royalcommission.vic.gov.auroyalcommission.vic.gov.au/getdoc/09bada09-cda6-42f0-b720-2893… · 12714 __________________________________________________________ TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

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__________________________________________________________

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS__________________________________________________________

The attached transcript, while an accurate recording of

evidence given in the course of the hearing day, is not

proofread prior to circulation and thus may contain minor

errors.

2009 VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES ROYAL COMMISSION

MELBOURNE

WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER 2009(92nd day of hearing)

BEFORE:

THE HONOURABLE B. TEAGUE AO - ChairmanMR R. MCLEOD AM - CommissionerMS S. PASCOE AM - Commissioner

__________________________________________________________CRS WORDWAVE PTY LTD - A MERRILL COMPANY.4/190 Queen Street, Melbourne. Telephone: 9602 1799

Facsimile: 9642 5185

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.Wordwave:MB/SK 09/12/09 MS DOYLEBushfires Royal Commission

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MS DOYLE: Commissioners, over the next day and a half wepropose to adduce evidence in relation to the Bunyip fire.I won't make a full opening but just some remarks in orderto orientate you and the parties in terms of where we aregoing and some of the main themes to emerge in relation tothis fire.

One of the steps that has been taken in an effortto ensure we are efficient in the next day and a half isthat I have had prepared an aide memoire chronology. Itis not yet in a form or of a status where I seek to tenderit, although I'm likely to do that in the next day or so,as it is possible some matters will emerge in the evidencewhich will then require amendment to the chronology. Butparties have been provided or are about to be providedwith it and I ask them to treat it with that status, asessentially an aide memoire.

What it does is pull together a number of themajor facts and matters that emerge in statements,documents, situation reports and other materials relevantto this fire. That will hopefully assist in shorteningthe way in which evidence is presented over the next dayand a half.

The Bunyip fire ran over a number of days andindeed there were a number of Bunyip Park fires. Theprincipal fire with which we are concerned is the BunyipRidge track fire, which is sometimes referred to in thedocument as fire number 47. That fire ultimatelydestroyed 24 houses and ran 26,200 hectares. The manyfires in the park appear to have been principally startedby lightning strikes from 2 February onwards. The firstreport of this particular fire appears to be 4 February.

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The fire itself has a number of phases, aspectsand modes of control. The Bunyip Ridge track fire or firenumber 47 started on the 4th about five kilometresnorth-east of Tonimbuk in the park. The next phase of thefire runs from about 5 February in the morning through tothe night shift of the 6th. During the day on the 5th youwill hear evidence that there was a burning out orburn-out operation undertaken and that in the afternoonthere was a spot-over, or sometimes referred to as aslop-over, over one of the containment lines, and some ofthe evidence will be focused on those events.

The next phase of the fire runs from 6 Februaryin the evening through to the morning of the 7th. Theprincipal event during that phase of the fire includes thefact that it escaped containment lines at about 3 am onthe morning of the 7th.

The next phase of the fire sees it run outside ofthe Bunyip Park and by lunchtime onto private land,including grasslands and farming lands. The final run ofthe fire is that which it took after the wind change on7 February after 6 pm and includes the impact it had oncommunities including Labertouche, Jindivick, Longwarryand Drouin.

In a way, the tale of the Bunyip fire or firenumber 47 is a tale of two fires. It operated between 4February and the morning of 7 February, much like atraditional campaign fire in the park run by DSE and ParksVictoria employees. On the 7th, after it escaped thepark, it has many features which are familiar and similarto the other fires about which you have already heard

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evidence, namely fast moving, destructive and consuminglarge tracts of private land.

It is also a tale of two incident controlcentres, or ultimately three in fact. The fire wasinitially run from the Belgrave incident control centreand shifted to Pakenham on the 5th. After the main run ofthe fire it shifted on another occasion to the Noojee ICC.

It is also a tale of three incident controllers.Mr Nugent will give evidence. He worked on day shift onthe key days. He is a Parks Victoria employee.Mr Hardman will give evidence. He worked night shift onthe key evenings. He is also a Parks Victoria employee.Mr Smith from the CFA was the incident controller for muchof the time during daylight hours on the 7th. He willgive evidence as to the planning he engaged in prior tothe fire encroaching on private land and the suppressionefforts on the 7th which were principally then taken up bythe CFA.

The themes which emerge from this fire are manybut they include the following: was the burn-out activityon the 5th and/or the diversion of resources to deal withit a cause of the spot over which occurred in theafternoon of the 5th; was the strategy of buildingcontainment lines throughout the 4th, 5th and 6thsufficient; was aerial bombing sufficient. The planning,the predictions and the work that went into constructingthe IMT and its plans appears to have been exemplary.There will be evidence that there were multiple incidentshift plans prepared, liaison with the IECC continuouslyand a great deal of effort put into anticipating theimpact on communities.

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That said, there will need to be a considerationof the circumstances in which the fire escaped containmentlines at about 3 am on the 7th and that will raisequestions, including the nature of the efforts in terms ofcontainment lines and aerial bombing before and after thatevent.

Another feature of this fire is that, in part,because of the time that was available to prepare, therewere a number of community meetings held and a veryrigorous process adopted of pre-drafting and planning therelease of messages to the community. You will hearevidence from a number of people, both on the operationalside, CFA and DSE, and members of the community whoattended these town meetings and the different messagessome of them discerned from the material given there.

You will also hear evidence about the evacuationof vulnerable residents and patients at the NeerimHospital and the Hillview Bunyip Aged Care Centre.Mr Hoff, the CEO of those medical centres, will giveevidence about the steps taken to evacuate elderly,vulnerable patients.

You will hear from lay witnesses. Ms Buntinewill give evidence about the loss of her home inLabertouche. Mr Linklater will give evidence about lossof and damage to his considerable farming assets in thearea. Mr Ahern, a volunteer firefighter, will speak tohis experiences during the day, including the firefight atthe Glen Cromie caravan park. You will hear accounts,especially through that of Mr Smith, of the firefightingefforts on the 7th, including reports he has from a sectorcommander of the need to defend Labertouche Hall in which

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frightened residents and the injured were sheltering.I have a number of documents that I seek to

tender to provide some background and a framework,Commissioners. They have been provided in the form of atender bundle. The folder contains a number of documentswith an index. It is probably just as simple to tender itall in one. Just to explain the contents, there is ananalysis of the situation reports relevant to this fire inthe form of a chart prepared by us.

I do need to make one amendment to that document.It is behind tab 1 in the tender bundle. There is areference to the situation report for 5 February on page 2at 1428. It erroneously refers to CFA resources in thepersonnel attending column. That reference to "CFA" atthe bottom of page 2 should read "DSE". With thatamendment, what the chart does is provide a summary of allthe hard copy situation reports which sit behind it.

We then have in the next tab a fire investigationreport and a copy of an operations plan developed indetail by the CFA working with the DSE incident managementteam. There is also two fire spread prediction reportsprepared by the IECC fire behaviour team. There are thenchronologies that draw together all of the material onwarnings and media relevant to this fire behind tabs 4 and5. There is then a stand-alone document, which is aPowerPoint presentation pertaining to this fire; behindtab 7 a number of maps; and behind tab 8 a selection ofthe debriefs relevant to this fire.

What I seek to do first with that amendment tothe situation report summary is tender all the material inthe tender bundle folder at tabs 1 to 8 inclusive.

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#EXHIBIT 582 - Tender bundle folder relating to Bunyip fire.Tabs 1 to 8. (INDX.524.001.0001).

MS DOYLE: Separately I then seek to tender a report from theBushfire CRC titled "Research response, Royal Commissionreport September 2009". It traverses a number of fires,including Bunyip and Narre Warren. The Narre Warrensection will be relevant to tomorrow's evidence. Thatdocument is at (CRC.301.001.0001). I seek to tender thatreport.

#EXHIBIT 583 - Report from the Bushfire CRC titled "Researchresponse, Royal Commission report September 2009"(CRC.301.001.0001) to (CRC.301.001.0103).

