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Thanks for following our blog this morning.
There are two more witnesses this afternoon: ACT Emergency Services Agency Commissioner Georgeina Whelan and ACT Rural Fire Service Acting Chief Officer Rohan Scott.
The hearing will resume at 2.15pm and you can watch along here.
So the Royal Commission has adjourned for a lunch break, so that brings to a close for now the presentation of the three witnesses from this morning.
It's clear that we'll be hearing from them again, particularly Shane Fitzsimmons, you'd have to think. Today, the 23rd day of public hearings, was his first appearance before the inquiry. (He's also been an active interlocutor with the NSW Bushfire Inquiry, which has not been holding public hearings.)
"We look forward to talking to again on issues and lessons and looking to the future from a national perspective. And you're excused," Royal Commissioner Binskin said.
There are two more witnesses this afternoon: ACT Emergency Services Agency Commissioner Georgeina Whelan and ACT Rural Fire Service Acting Chief Officer Rohan Scott.
Stay tuned for a wrap of this morning's session.
One late round of questions put forward by Royal Commissioner Mark Binskin has raised any interesting matter: what does it cost to deploy interstate or international firefighters, and who pays?
The basic answer, from the RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers is, that the bill lands in the case of his state, with the NSW government.
"And indeed the government made it very clear and indeed the Premier [Gladys Berejiklian] particularly made it very clear [she] wanted whatever was done to be done, not considering the cost of it. And that's very much the way we've operated in fire seasons over many years now."
"[T]here is a standard cost. I couldn't tell you what the cost is though Commissioner, I just can't recall it but we can get that. There is an agreed rate."
His predecessor, Shane Fitzsimmons said "reciprocating arrangements" applied, and "it's not designed to profiteer, it's designed to cover costs of that deployment".
The number of firefighters was in the hundreds for overseas staff, and thousands in terms of interstate ones.
As an aside, a submission by a group of expired retired firefighters including Ian Brown from the Blue Mountains, noted the cost of deploying aircraft can be pretty expensive. Very large air tankers, for instance, can cost about $35,000 per hour or $1800 an hour for small helicopters – both excluding air crew.
Firefighting agencies are already preparing for the coming season with an added challenge of COVID-19.
In a 15-page document, the RFS has outlined its preparations which include how to respond to a confirmed COVID-19 case and asking those who are at high risk of contracting the virus to consider temporarily withdrawing from volunteer activities or considering alternative work arrangements.
"Fire incident management activities create an ideal environment for the transmission of infectious diseases: potential high-density living and working conditions, lack of access to and use of soap and sanitizers, and a transient workforce," the document notes.
It also suggests COVID-19 cleaning kits should be available at each staging area to be used at the start and end of each shift, housing firefighters in individual rooms where possible, holding community meetings via video.
In the event that interstate or international assistance is required, the emergency service requesting aid is responsible for meeting all costs of quarantine associated with the deployment.
Shane Fitzsimmons says the RFS' resource management systems, including how they monitor firefighters' available, are "rudimentary" and need improvement.
The RFS also has strict fatigue management guidelines to ensure its firefighters don't suffer from exhaustion and has engaged a company to provide an availability app that would help monitor the time people have on the ground.
Commissioner Rob Rogers said through the app, people will be able to indicate their ongoing availability both for overseas, interstate or state deployment.
"That will obviously also build into systems to track how much [people have] worked over a given season and ensuring that we're better able to focus on their fatigue levels," he said. "Because [that[ is something that we're very acutely aware of."
"Whilst we do have policies in place, we've also got to have systems to make sure that we're monitoring compliance with that policy."
While the hearing continues, on the issue of prescribed burning, here's an aside:
Just yesterday, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre has launched a free Prescribed Burning Atlas that can be found here: prescribedburnatlas.science
It's been created in partnership with the University of Wollongong, University of Melbourne and Western Sydney University, and is aimed at guiding mitigation burns undertaken in the cooler months to "help to reduce bushfire risk when the weather heats up".
In a media release, the CRC's Research Director Dr John Bates said the atlas was a "crucial tool for now and for the future".
“Australia is a land of fire and prescribed burning has many different objectives – from reducing the risk of bushfire to homes and businesses, to improving ecological outcomes. The Prescribed Burning Atlas will help our fire and land managers to tailor their prescribed burning strategies to best reduce the risk in a target area, showing what is most effective and where it has limited value,” Dr Bates said.
