Talk:2003 Canberra bushfires

Importance
This is a very important part of Australian history, considering its impact on the nation's capital, that's why I've upgraded its importance. Atlantis Hawk 04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Inquiry separate article?
Should the ongoing inquiry go in this article or have its own?--nixie 13:19, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * How much do you think needs to be written about it (me being from out of state, and therefore not being too aware of the details of it)? If there's a lot to say, it'd be nice to give it its own article, and then a summary section in this as well, linked according to Summary style. Ambi 13:37, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Its been going all year- and there is some controversy about the coroner- who has basically been banned from giving evidence. I'll have a go at it sometime next week.--nixie 22:18, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's right - I remember reading about that. Thanks a lot! :) Ambi 00:12, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Links
Bushfire Recovery Taskforce links --nixie 05:21, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Action Plan
 * Final Report

Lead Section
The lead section reads "...the fires entered the suburbs of Canberra on 18 January. Over the next ten days, four people died and more than 500 homes and thousands of hectares of forest were destroyed, requiring a massive relief and reconstruction effort."

I am not sure where the "Over the next ten days.." reference comes from as I was under the understanding that no houses where burnt in Canberra after the evening/night of the 18th. Martyman 00:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Eeep. My mistake. I was under the impression the fires blazed for longer than that - feel free to correct it, or I'll check my facts more carefully when I get home. Ambi 00:18, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Well from memory on the 19th things where much better as the extreme winds died down at around 6 or 7pm on the 18th and didn't come back so things where pretty much under control. There was a threat of the fire re-approaching from a new direction for a few days (which failed to eventuate). Some houses may have been still burning into the next day, and the fire may have moved on into other parts of NSW. Martyman 00:50, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Useful References
I found these possibly useful references on the ACT local ABC radio website. Martyman 06:29, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * That's probably the best resource we have for the chronology - it's what I used to write the Black Saturday section. The SMH and The Age both have good archives from the bushfires as well, but I don't have time to go hunt their links down - they're easily findable through Google. Ambi 06:53, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * And the ABS has this (at the bottom of the page. --Martyman- (talk) 05:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

The ABC site has removed this discussion board that was active in 2003. I recall at the time that it contained a large collection of useful information and lessons learned from the firestroms that hit the Canberra urban areas. Things like parking yor car to drive out of the driveway without reversing, using brass fitting on garden hoses that will not melt, having connectors to create longer hoses. ABC can you retrieve this site from the archive? Celcom 11:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You could give http://archive.org a try which may have it archived. Bidgee (talk) 11:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverted Edit
I removed the see also section linking to Cedar fire which doesn't exist and as far as I can tell has no relavence to Canberra at all. Martyman 12:03, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Black Saturday?
I was wondering whether the sub-heading "Black Saturday" is appropriate. It is not a term that I have heard previously as a Canberran. Other bushfires have been referred to as "Ash Wednesday" or "Black Thursday" or whatever but not this one, or certainly not that it has come to my attention as a local. I appreciate that the fires were on a Saturday and the place certainly darkened dramatically! The events of the Saturday were key but the tension of the following week was significant, people I worked with could not concentrate and had to go home to check - particularly around Gunghalin. Advice of threats was, it seems in hindsight, not related to real risk. AYArktos 07:10, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jack Waterford (Editor-at-Large, Canberra Times) tried to get people to call it "The Great Fire", but I'm not sure it ever caught on. 'January 18' seems to be the common nickname. Yowie 210.9.143.127 14:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Reverted edit

 * I have reverted much of the edit on The impacts of the disaster, for the reasons interspersed below:

Many social and economic impacts arose in the wake of the Canberra Bushfires of Jan 2003 (Black Sunday). These were; :The fire was mainly on Saturday

Homelessness: Due to the destruction of 530 properties; people were left homeless as their houses were completely destroyed or unsafe to live in.
 * Noone was sleeping on the streets and destruction of homes mentioned in opening paragraph

Anarchy and confusion Once the fire struck, people began to panic; and confusion quickly followed. Some people took advantage of the situation and began to loot peoples homes in the middle of the evacuation.
 * Anarchy is overstating the case but there was certainly confusion and this is mentioned in the McLeod report findings. Looting was not reported as being an impact at the time- possibly occcurred but not at significant levels.