MS DOYLE: I note for the Commission's convenience and for theparties that at page 56 onwards there is a considerationin that report of the Bunyip fire. It recounts matters,including a number of interviews that were undertaken withresidents of Jindivick and Labertouche. It provides ahelpful summary of the lie of the land, the type oflandscape, the type of communities who reside in the areaand interestingly suggests that, in light of theinterviews that were undertaken with residents, there wasa different perception of risk or understanding of therisk of fire as between residents of Jindivick and thosein Labertouche who had previously regarded their area asnot so fire-prone. So, those sections there deal withthat question of community or human behaviour during fire.

The way in which the evidence will proceed, ifthe Commission pleases, is that first we will hear fromeach of the incident controllers I have mentioned andMr Nugent will also present the STAR Tool in relation tothe fire. After working our way through the three

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.Wordwave:MB/SK 09/12/09 NUGENT XNBushfires Royal Commission BY MS DOYLE

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incident controllers and today's lay witness, we will alsohear from the strike team leader, Mr Patrick.

Tomorrow we propose to complete the operationalevidence by hearing from Mr Owen, who is in the region,and there will then be a need to tender a number of theother emergency management style statements from VictoriaPolice members and the MEROs. But we will also hear asequence of evidence pertaining to the evacuationI mentioned. The evidence of Mr Hoff, Mr Halligan andMr Wright deals with the particular issues and problemsthat arose when it was sought to evacuate from the NeerimHospital and the Bunyip aged care home. There is anotherlay witness, Mr Linklater, who will also give evidencetomorrow. The final lay witness in this scheme willactually give his evidence on Friday.

I start then with the evidence of Mr Nugent andI will have him confirm a number of matters in hisstatement before we go to the STAR Tool and then resumewith his statement.

CHAIRMAN: Yes. Thank you.<DAVID ANDREW NUGENT, affirmed and examined:MS DOYLE: Your full name is David Andrew Nugent?---That's

correct.You have been an employee of Parks Victoria for some

23 years?---That's correct.You explain in the first few paragraphs of your statement some

of your experience. We will go to that in a moment.I understand you want to make two small corrections topart of the text. The first is at paragraph 32?---That'scorrect.

In that paragraph you want to add - is it after the first

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sentence where it says "either contained or undercontrol", you want to add an explanation that the BunyipRidge fire was contained at 6 am?---That's correct.

So perhaps it might read best if we say, "On the morning of5 February 2009 all fires in the Bunyip State Park, asidefrom the Bunyip Ridge fire which was contained at 6 am,were either contained or under control." Is that themeaning you mean?---Yes, that's fine. Thank you.

The other correction you want to make is at paragraph 41, whereyou want to delete a couple of words. In the second lineyou want to delete the words "jumped the Bunyip RidgeTrack and had", such that it will now read "that theBunyip Ridge fire had created a spot-over a shortdistance" et cetera?---That's correct. Thank you.

With those two amendments, are the contents of your statementtrue and correct?---They are.

Before we go to the STAR Tool, I just want to have you confirma couple of the preliminaries and explain a little to usabout the type of firefight that unfolded with this fire.You say in paragraph 10 that you were an accredited level3 incident controller in 2007. Did those qualificationsremain current as at February this year?---They did.

You explain in paragraph 11 you have been involved in a numberof fires and have a deal of experience in the area,including being in the role of incident controller in theGreat Alpine fires of 2003?---Correct.

And including a stint in the United States in 2006 learningabout United States fire management systems?---That'scorrect.

What part of the United States did you gain that experiencein?---That was in the north-west states of the

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United States in Idaho, Washington, in those states inthat part of America.

Was any of that training devoted in particular to the aspectsof forest fighting?---The work that we were looking at inthe United States was largely in forest firefighting,that's correct, in longer duration campaign fires thatthey encounter in that part of their country.

Did you notice any significant differences between either theway in which they fight fires or manage the suppression offires in forested areas and the way in which we doit?---There were differences. There were manysimilarities. Some of the differences relate to thevegetation, that they are dealing with mainly coniferousforests compared to our eucalypt forests over here, sothat in some ways changes the techniques that we have touse. The systems that are used in the United States arelargely parallel with our systems here and so theinterchange of how we operate was very easy as aconsequence of that.

The other fires and experience that you mention in paragraph11, has your involvement in both fire suppression and firemanagement been principally devoted to forestfires?---That's correct. In my career I have focusedlargely on public land management and as a consequence ofthat my fire experience has been in forest firefightingand also the use of fire as a management tool in themanagement of our parks and reserves and other forests inVictoria.

I'm sure some of this will come out in the STAR Tool, butbefore we go to that could you perhaps explain to theCommission the Bunyip State Park in terms of its

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vegetation, the ground fuels, the canopy fuels and thesort of issues that poses in terms of suppressionactivity?---Yes. Some of this detail will come out in theSTAR Tool, but Bunyip State Park has quite a variety ofvegetation and terrain types. It varies from areas thatwe might describe as swampy heath areas, which have quitea different vegetation type to some of the parts of thepark that are steeper in drier eucalypt forest and in factsome parts of the park grade into quite wet mountain ashforest as well, so the park has quite a complexcombination of different terrain and vegetation type.

What about the ground surface? Is there anything about eitherthe dampness or the boggy nature of the ground surfacethat poses particular difficulties?---Certainly in thoseareas that I mentioned that we might describe as heathyswamp areas, the trafficability of those can become anissue particularly for firefighting in what we mightdescribe as more normal years and many of those areas arevery wet and don't necessarily have the same firebehaviour characteristics as the drier forest types. Butin terms of trafficability, yes, some of those areas docreate problems in terms of access, particularly forlarger vehicles, for larger machinery and for larger firetankers, for example, where it is often not possible toget those vehicles across some of those more swampy areas.

So it sounds as though, from what you say, the swampy nature ofthe ground surface can lead to vehicles getting bogged.But in terms of the way in which the fuel behaves, doesthat promote a tendency of fuels, particularly ferns, tosmoulder in hotspots?---The nature of swampy areas, and wesometimes equate them to what we describe as peat as well,

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there are large amounts of organic matter in these swampyareas and they have different characteristics in terms offire behaviour. Often the fuels at that ground level,again in what we might describe as normal years, are quitedamp, quite wet. The above ground fuels often carry finefuels, particularly in things like tea-tree and some ofthe paperbarks, so when fire gets into that area it oftenneeds some wind event, but once it burns it burns veryvigorously and often with significant flame heights and socreates quite significant control difficulties when thatfire does get going in that particular vegetation type.

I understand what you say about the canopy and the higherfuels, but in terms of the ground my question was directedtowards an inquiry about whether there is a tendency withthis type of peat flooring or boggy flooring to promotesmouldering that might not be visible to the nakedeye?---Yes, that's correct. Again, if it is damp, firemay not be an issue to us, but in conditions like in thesummer last season a lot of those what I might describe asthat peaty-type fuel becomes available to burn, but it isnot always an obvious burning aspect, if you like. So, itcan be very difficult to identify where those hotspots, aswe describe them, are when we are undertaking blackout andpatrol operations along a control line that might havethat particular characteristic.

A hot spot left unchecked, is it possible that, if a wind gustcomes through, a hot spot left unchecked can then promotethe fire flaring into the canopy fuels and perhaps thenmoving out past the containment line?---Certainly in ourpatrol we will try and identify and put out all of thosehotspots, as we describe them, but in some fuel types like

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this one it can be difficult to identify those and if theconditions are correct and temperatures increase, windsincrease, there is the potential risk of that particularfuel type flaring up, if you like, and creating controlproblems.

A phrase I have heard in relation to this type of burningpattern is that the fire might burn in a cryptic way,namely hidden hotspots. Is that something you haveexperienced?---Certainly, yes. That's one way. AsI said, it is often difficult to identify all of thehotspots in a particular fuel type.

