Interesting times in Tassie recently with one of the busiest fire seasons for a long time. Not too surprising really given the last two where just about the quietest since the Tasmania Fire Service has been in existence. My brigade has been largely kept in reserve as most of the brigades in the area around us have been fully engaged. I guess it makes sense from a tactical point of view as we're not only kept fresh to fill in if the front line brigades are exhausted, but also to keep on top of spot fires, mop ups and any other regular fire that may crop up in areas currently understaffed as a result of the campaign fires being fought all around us.
We did have a call out to a fire half way up the mountain to one of our nearest towns last week. It looked pretty much as though someone had thrown a cigarette out of a car window. It set a small portion of the hillside ablaze. Lucky we caught it when we did as the gully got very steep very quickly. We just don't have the equipment to go chasing fires down areas like that and it could have posed a major threat to all the towns in our area if left.
Thoughtless acts like that are very frustrating. Late last year we had an encounter with thoughtlessness of a whole other order of magnitude. A house fire in a nearby town, one so small it makes Avoca seem a shining metropolis with our massive 120 population. This house had an asbestos roof. Asbestos, in this day and age! Haven't we had more than enough time to rid ourselves of this menace? I'm putting together a submission to any politician who'll answer me for a solution I've come up with that will guarantee it's removal within one generation.
I propose that on the transition of ownership of a property, whether through sale, gift or inheritance, an inspection must be carried out for the presence of asbestos and if it's found, it must be removed before said transfer of ownership can be completed.
Not an unreasonable proposition I believe, a little slower than I would have liked, but at least it will finalise the situation once and for all. I know it would effectively reduce the value of any house that has asbestos in it, but frankly they deserve to have a reduced value.
Asbestos in a fire doesn't burn, it doesn't melt... it explodes, scattering fibers everywhere. The TFS are so concerned about it, they have a policy that after fighting a fire with this evil substance in it, we are not allowed back in the trucks with our gear still on. We're not to take it back to the station either. We have to take it off and leave it in plastic garbage bags by the side of the road for the fire inspector to take back to HQ for decontamination. Driving back to town in our fire trucks in underwear is a sobering, surreal experience.
Two of our brigade, myself included, were called to the front line recently to help shore up the containment lines around a town not too far away from us. Shore up is a rather apt phrase for this area, known as Eldorado Ridge, once a highly productive gold field. There were unmarked mine shafts everywhere, some covered in debris and virtually invisible until we were right on top of them. It meant we had to be extremely careful of our footing... and driving. Some of the trails we drove our land cruiser up looked impossible to me, amazing what that vehicle can do, especially hauling 600 litres of water with us.
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