Black Saturday Bushfires Essay

Bushfires account for approximately 15% of major disasters in Australia, making them the third most common of Australia’s disasters, following severe storms and transport disasters (1). The Black Saturday bushfires are still, to date, Australia’s worst bushfire disaster and are ranked second among Australia’s natural disasters, causing the highest recorded number of lives lost to Australian bushfires (1, 2). Furthermore, it is one of the world’s worst wildfire disasters in history, costing more than AUD 4 billion (3). With over 400 recorded bushfires occurring on this day, the area damaged was vast and included a combination of areas (1). It involved the collaboration and commitment of a range and high volume of emergency service personnel

173 people were killed, with the Kinglake fire accounting for 120 of these deaths (1,11). Of the 173 people that were killed, two-thirds died in their own homes, mainly resulting from people staying and defending their homes rather than evacuating (9). Of these fatalities, 44% were vulnerable populations, being under 12 or over 70 years of age and/or having a chronic or acute disability (9). The majority of these deaths occurred on the the 7th of February, however, an additional 5 deaths occurred at a later date as a result of injuries sustained from the fires

In total more than 19000 country fire authority members were involved in either frontline fire management, incident management and support behind the scenes (13). More than 600 St John Ambulance personnel and 105 nationwide St John volunteers were involved from two weeks before the fires and many weeks after (14). Of the population of all the emergency personnel involved, one life was lost (15). David Balfour was a firefighter of 10 years whose life was lost when a mountain ash tree fell on him as he attached the hose to the back of the fire truck whilst managing a fire in Cambarville (15,