In terms of suppression activities, your statement and that ofthe other incident controller, Mr Hardman, emphasised thefact that the principal suppression method used in theearly days of this fire was the building of containmentlines. Can you explain to the Commission the differencebetween containment lines and control lines and explainthe way in which either or both of those were constructedinside the Bunyip Park?---A containment line or a controlline, they are often used interchangeably. Essentiallywhat they are describing is a strategy to put a mineralearth control line through the vegetation around theperimeter of a fire. That mineral earth line is designedto remove the fuel and so stop the progress of the firefrom outside its perimeter.

That's literally done with dozers?---There are generally twotechniques about construction of control or containmentlines. One is use of machinery, that's correct, in usingbulldozers of various size, depending on the stage of thefire and our strategy. The other technique is the use ofwhat we call a hand trail where that containment or

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control line is actually constructed by hand crews usingrake hoes, so using hand tools.

In terms of access into the Bunyip State Park, in order for DSEand Parks Victoria crew to arrive there and do the workthey did on the 5th and 6th, by way of example, how easyis it to get in there? What type of machinery or vehicledo you need to use?---That would depend on the locationyou are talking about, but largely in relation to theBunyip Ridge track fire, fire 47, the access to the fireitself was not necessarily problematic. It was accessaround the fire perimeter and how we were able to accessthat control line. That did become difficult for us inthe days that we were working to control that fire.

Is it the case, Mr Nugent, that there are insufficient, orthere were in February, insufficient north-south andeast-west access tracks in the park?---The containment ofthe fire did create difficulties because of its locationand it was running along a north-south ridge line. Notall of our fires are in locations where you have theperfect network of tracks and trails. This particularfire, as I said, was running on a ridge line where we hadthe use of a north-south track and because of the locationof the fire that did mean that we had to construct sometrails in, if you like, across that terrain, which in manycases was very steep at the northern end of the fire.

So during the firefight on the 5th and 6th some of yourresources were diverted to actually constructing theaccess trail?---I wouldn't describe it as constructing anaccess track. Our machines were working to construct thecontrol lines around the fire which then provided us withthe access for firefighters to black out and strengthen

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those control lines.There was at least one occasion where, as you have suggested

can happen, one of the dozer was bogged for a period oftime. Does that require other machinery to go in and pullit out or are crew able to do that themselves?---Generallyif a bulldozer is bogged it will need other machinery toremove it. It is my experience that that has happened inother fires and on this occasion it did happen as well andwe work as quickly as possible to get that machine back tobe able to utilise it again.

Mr Nugent, before we leave this topic, there is also asuggestion in the materials to be presented by one of thelay witnesses in this hearing that she saw on 4 February asemitrailer carrying a dozer into the area slid off theroad and had to be stationed there for some time prior tohelp arriving. Are you aware of that incident?---No,I wasn't aware of that incident.

I might ask now that we turn to the STAR Tool. I understandthat you are going to talk us through it. You can perhapsexplain to us at relevant points any issues in relation tovegetation or suppression as they come up while we arelooking at the spread of the fire?---Thank you. TodayI will describe the development and the spread of theBunyip Ridge track fire that started within Bunyip StatePark in early February this year. I will also describethe events leading up to the start of the fire. At thispoint I would like to acknowledge the significant lossesand the impacts of this fire on surrounding communities.The fire resulted in the destruction of 24 houses, 60 farmbuildings, six caravans, many stock losses, significantloss of stock feed, destruction of many kilometres of

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fencing and other equipment. I would also like torecognise the enormous effort of the firefighters incombating this major fire on and before 7 February.

Bunyip State Park is managed by Parks Victoriaand is located east of Melbourne and shown on the screen.Much like the rest of Victoria at the time, Bunyip StatePark was in a highly fire-prone state. Record long-termrainfall deficiencies and the recent effects ofexceptional heatwave conditions had left forest fuels in avery dry state. Many sheltered forest areas which arenormally too moist to burn were sufficiently dry to carryfires and large woody fuels were in a condition in whichthey could remain burning for days or weeks. These dryconditions substantially elevated the level of firesuppression difficulty.

I'm going to describe the fire in the fivephases, the first phase being the lightning activity on2 February up until the Bunyip track fire was contained onthe morning of 5 February at 6 am. The second phaseI will talk about will be the fire contained on themorning of 5 February to the start of the night shift on6 February; the third phase the start of the night shifton 6 February to the morning of the 7th; the fourth phase,the south-easterly run of the fire on February 7th; andthen the last and fifth phase, the run of the fire afterthe south-westerly change on 7 February.

Phase 1, 2 February up until the Bunyip trackfire was contained on the morning of 5 February at 6 am.Mid-morning on 2 February lightning activity occurredacross the Dandenongs and Bunyip State Park. From 11 am12 separate fires were reported by the Egg Rock fire tower

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in Bunyip State Park. Three of these sightings were notfound; however, the remaining nine were quickly locatedand successfully contained by firefighters withthe support and assistance from water bombing aircraftdirected by the air attack supervisor in a helicopter. Bythe end of the day crews had all of the fires containedwith patrol of these fires required in the following days.On the screen we can see the Egg Rock and Mount Beenakfire towers, along with the fires recorded as a result ofthe lightning activity.

On 3 February two new fires were reported fromthe Egg Rock fire tower. Crews again with aerial supportquickly located and successfully contained these fireswith only patrolling required the following day. Thelocations of these fires are also shown on the screen. Inthe afternoon of 4 February three more fires were reportedby the Egg Rock fire tower. There was some suspicionabout the cause of these three fires. It is possible thatthese fires were the result of the lightning strikes onFebruary 2nd. It is not unusual for fires to appear somedays after lightning activity as fuels become available toburn in the subsequent drying cycle. However, fireinvestigations were initiated for these three fires in anattempt to determine the cause of ignition. The cause ofthese fires was unable to be clearly established.

Two of the fires were quickly contained byfirefighters, with the third being the focus of today'spresentation, the Bunyip Ridge track fire. The point oforigin of the Bunyip Ridge track fire is shown on thescreen. This and other fires that started earlier in theweek were initially managed from the incident control

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centre at Belgrave. The ICC was moved to Pakenham at thecommencement of the day shift on 5 February. This ICC wasbetter located and better equipped to manage the activefire and plan for a potential run of the fire intocommunities south of Bunyip State Park. These towns inrelation to the Bunyip State Park are shown on the screen.

The Bunyip Ridge track fire was reported to DSEaround 3 pm on February 4th. The fire had ignited inriparian vegetation dominated by paperbark and tea-treelocated within a broad swampy area. The swamp area wasbounded by Harold Creek on the western side and an unknowndrainage line on the eastern side. The vegetation at thecentre of the drainage line included grass and coral fernunderstorey and then it changed to the eucalypt forest onthe adjoining slopes.

Paperbark and tea-tree vegetation found in thedrainage line typically consist of a large amount of finefuels above a moist ground layer. When this vegetationtype burns, it burns quickly and explosively with theentire tree alight, with flames found well above the topsof the trees. Wind interacting with the fine elevatedvegetation can move rapidly in this vegetation class,burning all of the available fuels. An example of thistype of vegetation is shown on the screen.

Access to the Bunyip Ridge fire is via dirtforest roads. From Gembrook, access is generally alongBlack Snake Creek Road or alternatively north fromTonimbuk along Towt Road and then onto Bunyip Ridge Trackwhich is trafficable by four-wheel-drive vehicles. Thefirst crews arrived at the fire around 40 minutes afterthe fire was spotted. By this time they observed the fire

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burning vigorously on both sides of the Bunyip Ridge Trackin the paperbark and tea-tree dominated swamp with flameheights around four to five metres. This meant the firewas beyond the capacity of first attack crews to containthe fire quickly.

After giving an initial report, the first attackcrew strategy was to restrict the growth of the fire asmuch as possible. They requested the deployment ofearthmoving equipment, bulldozers, to establish a mineralearth control line around the fire perimeter. Theestablishment of a mineral earth break around the fire isa standard technique in combating forest fires. Normallythis line is constructed as close as possible to thefire's edge and trafficable by light firefightingvehicles, providing their access and limiting the spreadof the fire. To assist crews construct this line a D4bulldozer arrived at approximately 8.30 pm with a second,larger D6 bulldozer arriving around 9 pm.

