Black Saturday forever will be a reminder of the extreme danger posed by electrical network infrastructure found to be seriously lacking.
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It’s on the cusp of 10 years since those disastrous fires inflicted a toll unlike anything seen since European settlement.
A total of 173 people were killed by the firestorms that erupted in Victoria that February 7 day, with estimations of up to 400 fires breaking-out.
But clearly the most devastating, if that is a distinction that in respect can even be drawn, was the monster that swept its way through the Kinglake area, fanned by temperatures reaching 46 degrees Celcius and 125km/h winds.
The catalyst for the blaze was a 2 kilometre stretch of single-wire earth return power line being brought down in these high winds just before midday.
The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission went on to find that the fire was indeed caused by ageing infrastructure.
That opened a fierce debate, and much lobbying, for the placement of such wires underground to prevent a repeat one day of the Black Saturday inferno.
But to do so right across the state would be prohibitive, so the process of trying to “gold-plate” this infrastructure in Victoria, as well as in other states, began.
The dangers though clearly remain, which is not to any surprise to anyone living in rural and regional areas.
The concern though that yet another substantial and deadly fire could devastate communities in the Border region has been raised.
Indeed, Culcairn farmer Colin Odewahn has pointed out the high risks continuing to be posed right across the southern Riverina.
Mr Odewahn says his property alone has high-voltage lines suspended on dilapidated poles stretching across his 385-hectare farm.
And as he then says, one day “the poles are eventually going to fail. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
Replacing such infrastructure is extremely costly and requires substantial planning, but a start must be made.
Next time we might not get through such a period of high threat so lightly.
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