Death Some people died in the firestorm as a result of being trapped in burning building and of smoke inhalation.
 * deaths mentioned in article opening paragraph

Depression and Despair Some people had lost their families; lives and homes in the tragic bushfire and fell into depression as they could not live their lives normally anymore.
 * agreed was an impact but this is a general impact of any disaster

The environmental impacts of the Canberra Bushfires were:

Pollution Because of the fires which had burned for many days; a lot of carbon dioxide was released in to the air, causing smogs and reducing air quality in that region.
 * not an unexpected impact for fires this size

Regeneration The fire allowed seeds from gums and other similar vegetation to escape from their seed pods and allowing them to form new trees.
 * dealt with in article on bushfire

Damage to the built environment Fires caused extensive damages to property all around Canberra; and destroyed much of the built environment. When re-construction began; the natural environment was disturbed further due to removal and pollution of vegetation.
 * as a proprotion of the built environment, the qualifier "much" is overstating the effect. The natural environment to the west has been significantly destroyed by the fire and the reclearing.

Destruction of flora and fauna According to scientists, the natural ecosystem was disturbed greatly due to the burning of grasslands and food sources of wild animals. This; no doubt will take years to recover.
 * refer bushfire article

--AYArktos 23:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Fine by me. I really should come back and finish this soon. Ambi 01:16, 1 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I know this is a bit late, bit I might just mention that the opening paragraph should be a summary of the entire article. Therefor it is expected that things will be mentioned there and repeated further down the article. --Martyman- (talk) 05:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Coroners inquiry
I think the details on the inquiry should be merged back into this article, what do other people think?--nixie 13:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * For now, I think that would be a good idea. There may be enough for a seperate article eventually, though. Ambi 00:18, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Rename?
Should this be renamed 2003 Canberra Bushfires to conform with Wikipedia's naming conventions? Brisvegas 09:47, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * What naming conventions? Ambi 10:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Generally, when describing an event, the convention is (Year) (Location) (Event). Some examples include: 1974 Brisbane Flood, 2005 Amman bombings, 2005 civil unrest in France, 2002 Bali bombing, etc. Brisvegas 11:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The only thing I can find at Naming conventions that seems even remotely relavent is Naming conventions, but it isn't really the same thing. I am also unable to find the policy stating new discussions on talk pages should go at the bottom. ;-) --Martyman- (talk) 11:46, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see the point. No objections here to moving it to 2003 Canberra bushfires (with lowercase b). Ambi 11:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Reverted Edits 2
I have just reverted some additions made by 210.84.3.119. They may be correct, but I would like to see these additions referenced before being re-added as especially the second one doesn't read very NPOV. --Martyman- (talk) 07:56, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Reverted edits: A total of 470 homes were destroyed.