Crews that afternoon were also supported byaerial water bombing undertaken by two helicopters, one ofthose being an air-crane. This was effective in limitingthe fire spread on the eastern flank but could not stopthe fire making a rapid crowning run through the paperbarkvegetation in that swampy area. Fire crews supported bybulldozers worked throughout the night of 4 February toestablish the control line around the fire. This requiredconstructing a section of hand line approximately60 metres in length through a broad untrafficable gully,which was Harold Creek that I mentioned earlier. This wasbeside a section of line constructed by the smaller D4bulldozer, which was also not trafficable by

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four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is located in that swampyarea in which the surface could not support the weight ofa four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Mr Nugent, could I just ask you to explain, while that pictureis there, the hand line you just referred to. Is thatdepicted by the red line across the top?---Yes, Ms Doyle.I will get to that in a second. It will help explain whatwe are looking at on the screen. At 6 am on the 5th thefire was declared as contained, meaning that a track orcontrol line had surrounded the fire but active flame andunburnt vegetation still existed within the boundary. Atthis stage we estimated the fire around 12 hectares. Itwas later measured and the actual area was around32 hectares with a perimeter of two and a half kilometresin length.

On the screen now we can see the control linearound the fire. The aqua-coloured line depicts thedriveable sections of the control line by smallfour-wheel-drive vehicles. The red line depicts the dozerline across that swampy area which was not trafficable byvehicles and that small section of dark blue line depictsthe hand tool line. The shaded area denotes the extent ofthe burnt areas within the control line. The brown shadedarea denotes the location of the burning-out operationcarried out later in the day, which I will talk aboutlater in the presentation. That concludes phase 1 of thefire.

Before we leave phase 1, can I ask you to clarify. You saidyou estimated the size of the fire at 12 hectares andindeed all relevant situation reports provide that figure,as did the DSE website at the time. Do we take it from

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your evidence that as at the 5th, as events wereunfolding, the best estimate was the size was 12hectares?---That's correct. That's what we were workingon at that time.

But you say that later it has now been able to be establishedthat during that part of the run of the fire it was infact 32 hectares?---Correct.

Is there any explanation for the difference in the way in whichsizes were estimated and then ultimately measured?---It isnot unusual that our measurements following an initialestimate do change. We are able to access more accuratemapping techniques that do amend an earlier estimate thatis often determined quite quickly.

Would it be the case that the estimates you were working fromwere worked out based on ground observations combined withaerial observations?---Correct.

Did you want to move to the next phase?---Thank you. Phase 2,this is when the fire was contained on the morning of5 February to the start of the night shift on 6 February.Early in the morning of 5 February firefighters continuedto black out the fire and consolidate control lines. Oneof the tasks in consolidating the control line is toidentify weak points along the line such as areas ofunburnt vegetation. As a result, the divisional commandersought and gained my permission to burn out small patchesof unburnt vegetation inside the northern section of thecontrol line. Burning-out operations would strengthen andconsolidate the control line and reduce the probability ofthese areas of vegetation igniting later in the day, whichcould then potentially make a run towards and cross thecontrol lines. The burning-out operation commenced around

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11 am. The operation was carried out slowly and carefullyin a westerly direction from Harold Creek. Atapproximately 1.45 pm it is believed the fire reignitedinside the control line on the eastern side of the swampyarea in paperbark vegetation. Under the influence of thesouth to south-west winds the fire then jumped the controlline. The escape was discovered by the eastern sectorcommander who observed the fire crown quickly, moving awayto the north through dense paperbark vegetation. It thenmoved into the eucalypt forest and commenced runninguphill in a north-easterly direction towards Bunyip RidgeTrack which is shown on the screen there.

There has been some conjecture about the spotfireoriginating from the burning-out operation. The map onthe screen shows a clear separation of this location ofthe spot-over from the burning-out operation. Theseparation distance is approximately 160 metres.

Can I ask you while we have that picture there, Mr Nugent, doyou know whether there were any crew located at the spotwhere the red arrow is, namely the spot where the escapeoccurred at about 1.45? How many crew were located thereat the time?---We had crew patrolling that section of thefire and, as I mentioned, the sector commander actuallyidentified the spot-over. To my knowledge we had aroundthree slip-on vehicles and their crews operating on thatsection of the control line.

Thank you?---Additional aerial support was dispatched to thefire, resulting in two medium water bombing helicopters,two air-cranes, along with a light helicopter containingthe air attack supervisor. These along with threebulldozers and ground crews all continued combating the

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fire. High fuel loads and unfavourable weather conditionsresulted in intense fire behaviour. Frequent spotting wasexperienced as control lines were being constructed andthe steep and difficult terrain hampered suppressionactivities and access. Photo taken by a firefighter showsan example of a steep section of mineral earth controlline that was too steep to drive firefighting vehicles.Crews had to walk these sections of the control line.

By the end of February 5th the fire was around140 hectares in size. On the screen we can see the 3.15pm and the 5.26 pm on February 5th spread lines. The firehad crossed Bunyip Ridge Track and was backing downtowards the nearby gully line along an uncontained flankof around 1.5 kilometres in length. A new western flankof similar length also required containment and the headof the fire was within steep gullies containing largeamounts of long unburnt fuels. The average spread ratethrough that afternoon was around 0.5 kilometres an hour.

On the screen we can see a photo taken by the airattack supervisor. In the photo we can see the fire hadcrossed Bunyip Ridge Track, along with the location of theorigin of the fire in the background to the left of thescreen.

On February 6th firefighting crews were presentedwith significant challenges in relation to consolidating,constructing and holding control lines in thedeteriorating weather. Spotting outside these linesexperienced overnight increased throughout the day,requiring crews to establish more control lines as theyattempted to contain these escapes. The overall strategywas to contain the fire as quickly as possible, limiting

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the fire extent. Later on that day fire bombers also laidretardant lines on the eastern side of the fire as part ofour strategy to consolidate the control lines inanticipation of the extreme weather expected onFebruary 7th.

In addition to implementing the fire controlstrategies, significant effort was being put into planningto inform and protect communities south of the forest areain anticipation of the extreme weather forecast onFebruary 7th. An operations plan was prepared whichfocused on the identification of communities and assetsand the allocation of resources to the protection of theseareas. The plan included three trigger points. In fact,the plan included five trigger points, of which three werethe major focus of the plan, with specific actions to beundertaken when the fire reached these points. The firsttrigger point was when the fire reached the high voltagepowerline. Trigger point 2 was when the fire moved acrossthe public/private land boundary. At this point controlof the fire would be handed to the CFA. The third triggerpoint would be when the fire moved across the PrincesFreeway. Firefighting resources were to be deployed tovarious locations upon fire reaching any of these triggerpoints.

The incident management team also planned for andprovided information through media releases, communityupdates and community meetings to ensure the community waswell prepared for Saturday February 7th.

On the screen we can see the development of thefire by the 12 midday line scan for 6 February. Alsoshown on the screen are the control lines as they were at

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6 pm that evening. At this stage 250 metres stillremained to be constructed. This line is depicted inorange. The red line depicts the tracked areas, althoughnot all of this section was driveable due to the steep anddifficult terrain. Crews working in untrafficablesections had to suppress and control the fire on foot.The yellow line indicates the containment line that hadbeen constructed on the night of February 4th.

By the end of the day of February 6th a controlline had been constructed around the fire. However, therewas still significant work needed to strengthen thatcontrol line. This concludes phase 2.

Phase 3 is the start of the night shift onFebruary 6th to the morning of February 7th. Firefighterssupported by bulldozers continued to widen control linesand undertake blacking out operations during the night.This operation was hampered by steep and rocky terrainlimiting access, with the establishment of control linesslow and difficult. The fire behaviour was erratic andcombining with higher fuel loads, increasing winds and thedry and flammable vegetation type, fire suppression wasdifficult.