The Atlas incorporates thousands of fire simulations across varied landscapes and under different weather conditions, with the research behind it headed up by Prof Ross Bradstock at the University of Wollongong.
Commissioner Fitzsimmons has also been asked a bit about prescribed burning – also known as hazard-reduction fires, or controlled burns – and their effectiveness during the past extreme season.
As to how and when to conduct fuel-reduction burns, Mr Fitzsimmons said agencies had to make "dynamic" assesments at the local level.
"What we did find during this season, given the conditions, was that the effect of mitigation and hazard reduction, particularly where we were operating in severe extreme and catastrophic weather conditions, their effectiveness dissipates the higher up the fire danger rating," he said.
"So generally speaking, the most effective hazard reduction activity, particularly burnt area, is at its best within 12 months to two years [prior to the bushfire] and then in those more severe and extreme and catastrophic conditions, it really dissipates thereafter," Mr Fitzsimmons said. "[W]e saw a lot of these fires burning through areas that were only burnt or hazard reduced in recent years."
"But when the conditions weren't up at that upper end of the rating area, then obviously hazard reduction and other mitigants have a much more effective [result] when it comes to suppression options and slowing fire behaviour and fire intensity down."
While we noted that Gary Worboys, the NSW Police Deputy Commissioner, has no fewer than six water bottles to slake his thirst, the discussion has moved on to an interesting issue - what is Resilience NSW (and how did Shane Fitzsimmons come to head it)?
For context, Commissioner Fitzsimmons' shift to the new role after such a monster fire season, had raised a few eyebrows. As noted on Monday at the royal commission, Resilience NSW was formerly the Office of Emergency Management, and sat within the Justice Ministry. After its re-badging, it was moved to report directly to the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Commissioner Fitzsimmons said the new agency was "certainly more than just a re-branding", but it remains "a bit of a work in process".
"[T]here is an absolute emphasis on leading the state's recovery, rebuilding and healing efforts after disasters and preparing for the state in terms of planning instruments and coordination [of] events."
It has, though, a broader policy coordination role across emergency organisations, "particularly around policy development formulation, business cases and investment which is akin to leading the board of [emergency agency] commissioners", Mr Fitzsimmons said, noting that he now serves as chair of that board.
"[I]n recognition of the unprecedented nature of this season, so too does that follow that there is an unprecedented and unparalleled level of response assistance to the recovery rebuilding and healing," he added.
The Bushfire Royal Commission will examine state government plans to cope with the challenges from coronavirus.
Senior counsel assisting the inquiry Dominique Hogan-Doran said in her opening statement the commission would quiz state governments on how they will overcome the challenges from COVID restrictions in their preparations for the fire season, which will have started by September in NSW, and in their firefighting plans into the future.
Ms Hogan Doran said COVID “may well impact the assistance able to be provided by international and even interstate deployments of personnel and assets”.
Australia drew on a record breaking 1000 overseas firefighters during the Black Summer.
Alternating between fire seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres each year Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada exchange hundreds of firefighters and operational workers as well as an international fleet of 150 public and privately owned water-bombing and spotter planes.
In June, Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) chief executive Stuart Ellis told the commission bushfire-fighting efforts are being frustrated by the lack of an overarching national system to decide where firefighters, water-bombing aircraft and other resources are deployed during emergencies.
Social distancing restrictions had impeded some hazard reduction activities over winter, NSW and Victorian fire services said in April.
Shane Fitzsimmons (who took the oath, not the affirmation) had led off his evidence as a witness with details of extra efforts the Rural Fire Service took as the scale of the coming fire season became evident.
Extra fire aircraft, for one thing, led to more than 2500 "aircraft taskings" to support those on the ground.
Commissioner Fitzsimmons, though, sought to highlight how the season was like nothing agencies had seen before.
"We saw an area burnt across New South Wales like we haven't seen before, particularly across the forested areas and we saw a protracted nature of the fire season without any meaningful interruption from weather", such as the traditional arrival of fronts bringing showers and rain and giving fire crews a break.
When fronts did arrive, though, they brought "significant dry lightning, dry-lightning storms and considerable new ignitions at any one time".