Fire Fighting Tactics
When two fire fronts met, the result was surprising. The Canberra fires rewrote the way bushfires behaved. Firefighters tried to contain the fire by water bombing. and cumming on itlololllllolol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.27.53.74 (talk) 05:20, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Worst bushfires?
By what criteria are these the "worst fires" as per our opening section? I don't think the amount of compensation offered by insurance companies could serve as the basis of valid comparison between fires at different times. There have been some other major fires, particularly the fire in 1952 when there were heavy losses of stock and of some houses; I am not sure if anyone died. I believe that fire nearly reached Civic. It was after that fire that local volunteer bushfire brigades were started. --A Y  Arktos 10:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * reference for 1952 fires is at http://www.esb.act.gov.au/firebreak/1952fire.html Major fires were in 1926, 1939 and 1952.--A Y  Arktos 10:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The McLeod enquiry stated "it can be considered that the 2003 fires were not a one-in-100-year event." - page 11. I have also removed the insurance quote from the article.  It is not expressed in real terms and is really not meaningful - compare say the damage in the 1967 Tasmanian fires (1400 homes and 62 lives) and there are other fires more severe not just Ash Wednesday - also 1939.--A  Y  Arktos 11:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right, and my original version was incorrect. Thanks for spotting the error. :) Ambi 12:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Maps
I have added a map showing the total area effected and colour coding suburbs by number of houses damaged. It could still do a with a bit of tweaking, but I am fairly happy with it. As Nixie has suggested, I am also going to look into producing a less detailed series of maps to show the progression of the fire over the days leading up to the firestorm. This series of maps is available in the report thingy. --Martyman- (talk) 10:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I have generated an animated map showing the progress of the fires from the 8th through to after the 18th. The data is from the report. I think there may be a problem with resizing Gifs on wikipedia so I may have to re-upload again at the intended display size. --Martyman- (talk) 10:04, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It is an excellent map and animation. Is each change of the gray shading one day?  It seems a really terrific way of illustrating that there were fires to the west that suddenly developed into a firestorm (using the word advisedly).  Could the grey be orange or red for dramatic effect? :-)--A  Y  Arktos 10:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, it's a fantastic addition.--nixie 11:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The frames are 1 day each, I was going to add the date up in the top corner to show the passing of time. Unfortunately the data I have used (the Mcloed Report) only seems to have fire progress up until the 17th. Then the last frame is the one from the other map which is actually based on a satelite image from the 26th (off the top of my head). I think most of the extra burnt area occured on the 18th, but don't have actual proof of that. --Martyman- (talk) 20:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Note self: . --Martyman- (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * New version uploaded, I included some more data from other sources, added a date in teh corner and changed the burnt area to red. --Martyman- (talk) 11:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks great, add a scale and a north point and I think it could be good enough for featured pics.--nixie 22:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about adding a scale but didn't get around to it. It shouldn't be too hard to add it now though. --Martyman- (talk) 22:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I like the red:-) and the dates - don't suppose we can get the data from the 18th to the 21st. Perhaps since the 21st is the area burnt at the end of the period it could be shown as black or grey to indicate that it is the end of the fire and shows the burnt area.  At Image_use_policy there is a comment about printing issues with animated images.  Can the printing be set to the frame showing the 21st?  The 18th and 21st don't show the encroachment into the suburbs - is this a layer issue? (I am glad someone else raised the issue about scale and north point.)  It is really excellent and please take these suggestions as an attempt at constructive comment, not criticism.--A  Y  Arktos 23:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the maps in the coroners report you will see that the detail is not very high. I would pretty much have to add the suburb encroachment stuff from memory, so yes that is why the suburbs are placed on a higher layer than the fire. Hey, I have a frame for the 19th as well I must have missed including it. The data for the 18th and 19th was from an even worse source (that only tracked fire fronts not burnt area) and actually the 21st data is not even from the 21st at all.. Turns out I remembered the date wrong, it is from a satelite photo from the 26th. I will see what it looks like with the last frame changed to grey. I think the printing isssue is a non-issue, even if I did know how to pick a specific fram to force to print, it would only really be a duplication of the other map in the article anyway. The mention about it you linked to is mainly saying don't use animations to show multiple photos (to save space) because they won't print. This is using animation to show movement so I think it is fine. What do people think about the animation speed? I think it might be a little fast (altough that help give the impression of movement) I might make it pause on the last frame for a bit before repeating. --Martyman- (talk) 00:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the speed is about right- but I think a pause on the last frame might be good.--nixie 08:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * New version uploaded. --Martyman- (talk) 10:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Its excellent!!!!--A Y  Arktos 11:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's an okay map, but inaccurate in that it would suggest to the un-learned person that fire was in every place covered with red, where as much was alread burnt and the edge of the shading represents the active fires. A map used on Canberra Stateline on ABC was more accurate, showing the movement of the fires but with an orange outline instead of a solid colour expanding. Just my thoughs, I understand what the map means, but some may think the fire was actively actually as big as the coloured area. Canberra photographer (talk) 12:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

More Maps
There are a couple of excellent before-and-after satellite images here:  

They come from this page at Geosciences Australia (hover your cursor over the photo to see the change: 152.91.9.115 02:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Giralang
I've just stumbled on this page today, and this bit stuck out:

By 4pm houses were alight in the suburbs of Duffy and Giralang, with the loss of a home in Holder soon after…

The fires in Giralang were related to the weather — too hot and windy; environmental factors — untrimmed trees too close to powerlines; and other factors such as faulty/poorly maintained powerlines. It was simply a coincidence that it was on the same day.

As for verification, it was my partner's parents' house and their neighbour's that went up and we were inside at the time.

Should I/we/someone just remove 'Giralang' from that paragraph and the rest of the article? While I believe that we should be mentioned, currently it isn't correct. What are your ideas on how to fix it?

Thanks!

P.S. please be patient with me, I'm a wiki n00b!