That night crews on the fire line recordedweather conditions normally associated with daytimereadings. For example, at 3 am the temperature was31 degrees, the relative humidity was 32 per cent and thewinds were blowing 5 kilometres per hour from thenorth-west gusting up to 15 kilometres per hour.

Vegetation is an important factor firefightersneed to consider when fighting fires. Loose fibrous barkon species of eucalypt such as messmate and brown

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stringybark are found throughout Bunyip State Park. Thesespecies provide a perfect environment for fire to climbthe trunk of the tree and its branches. As a result shortdistance spotting was occurring increasingly throughoutthe night, spotting over control lines. This can bedemonstrated by the image on the screen. This photo wastaken on the night of the 6th by one of the firefighterson the fire line. I would like you to note the fireclimbing up the trees close to the control line.

Late in the night and early in the morningnorth-westerly wind gusts were observed on the fireground.As a result multiple spot-overs occurred towards the eastwith increasing erratic fire behaviour and reported flameheights of five to 10 metres. Around 3 am on the morningof February 7th the divisional commander received updatedinformation from the incident control centre that theweather conditions were forecast to deteriorate, a troughwas moving across Melbourne, with south-west wind gusts to55 kilometres per hour. This had the potential to pusheast towards Bunyip before dawn.

This also backed up information the divisionalcommander obtained at the start of the night shift in theincident action plan, or the incident shift plan. Thedivisional commander monitored the weather conditionsclose to the fire. With the potential of the expectedwind change to further increase fire behaviour, crewsafety would be at significant risk. As a consequence, ataround 4 am fire crews were withdrawn from the fire edge.

Later in the night as the fire activity increasedfurther, fire crossed the control line to the east.Interpreting the 9 am line scan on February 7th, we can

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see this escape on the screen, where the red arrow is onthe screen there. Daylight allowed air support to return.The strategy was to limit the spread of the fire as muchas possible using aircraft alone, as it was determinedthat firefighters would significantly be at risk if theyreturned to directly fight the fire. Water bombingaircraft dropped lines of retardant in front of the fireas directed by the air attack supervisor. The aim of theretardant drops is to create a wet line, in turn reducingthe spread of the fire. They focused on the weak pointsidentified by the night crews. This operation wasintended to delay the spread of the fire for as long aspossible.

The photo taken by the air attack supervisor ataround 10.30 am on that morning of February 7th shows thefire activity at the location of the earlier escapedescribed previously and shown in that previous line scan.You can see in the photo the red retardant dropping from afixed wing aircraft. This concludes phase 3.

Phase 4, the run of the fire on February 7thtowards the south-east. By 12 midday the weatherconditions had deteriorated further with temperatures inthe low 40s, winds up to 30 to 40 kilometres per hour,gusting to 60 kilometres per hour, blowing fromthe north-west, with the forest fire danger index at thatstage climbing to around 100. The fire activity increasedspotting across control lines in several locations.

From line scans taken on the day we can see thefast spread of the fire. On the screen we can see linescans captured at 12.17 pm and again five minutes later at12.22 pm. The deep red areas on the image depict high

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temperatures that indicate a current intense fireactivity. On the later line scan we can also see severalspotfires ahead of the main fire.

Similar to other significant fires in Victoria onFebruary 7th, large amounts of spotting contributed to thespeed and development of the fire. While some shortdistance spotfires were drawn back into the larger fire,other longer-distance spotfires propagated independentlyof the front of the main fire. The photo on the screencaptured by the air attack supervisor taken at about thesame time as the line scan shows the development of thefire at this stage. On the photo shown on the screen, inthe foreground you can see the initial burnt area wherethe fire started on February 4th, the original southerncontainment line and also Bunyip Ridge Track.

As the fire escaped control lines, in manylocations it spread rapidly under the influence of thestrong north-westerly wind, the fire quickly developinginto a crown fire. Large amounts of spotting occurredwith spotting up to four kilometres common. Waves ofspotting are shown now on the screen. These spots throughfire construction analysis are known to have occurred inthese locations.

One of the two air attack supervisors at the fireon February 7th took a photo of some of the resultingspotfires at around 12.30 pm and a second photo at around1 pm. You can see these on the screen. Also captured byone of the air attack supervisors was the following photoof a spotfire on the 7th. This spotfire occurred in anarea that was fuel reduced in 2004. On the photo we candetermine that the fuel reduction burn that was carried

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out must have been effective at reducing the bark hazardfound on the trees. We can ascertain this by seeing theremaining charring or blackness found on the stems of thesurrounding eucalypt trees as a result of the fuelreduction burn. However, we have not established at thisstage the influence that that fuel reduction burn had onthe fire development.

Fuel reduction burns that had occurred over thelast 10 years are shown on the screen. A photo fromthe air attack supervisor also shows the earlier spotfire.In the foreground, note a separate column of fire behind.This is likely to be another spotfire developing. Themain fire at this stage is to the left of that image. Ataround 1 pm on February 7th the fire reached trigger point2, being the public/private land boundary. At 1.35 pm theV/Line train line and the Princes Freeway eastbound wereclosed in accordance with the actions we had developed inthe operations plan. Control was formally handed over tothe CFA at 1.45 pm . Other actions that were implementedincluded relocation of nursing home residents at thatstage.

The fire was now burning quickly and erraticallythrough cleared farmland and bushland areas under extremeweather conditions with significant spotting occurring.We were now focusing on community protection as aircraftcontinued water bombing operations. CFA strike teams andDSE crews were now working under extreme conditions toprotect life and property as the fire spread rapidly underthe northerly wind. The photo taken by the air attacksupervisor around 1.30 pm shows a spotfire in the ruralland west of the Drouin golf club and is now shown on the

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screen. It is a little bit difficult to see, but thereare two farmers' utes on the scene potentially attemptingto suppress the fire. This is typical of the activity inthe rural lands on the day. Along with CFA and DSEfirefighters, individuals in the community were attemptingto suppress the many spotfires using whatever they could.

The next photo on the screen is from theHerald-Sun newspaper and shows a CFA tanker with the firein the background at around 1.30 pm. On the screen now isthe 2.30 pm line scan showing the spread and extent of thefire around mid-afternoon on February 7th, including wavesof spotfires recorded up to 16 kilometres ahead of themain firefront in the direction of Drouin and thesurrounding communities.

A photo taken by the air attack supervisor showsthe large convection column and spotting activity on thenorth-eastern flank shown on the screen. On the screennow we can see the 4 pm spread line. Once again, largespotting contributed to the spread and development of thefire. Spotting has been determined to have occurred ataround 3 pm at Buln Buln and around 5 pm at Nilma, withspotting distances reaching up to around 25 to 30kilometres. This concludes phase 4.

Phase 5, run of the fire after the wind change.At around 6 pm the anticipated wind change had movedthrough the fire area. Shown on the screen is a line,along with a line showing the actual change location atboth 5 pm and then 6 pm. The fire before the change underthe influence of the north-westerly winds was 15kilometres long. The eastern flank of the fire became thehead fire and advanced towards the north-east after the

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change. This phase of the fire can now be shown on thescreen along with its associated spotting.

It is not uncommon for large fires to createtheir own weather systems, particularly in the front ofthe main fire. In the case of the Bunyip fire, lightningactivity generated was recorded in the Tarago and NeerimEast regions. However, it has not been ascertained if thelightning was a result of the Bunyip fire or from theMurrindindi fire that was also occurring to the north-eastof this fire. The lightning strikes are shown on thisscreen.

While the south-west change brought strong gustywinds later in the night, it also brought moister airbehind the change which helped to reduce the forest firedanger index and the overall fire behaviour allowingfirefighters to combat the fire directly. On the screenat around 1.30 pm on Sunday, February 8th, we can see theapproximate location of the fire.

The Bunyip fire burnt an area of over26,000 hectares and was formally declared safe at 2.35 pmon 15 May . A total of 130 kilometres of control lineswere built and the fire perimeter was around 167kilometres. On the screen we can see the final area shownby the red line. That concludes the presentation.

