For travelers through bushfire zones in Australia there is no mobile phone warning system at present. The newly introduced emergency phone warning system only caters to the people who have a land line or a mobile phone with correct billing address. The people who visit bushfire prone places outside of their billing address do not get this warning. The authorities are therefore looking for a system that deliver mobile phone messages based on the physical location of the handset at the time of an emergency. Premier John Brumby and Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin hoped this second phase of emergency warning system would be implemented early this year. The new telephone warning system called the Emergency Alert has been used to issue warnings in 18 emergencies across Australia in this summer with more than 51,000 messages sent.
A billeting system has been proposed by Michael Henningsen, the Deputy Mayor, Adelaide City Council, South Australia during catastrophic bushfire emergencies. The present warning system prompts the people to leave their homes when a catastrophic or code red fire warning has been issued by the authorities. Some people find it difficult to go to a safe place because they do not have relations or close friends for help. To overcome this, an idea of a billeting system where city residents offer temporary board to people who have been asked to leave, is proposed. The organizations like Country Fire Service (CFS) of South Australia have supported the idea.
“It’s an interesting idea and certainly one worth exploring. “Said Wendy Shirley, executive director, CFS Volunteer Association.”It’s early days yet in this whole new fire danger rating system and it certainly would stand to reason that there are people up in the hills who would have nowhere else to go, If they don’t have any friends or relatives in Adelaide that they can go to on such a day, this proposal might be the solution for them,” she said.
The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) has released for public comment a draft national standard for private fire bunkers on 25th January, 2010.This was announced by the ABCB chairman Graham Huxley. He told that the development of this technical standard was a significant step towards the future regulation of private bushfire shelters. The Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission had earlier recommended a national standard for the design and construction of bushfire bunkers.
This uniform standard will be helpful for the building designers and approval authorities to make professional judgments in respect of the technical and safety aspects of the fire bunkers and fire shelters. The finally approved standards would be included in the building codes of Australia in its 2011 edition.
If state and territory governments wish to develop their own regulations prior to 2011 they could use the draft to make their own standards as an interim measure.
Mr. Graham Huxley however warned that extreme caution should be taken when using fire shelters and misplaced reliance could be life threatening.