203.31.48.3 01:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I had noticed that myself, but I hadn't gotten around to fixing it. I have reworded the section, hopefully it is more clear now. Sorry to hear about your partner's house. --Martyman- (talk) 01:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia. You should consider registering an account. Thanks for poiting out that error, indeed the McLeod inquiry says that the fires ar Giralang were not related to the bushfire. But they should probably be mentioned in the article somewhere else since they further diverted the strained fire fighting resources.--nixie 01:44, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I just signed up. (It was me that wrote the Giralang post, if you haddn't worked that out!)
 * I'm not sure how the formatting here works (right now I don't have time to look it up, sorry) so apologies if this messes up.


 * Thanks for fixing the paragraph Martyman.
 * I passed the URL on to my partner and he thinks he can write a paragraph or something to add to the article, specifically about Giralang. I'm looking forward to reading + editing what he comes up with. (That man has terrible spelling.) :) ElaraAnne 02:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have left a welcome message at your user talk page that has useful advice on editing. I think the fires at Giralang certainly deserve to be mentioned in the article as they where the same day, caused by the same conditions as the fires and I am under the impression that they probably wouldn't have been as severe if fire crews hadn't already been occupied elsewhere. --Martyman- (talk) 02:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I'm not sure whether the fire in Giralang would have been as severe had the southside bushfires not occured. I believe the Giralang fire started about an hour and half before the majority of the southside went up so the resources weren't as stretched at that point. Though I'm not entirely sure about timing. We had at least two fire engines and one water bomber come in to stop the spread as the houses that were on fire were one row of houses away from a pine forrest that runs through the guts of Belconnen.
 * I had previously believed that the water-bomber bombed us on the way to the southside, but (today) I've been told that it was unable to reach the southside due to smoke, so it was luckily in our area and able to help.
 * Anyway, my partner has sent me a few paragraphs outlining what went on in Giralang and he is unsure where it belongs, I suggested putting it on the page about Giralang. What do you think? ElaraAnne 04:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes if you want add them to the Giralang article it can always be incorporated elsewhere as needed. Maybe you could add a new heading like Recent Histoy or 2003 Bushfires --Martyman- (talk) 04:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It might be worth adding that it is wikipedia policy that information needs to be sourced. See: Cite sources and No original research. The result of this is that if an article that your info was added to was to go up for featured article status then the information would have to be properly backed up by refernces or removed. I don't see this as a problem with adding to the giralang article though as it is currently a long way from featured level. Please don't let that discourage you from contributing to wikipedia though. --Martyman- (talk) 04:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I've added the January 2003 Fires section to Giralang. Unfortunatly I wasn't logged in when I did it so I feel like an idiot. I will also need to read through the two reports so that I can make sure that at least some of it can be verifide. Given that it is my first major contribution to wikipedia could you have a read over it and touch it up a little? Adam 11:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi Adam, thanks for the addition, from a quick read I would say that it is a bit more verbose than a normal wikipedia entry would be, but that's fine. I am sure over time it will get edited into something a bit more encyclopedic, that's the beauty of wikipedia. I think there is a proccess where you can request that attribution for edits be chnaged from an IP address to your user name. But unfortunatley it looks like it is not funcitoning at the moment. Changing attribution for an edit. --Martyman- (talk) 20:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Bushfire Memorial Photos
I got over to the memorial this afternoon and took some photos. They are available on my website. Pretty hard to photograph the memorial as a whole. Let me know if anyone wants any uploaded for use on wikipedia. --Martyman- (talk) 07:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I think you should put one of them in this article. I personally prefer this one -- Astrokey44 |talk 13:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I like that one too.--nixie 04:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I have uploaded Image:Canberra bushfire memorial-MJC.JPG I won't add it to the article straight away, but maybe when it is expanded a bit it will fit in somewhere. --Martyman- (talk) 06:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I expanded the section on the memorial, and used one of my own images, which shows the memorial walls as well as the main sculpture. If someone wants to rewrite the section, that would be good. What's there is pretty much word-for-word what is written on the plaques at the memorial. I have a few other pictures I'd like to upload and make into a gallery: details of the memorial walls and other views of different parts of the memorial. I suppose I should have checked here earlier. Sorry if I've stepped on any toes. I have taken the advice to be bold to heart. --Myk 10:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I am confused
How many houses were destroyed by the fires exactly? There are four different figures in four different articles. This article says 816 (including damaged ones), according to Canberra there were 500 destroyed houses and according to History of Canberra 491. In History of the Australian Capital Territory we have 67 rural houses and 414 in the suburbs (totalling 481). The result is confusion... --Voyager 15:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Black Saturday
AYArktos is right. Unless references of "Black Saturday" can be cited it should not be included. Wikipedia is not for writing your own spin on things nor coming up with new information/ideas. This whole article just comes across as trying to drum up the fires into something bigger than they were. I'm a Canberran and was around at the time of the fires and the only way I would have known that this article was talking about the fires is because of the place names. This was a natural disaster - not a social one. There was an air of uncertainty during the event and there was a bit of shock at the whole thing. It certainly was not a terrifying event (people were volunteering to help move the zoo animals - not something you do when you're terrified). The biggest social impact that the fires had was to (briefly) give Canberra a sense of community. After the event there was talk about blame and sorrow but this did not compare to the greater sense of whatever happened it happened to all of us and we all needed to chip in to get things sorted. Of course it's a bit harder to site references to a sense of community because you can't measure that.