Thank you, Mr Nugent. Having completed the presentation, I nowseek to tender Mr Nugent's statement with the STAR Toolpresentation.

#EXHIBIT 584 - Witness statement of David Andrew Nugent dated6 November 2009 and attachments (WIT.3024.004.0268).Star Tool presentation (Google Earth) (EXH.584.001.0001).

MS DOYLE: Mr Nugent, before we return to some of the detail of

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the suppression activity, I want to ask you whether youare familiar with a bundle of slides which appear to inpart overlap with some of the material you have just shownus. This is in the tender bundle at tab 6. It will comeup on the screen for you. It starts at page(DSE.HDD.0070.0001). This is a slide presentation behindtab 6 in the tender bundle. First of all, I'm not surewhether you are familiar with it. This seems to besomething prepared for the purposes of fire training byDSE if you look at the notation on the bottom. You mayneed to see a couple more slides to orientate yourself,but is this a document that you have seen before?---No.

Although this picture looks like the spotfire picture that youpresented in terms of a spot seen on the 7th?---It looksfamiliar. It looks similar to the picture that was in thepresentation.

I will just ask you about a couple of pages in it. If we canmove to page 0004, this seems to be a different way ofdepicting something you have just drawn our attention to,namely the size of the fire at the time it was containedat 6 am on 5 February. Do you see that?---Yes.

The point of interest in these slides is that there are morephotos that allow us to look at the different types offuel. So I will ask you to comment on a couple of those.If we can go to page 0006, this is a photo said to betaken within the park on 5 February. You probably can'ttell which track it is, but is that typical of the typesof narrower tracks that crew were navigating during thesuppression effort?---Yes, it does look typical of a trackthat we would have to use; correct.

Can I take you to slide 9 in the materials. I want to ask you

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about this because it seems to differ from yourunderstanding of the escape on the 5th. This states, "Thefire escaped in the gully crossing. Control line only onedozer blade wide in tea-tree scrub. Fire noticedtrickling around prior to escape. Crew were refillingSOU" - presumably that's slip-on unit - "at time ofescape. No dozer or operator on site." You havepreviously explained to me your understanding was thesector commander and three slip-on units were present atthe point of escape. This seems to be presenting adifferent picture in these training materials. Are youable to explain that difference?---No, I can't explain thedifference. My understanding and knowledge is asI described to you earlier.

Can I ask you that you be shown slide - a number of these seemto pick up on the scans you have shown us. Perhaps if wemove to slide 28. Again, it seems quite similar to thematerial you have provided in terms of the forest fuels inthe area. Is that typical of the types of ferns and othervegetation that one sees in the park?---It is difficult todetermine where that might be but generally, yes, I wouldmake the observation that that could be typical of thefuel in that area.

The contrast I want to draw to your attention is the othermaterial that is available here about the grass fuelsoutside of the park. Can we go to slide 0031. We don'tknow who took this photo, but it indicates that it isdepicting the grass fuels in Jindivick East. I don't knowhow familiar you are with the area outside of the park,but this says it was taken on the 6th and seems to showrelatively dry grass and obviously some residences and

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farming area. Are you familiar with this part of the firepath?---Generally familiar with that area. I wouldperhaps make the comment that there was a combination ofpasture types in that area at the time. To my knowledgethere were different farming practices in place that mighthave had an influence on the amount of grass fuel and thelevel of curing of that grass in those locations.

Would it be your expectation or understanding that the CFA maypossess more knowledge in terms of the grass fuels and therates of curing in those surrounding areas?---That'scorrect. The CFA have extensive and very good knowledgeabout the movement of fires through that type of opencountry.

For completeness, can we look at the next one, 32, which issaid to be from the 6th but in Labertouche this time,again slightly different terrain but seems to be a pictureof that area which depicts the grass area and farminglands. Are you familiar with that area aroundLabertouche?---Again, not in detail. If the slide islabelled as Labertouche, I would accept that.

I take you then forward. There are a number of line scans andother pictures that are similar to the ones you havealready taken us through. But slide 48 is in a differentform and it is the Modis satellite imagery from 3.55.Have you had access to or have you had regard to thesesorts of material including the satellite imagery in orderto gain an understanding of the fire?---Yes, I have seenthis type of imagery.

This one says it is 3.55 pm on the 7th. Presumably the darkerred centre is the earlier burn and the lighter pink colouris the path of the fire on the 7th; is that the correct

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way to understand this?---That's how I would interpretthat, that's right. It shows at that stage of theafternoon the fire had been running for two or three hoursat that stage, so the lighter pink area would indicatewhere the fire is running.

Slide 81, just as a matter of interest, shows the extreme firebehaviour at Tonimbuk. I'm not suggesting for a momentyou were there or should be aware of this event, but thatseems to depict extreme fire behaviour by the time thefire reaches Tonimbuk?---That's not inconsistent with thedescription that had been provided to me by people on thefireground.

I want to ask you to look at slide 91, which presents materialin a different format. This says that it is providing anindication of the predicted path of the fire compared withthe actual path. It seems to be a composite of a numberof the prediction maps that were made available andprepared and then the actual path. Have you had a chanceto look at this map or something like it since thefire?---I haven't been able to analyse this particularmap, but I am certainly familiar with the predictive map,the predictive work that was done on 5 and 6 Februaryleading up to the fire's run on the 7th, and I'm familiarwith the final boundaries of the fire. So in that senseI have a familiarity with the two, yes.

There were a number of predictive maps prepared by the IMT andits different compositions and by the IECC. Each isdifferent. Each was done at a different time. But wouldit be fair to say that on the whole the predictions madeby the IMT were quite accurate? If one assumed the firewould run, and it did run, the predictions made were

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reasonably accurate in terms of the communities that wouldbe affected and the time at which they would beaffected?---Certainly the communities that were affected,yes. Our predictive work, as you say, was done bothwithin the IMT and supported by the IECC. All of thatwork at the end of the day was valuable for us in ourplanning for the fire and, yes, it did line up pretty wellwith the final fire run on the day.

Is there any community or area that in your view was affectedby the head fire or the spotfire at a time that was asurprise or beat the predictions, if I can put it thatway?---In my view, no. Generally the fire behaviour waspretty much in line with that predictive work.

In terms of the impact of the fire, I just want to direct yourattention to two slides. Slide 0100; not clear exactly,where but is this the sort of devastation that one sees inthe park after the fire went through?---Certainly I havehad the opportunity to fly over the fire area and thatparticular image is consistent with what I saw in theBunyip fire.

In comparison, the behaviour in the grassed areas, perhaps ifwe look at slide 112, there is a depiction there of thescorched tracts of land in the grasslands. Have you hadan opportunity to see that by aerial view or on theground?---Yes, as a said, from air and also from thatmapping that shows the final fire boundary, and that'sconsistent that there were areas of unburnt open pastureand also burnt areas of open pasture.

I want to take you to some other matters, the mattersprincipally explored in your statement. First of all, interms of the composition of the IMT in the early days of

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the fire it was a Parks Victoria/DSE team. You worked onthe day shift for I think it was 5th, 6th and7th?---That's correct; 5th through to the 9th. But, yes,5th, 6th, and 7th on the day shift, that's correct.

It seems from the material you have presented in your statementthat from the outset you had an eye to the risk that thisfire may cross the divide, it may go into private land andtherefore need to encompass working with the CFA?---Thereis no doubt that when I commenced my shift that we had theforecast for February 7th and that was certainly asignificant consideration in my analysis of the situation.

Is there any particular point at which this fire progressedfrom being a level 1 or 2 fire to a level 3 fire? Are youable to indicate to us whether that occurred formally orinformally at some stage?---My view in terms of managementof that fire, given its potential, was that we had a teamand appropriate resourcing in place with the eye on thatfire, if it wasn't early, developing into what we mightdescribe as a level 3 incident. So while in a technicalsense it may not have become what we might describe as alevel 3 incident until February 7th, certainly ourplanning, our preparation, our resourcing to control thosefires in the days leading up to February 7th was on thebasis that it was going to become a significant fire andwe treated it as such.

