brindabella fire crew now have to live with every day of their lives, especially the fire Captain, as they know that had they disregarded the instruction to return home at the most critical time of such a fire [when it first ignites] when fuel loads were immense and dew levels were drying up, they would have correctly assessed and commenced sound containment of the fire and failing total control would have been in a position to manage well until additional support was forth coming. From this it is a fair assumption to make, Canberra City would not have been impacted so severely, if at all, and most likely there would have been no loss of life whatsoever.

This is not in anyway the fault of either the Brindabella fire crew, nor the Fire Captain, who was simply instructed for he and his Brigade to stand down, it was the fault of the Fire Control Centre totally disregarding the experience and competency of the very fire crew that requested direction and instruction in relation to the dangers so present from many areas, as they were trained to do. History tells us the results of this instruction, "to go home". Although it could be argued semantically that this is not a disallowance of a locally devised strategy by a distanced fire control centre, to the real people of this nation it certainly is. A fire control that can only be directly associated with Phil Koperberg and all that come under his Commissionership.

The Brindabella Brigade trains and meets regularly and is most competent as are all RFS Volunteer Brigades across the State. This training culminates in multiple strategies being exercised and understood and at any point in time, when a fire breaks out, the Brigade, by virtue of its readiness to attend a fire ground is in effect and in reality a preplanned tested strategy. The Instruction, "to go home," was the most clear example of a strategy being over ruled, no matter how subtle the instruction was. To give effect to this last statement, the Coronial Inquiry in the ACT and especially the Supreme Court challenge (Jurisdictional issue) was all about McIntyre's Hut, where the initial response is crucial to Maria Doogan and her findings achieving what all Volunteers want. That is a cultural change to the empire (RFS) and transparency for all that has gone before.

This is not about differing opinions made with the benefit of hindsight, but about the RFS Control instructing those that were better experienced, better equipped and held all the local knowledge of both the terrain and weather for this fire. They were over ruled with devastating results and, "Mr Koperberg can't recall????"

The most devastating fire in history to strike Australia, a fire that caused Commissioner Koperberg to attend, or had others attend on his behalf, [at some expense we might add] many Inquiry days, with undoubtedly the most significant event ever to cross his career and he is reported in the media as stating, "I cannot recall a single occasion where a locally devised strategy was disallowed,"

The Strategy of Brindabella Brigades actions to attend, prepare, brief and deploy to McIntyre's Hut, or any other threatening fire being thwarted by, the "Go Home" instruction, was in effect a disallowance of strategy in the first instance and can be considered in no other light unless one is playing politics.

Perhaps worse and we will probably never get a transparent answer to this; who over ruled the standard strategy of having someone initially attend and assess a fire ground. This could be a fair and just expectation to be an absolutely critical strategy to be implemented before such a distant fire control was in any way what so ever in a position to issue any instructions at all. Did a higher Authority than Queanbeyan have input here? Certainly can't tell from the farce of the NSW Coronial Inquiry into the 2003 holocaust.

Regardless, the local Brindabella Brigade, by being told, "to go home," irrespective of what fire in this emergency Brindabella could have attended to, but did not by instruction from above, in the eyes of a fair minded lay person, is definitely a case of disallowing a local strategy.

Mr Koperberg you wonder why people want to hold you accountable and have lost faith in your abilities. Your empire has reached proportions that have become autonomously dictatorial and counter productive to all that is historically known about fire management and mitigation and it has become notable that the VFFA and Peter Cannon, threaten this empire. An empire that not only controls the NSW RFS and its abilities and effectiveness, but considerable power in the decision making that effects this entire Nation's perspective on fire management and mitigation with associations that are not generally well know in the public arena. They will be soon.