Personal disaster
As a (now) former resident of Duffy who experienced the January 18 fires, I am not so sure I agree with the comment that the fires were not a social disaster. There was, and still is, a consensus amongst those who were present, that the scale of the disaster was almost directly attributable to human and bureaucratic failure at key points in the weeks and then finally the hours leading up to what was, take it from me, one of the most terrifying experiences for ordinary suburban dwellers - an experience so far out of the ordinary, that even today, five years later, it makes me shaky to even think - let alone - write about.

Evidence uncovered in the months of analysis afterwards indicates that the fires which eventually hit Canberra, could have been readily extinguished if, instead of observing and commenting, people had actually applied water. That was one lesson for the urban, fires will burn if you don't put them out!

Second lesson and this was a tough one for Canberra - if you lose your local news services - you can burn to death in your own home while watching the tennis or the cricket - it is just that fast, that deadly and if you are indoors glued to a screen - a big surprise!

Third lesson - never apply financial and accounting models to the management of Nature - reducing the strength of volunteer firefighters by a process of metered attrition to save a few bucks on a small town budget - big mistake which Nature will treat with the contempt it deserves. On the numbers alone - prevention would have definitely been better than the cost of the 'cure'.

Fourth lesson - no matter what the reputation Canberra may have as a souless city of bureaucracy on January 18 the residents of Duffy, with only the heroic assistance of one fire crew acting on their own cognisance stepped up in a big way - the stories of indivudual heroism have only been partially captured in publications after the fact - but, personally, I witnessed ordinary people standing firm and saving their neighbours at the risk of their own lives - that is a lesson I will never forget. The fact that that lesson was vitiated by the actions of the bureacrats responsible for managing the official emergency response to fires - is one of the reasons Canberra gets the reputation it has...at home they may be heroes in the office....they are fools...

Fifth and final lesson - never take Nature for granted. Never lose your ability to react - as I did - standing dumb and stupid watching the advance of a 60 foot high wall of flame, waiting to be rescued as my 18 year old son shouted at me and my husband over the roar of the flames that if we didn't get a move on - we would all die! how's that for out of the mouths?

While I agree with AYArktos' opinion about the labelling, I cannot subscribe to the opinion that it was really not a big deal. For any rational person, it was a huge deal. On the topic of animals - it was actually the RSPCA which was successfully evacuated - but one local vet hospital burned to the ground, taking all the animals with it and nearly taking the staff - people still leave flowers at that site.

The loss of Stromlo is kind of glossed over. For those of us who knew it and loved it, the Mt Stromlo Observatory was a symbol of the beauty and majesty of Nature and Science. Gleaming domes, silent, fragrant pines, photographic plates from the 1930s showing galaxies beyond number - all burned away - they will never be replaced - another small fragment of unique history lost forever - and only mourned by a few....

Moving on is important - but so is remembering. Fidelia (talk) 03:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Good article
This article could almost be nominated for WP:GA, with a few adjustments here and there. Just a basic copyedit and standardising the references should be at least a good start for you. linca linca  06:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Swimming Pools Evacuated?
Whilst reading the article I noticed these sentences: "Swimming pools were evacuated of which kids were in. One of which was Michael Ireland, who managed to survive these fearsome fires."

This is bad is grammatically and seems to refer to an individuals personal experience of the fires which, whilst perhaps interesting in and of itself, does not actually contribute to the article.

Not being a regular Wikipedia editor, I though I'd best check with the professionals rather than just going in and deleting these lines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.220.91.20 (talk) 14:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Dead link
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Number of injuries
The lead sentence says "over 490" injured, but the infobox says 435. They can't both be right. (Neither has a reference that I can check.) Mitch Ames (talk) 12:45, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

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