Throughout that period obviously you are a level 3 incidentcontroller, although my understanding is Mr Hardman wasnot?---I'm a level 3 incident controller; that's correct.Mr Hardman has significant experience as an incidentcontroller. At that point in time he was an accreditedlevel 2 incident controller.

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You mentioned 7 February. Was there an official time at whichthe designation level 3 was given to the fire?---I'm notaware of an exact time. As I say, there might be somediscussion around technically when it might have turned toa level 3 and you might describe that when it took itsrun. But I go back to the point from my perspective asthe incident controller that wasn't a consideration frommy view. The major focus from my point of view was itspotential and all of the planning, preparation withthe community up to February 7th and our attempts toensure that we contained, controlled that fire as much aspossible leading up to February 7th.

Would it be fair to say, Mr Nugent, whatever it was formallyknown as or described as in any other document, youtreated it and resourced it and planned for it as a level3 fire from the outset?---Yes.

You initially set up an ICC at Belgrave and you explain in yourstatement that that's in fact in the CFA fire station, andthen moved to Pakenham on the morning of the 5th. Itappears from your statement you regard the facilities atPakenham as superior. What was available at Pakenham andwhat made it superior to Belgrave?---The facility atPakenham is a much newer facility. It is a larger area tooperate within. In effect it had been purpose-built foremergency management incidents like this.

Is it a CFA facility?---It is a CFA facility in a jointemergency management facility, if you like. There areother emergency organisations there as well.

What sort of IT system or equipment is made available there forthe IMT?---The IT system was operating - during the daysthat we were there, it operated sufficiently for us to

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manage the fire. The detail of what systems and networkswere there, I couldn't recall those to you. But, in termsof managing the incident, we had some challenges from timeto time but it didn't in my view take away or impact onour ability to manage the incident the way we needed to.

The challenge you refer to is in fact that the system crashedduring the day on the 7th, didn't it?---My understandingis that there were some difficulties with the CFA networkat that time, but I'm not aware of the detail of that. AsI said, from my point of view I didn't see that as havinga significant impact on how we actually managed theincident.

Mr Owens, the regional operations manager, is to give evidencetomorrow and he indicates in his statement that the systemcrashed with the result that it was necessary to haveemail and photographic observations from ground observerssent to the RECC and then read out over the phone to thePakenham ICC. Were you not aware of that on the7th?---No.

Is it possible then that the CFA system suffered some sort ofdeficit but that your Parks Victoria or DSE system wascontinuing to run? Is that the distinction you aremaking?---I'm not clear of the details. As I said, myunderstanding is that there were difficulties with the CFAsystem. The rest of our IT system allowed us to continueto operate as we needed to.

So you didn't experience any difficulty in receiving emails orelectronic information on the 7th?---Personally, no.

Did you have any difficulties obtaining ground observationreports?---At what time are you thinking?

During the time from 11 am onwards on the 7th?---We were

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continually receiving information. As you wouldappreciate, when the fire took its major run there wassignificant fire activity in a number of locations. Oneof our major tasks at that time is to understand where thefire is so we can help to adapt our strategies and getpeople in the right places. My recollection of that isthat we were receiving information. I'm not saying thatit was perfect. It is always a challenge to get the rightinformation from the fireground. But the plans that werein place and the information that was coming through didenable us to put in place the strategies that we hadpre-determined.

On the 5th and the 6th did you operate with an IMT that waspeopled by DSE and Parks Victoria employees alone; therewere no CFA members on those days?---No, there were CFApresent in the Pakenham ICC. The level of CFA operatingwithin the IMT, from my point of view, did increase as weworked towards February 7th. Certainly the very good workthat was undertaken as a part of the township protectionplanning or the operations plan was being undertakenwithin the Pakenham ICC. In my view, while that was aspecific piece of work, it was a part of the incidentmanagement. So the CFA people that were developing thatwere a part of the incident management as a whole.

If I can just tease out that a little. It seems from all ofthe materials that have been supplied in relation to thisfire that a slightly different model was adopted inplanning for this fire event; namely, that CFA experiencedpersonnel were briefed and were tasked with drawing up theoperational plan to which you have referred, but it was adeliberate decision not to have them fully integrate with

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your team until the fire crossed the divide into privateland on the 7th. Is that a fair summary of the overallscheme?---Certainly on Thursday, the 5th, and thenparticularly on the 6th that work on the operations planwas continuing as a specific project, if you like. Sothat team, without being involved directly in the rest ofthe firefight, if you like, was able to focus and preparefor what needed to be done leading into February 7th. Ifyou like, that was the planning exercise. The planningofficer working in the incident management team was awareof that work that was undertaken and from time to time wasinteracting with those people undertaking that work.

Because the tenor of Mr Smith, from the CFA, and Mr Owens'evidence is as follows: they thought it was best thatthe CFA concentrate and put a lot of effort intodeveloping township protection plans and working on whatwould need to be done in the communities that might beaffected on the 7th and remain fresh for the 7th ratherthan fully integrating with your team on the 6th. It alsoappears that there was a high degree of liaison betweenthe two teams but effectively running as two teams withthat liaison until the fire crossed. Again, is that afair summary?---Yes. The work that was being done, asI said, was a discrete project, if you like. But from mypoint of view as the incident controller I was well aware.Ivan and his team were actively keeping us informed ofthat work that was going on. But, as you say, thedistinction perhaps is that they were focusing on thatplanning and preparation for the 7th while the majority ofthe rest of the incident management team was focused ontrying to contain the Bunyip Ridge fire as much as we

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could leading into the 7th.That strategy, having your team focus on suppression and

management there and the CFA focus on what may happen ifthe fire breaches the park, was that successful andappropriate in your view?---Yes, I believe it wasappropriate and successful. In fact later during Februaryin other fires that I was involved with we used a similarmodel, if you like, where we have what we might describeas a strategic planning team operating as a discrete unitwithin the planning unit of the incident management team.It effectively allows those people to do the work thatthey need to do without the activity that's surroundedwith the real-time firefighting that's going on.

Is there a certain logic to it as well, Mr Nugent, in thissense: the CFA know the grasslands and the farmlands ofJindivick and Labertouche perhaps better and the DSE withParks Victoria are focusing on the fight in the forestwhich in contrast they know best?---Certainly. We respectthe expertise that each agency holds. As you haveindicated, the CFA as an agency have an outstandingknowledge and understanding and work with the communitiesmore on private land and the intricacies of how fires needto be fought in that area. Within the DSE and ParksVictoria and our other public land managers, our expertiseis in how we manage forest fires and the intricacies thatare associated with that aspect of firefighting.

Can I just test this with you. The structure that you havejust described, is there any risk that it deprived the CFAof a higher level of situational awareness about the firehaving not been intimately involved in its suppressionprior to it jumping the divide?---No. From my point of

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view I was absolutely aware that the CFA needed to beinformed of the fire situation given its potential onFebruary 7th. As I said, from my point of view, while theCFA personnel may well have been undertaking a planningexercise, I considered them to be a part of the team andI was, along with other members of the incident managementteam, ensuring that relevant people within the CFA werekept informed of what was going on with our control of theBunyip Ridge fire and its potential over those days beforeFebruary 7th.

Indeed, if you haven't specifically said this perhaps I oughtto invite you to make it clear: Mr Smith from the CFA wasat the Pakenham ICC at least on and off, if not full-time,during 6 February and attended meetings there from thattime onwards?---That's correct. Ivan was there on the6th, and certainly Ivan and I had many conversations. Asyou say, he participated in our discussions aroundparticularly the work that he was undertaking inpreparation for February 6th, but also keeping himinformed of the current fire situation in the public land.

The incident management team that you put together, did itinclude a safety adviser?---Yes, there was a safetyadviser and advice was sought from that safety adviser ona number of occasions.

Was there any particular reason why you appointed one for thisfire, other than the fact that it is a requirement in thestandard operating procedure? You are one of only twofires that appointed one. What was yourrationale?---Firefighter safety is paramount in all of ourfirefighting. It was obvious that we were dealing with acomplex fire situation. As we have spoken about earlier,

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in my view we were managing a fire with a large amount ofpotential and it was in difficult terrain. So it wasappropriate, in my view, that a safety adviser was a partof the incident management team.

Did you have recourse to and discuss matters with that safetyadviser whenever you were concerned about firefightersafety?---Yes. There were certainly some critical pointswhere we were implementing strategies that needed theoversight and advice of a safety adviser.

Mr Nugent, there are incident shift plans that have beenprovided for each of the relevant shifts save for theevening of the 5th which appears at this stage to bemissing. But the incident shift plan, some were preparedby you, some were prepared by Mr Hardman on night shift.They are detailed. They set out strategies. They explainthe sectors. Do you devote a lot of attention and care todetailing your strategies in your incident shiftplans?---Yes. It is critical that our incident shiftplans are an effective document and effective guide to howwe manage a fire incident. They have a number of elementsand it is important that all of those elements are dealtwith effectively in incident shift plans. So yes.

Do you ensure that members of your IMT are all given theincident shift plan and/or appraised of its contents atIMT meetings?---The incident shift plans are discussed atvarious times throughout the day and, as I say, atincident management team meetings they are a key focus ofour work. The key times of the day when the incidentshift plans are completed, at the start and end of shifts.Those shift plans are widely distributed, particularlywithin the incident control centre, but just as

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importantly distributed to operational firefighters whoare working on the fireline as well.

Can we move to the 5th then and the incident shift plan thatwas to govern the day shift on the 5th. That's annexure 3to your statement, (DSE.0067.1351.0044). This plan wasprepared by Mr Hardman. I think it has the incorrect dateat the top. If we move down you can see it is actuallydated 5 February and signed by him. If we just bring thatpage up a bit so we can see the key messages. Extremeweather forecast is noted there. It is then indicated,"It is critical that blacking out is undertaken to asufficient depth to hold the fire within containment linesover the next two extreme fire weather days." AsI understand it, this is the shift plan that governed yourday shift on the 5th?---Correct.

The major changes are noted to be containment lines completedaround the entire Bunyip Ridge fire number 47. Over thepage at page 45 under the heading "Mission" down thebottom it is indicated that, "To achieve UC" - undercontrol - "for all fires within the complex by 1800 hourson the 5th and ahead of the extreme fire weather behaviouron Friday and Saturday." No doubt, Mr Nugent, that was thegoverning principal, wasn't it, to not go into the 7thwith this fire going? You needed to go into the 7th withit under control?---Correct. All of our strategies, asindicated in the incident shift plan, were to continue towork on those contained fires and black out as much aspossible leading into February 7th.

During the day on the 5th would you have expected your crew onthe ground to be constantly patrolling the containmentlines and strengthening them where necessary?---Correct.

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What sort of resources did you have on the ground during theday on the 5th?---During the 5th, the detail will be inthe incident shift plan. To my recollection we had around60 firefighters on the ground with other bulldozers alsooperating and certainly aircraft available as well. Wehad at the start of that day at least one aircraftavailable for observation and then later in the day at ourrequest we had water bombing aircraft available as well.

Indeed. The situation report for midnight on the 5th has 27DSE personnel on the ground but the situation report for8.46 am on the 5th has resources listed as DSE, 64personnel, 17 tankers, three first attack dozers and onehelicopter. Does that fit with your recollection of whatwas available on the morning of the 5th?---Yes.

You indicated that going into the day a helicopter then becameavailable and indeed a situation report at 2 pm refers tohelitack having been deployed ?---Correct.

The oddity, though, that I want to draw your attention to aboutthe situation reports - they are probably best accessedfor you through the summary, which is in the tenderbundle. I will just get the page. This is behind tab 1in the tender bundle, and it starts at (TEN.152.001.0001).If we can go to page 0002, which is starting to set outthe material from situation reports on the 5th. The oneat 8.46 I have just directed your attention to, can yousee the column "Personnel attending"? This is just arepresentation of the material from the original situationreport. I have just read that one to you, 64 DSEpersonnel, and that fits with your recollections?---Yes.

5 February at 9.24, I note the fire is herein listed as12 hectares. We have heard your evidence about that being

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a slight underestimate. At 9.24 it has DSE resources nil.At 4 pm DSE resources nil. It is not until 2.28 when -and I have corrected that on transcript, Mr Nugent; thatreference to "CFA" should read "DSE" - 20 personnel and 17slip-ons are listed. Now, your evidence is that the firehad escaped containment lines in that window. Why isthere an indication in those sit reports that there wereno DSE resources on the fire?---I'm not sure why that'sthe case. There were those resources on the fireline. Wedidn't withdraw them from the fireline. Those 60-oddpersonnel were still actively working on that fireline.So that is just an incorrect reporting of the resources inthat situation report.

So it is your evidence that the 64 who were there at, say,quarter to 9 you have no reason to think that they had andyou did not direct that they be withdrawn. So theindication is that the next two successive situationreports must be in error?---Correct. There was nowithdrawal of resources on that day.

The entry for 2.28, with the correction that it is DSE 20personnel, is that right? If it is, why had 40 or sopeople left during that time after the escape?---Again,I will just state there was no withdrawal of resources onthat day. So my reading is that's just an incorrect entryof the situation reporting.

If we go back to the morning then you indicate in yourstatement at paragraph 33 - if we can just go back toMr Nugent's statement where you pick up the narrative ofthe events of that day - this is all pertaining to the5th, that at about 10.30 Mr McIntosh, the operationsofficer, sought your approval to undertake burning out.

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You explain there and you explained during the STAR Toolpresentation that that involves burning fuels within thefire perimeter, if you like, which is different from abackburn, which is done outside the containment line. Hesought your permission. You indicate in paragraph 36 thedecision you made. You confirmed there were adequateresources, the weather was suitable and the fire behaviourwas moderate. "As a result, I assessed that it was safeto conduct the burn out." Did you have any reservationsabout giving the okay to the burn-out in thecircumstances?---I was wary of the forecast later in theweek on February 7th. So my role at that point was toensure that by undertaking that operation we hadeffectively analysed it and made the correct decision, sotaking all those things about weather and resourcing andso on into consideration, and alternatively what thepotential outcome would be if we didn't undertake thatburning out operation. No, I didn't have reservationsabout that being the correct decision.

So if I understand you correctly, Mr Nugent, your operationalaim was to reduce or eradicate the unburnt fuels withinthe perimeter because of the benefits that would offer interms of holding the fire?---Correct. The aim was toensure that we didn't have significant areas of unburntvegetation close to the control line that potentially at alater date would be a high risk and potentially run andcross the line.

The risk against which you were weighing that operational aim,I take it, was firefighter safety and the risk that theburn-out itself might under any wind event or by reason ofthe fire behaviour itself create an escape or a

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spot-over?---That's correct.You indicate in your statement that there was some disquiet as

early as that afternoon about whether the ultimate escapeon that day was caused by the burn-out. It is now youropinion, is it, that there is no direct link between thetwo events?---That's correct.

Principally because, as you showed us during the STAR Toolpresentation, the area where the burn-out was occurringwas some 160 metres from the point at which the fireescaped?---That's correct.

What I want to suggest to you, though, Mr Nugent, or ask you isthis: when crew were focused on the burn-out, is it thecase that all your crew or a significant number of yourcrew moved to the area where the burn-out wasoccurring?---That's correct. As I said, the burning outoperation is where you are introducing fire and so is notwithout risk. So it is important that appropriateresources are at that site while that burning outoperation is undertaken. It didn't mean that all of theresources were necessarily placed on the burning outoperation. As I indicated earlier, there were someresources on the eastern side of that northern part of thecontrol line. But there were appropriate resources thatwere present during the burning out operation.

Of your 64 personnel, if we accept your view that the situationreports are wrong and that 64 remained on the fireground,do you know how many were concentrated in the burn-outarea and how many remained near the point where the escapeoccurred?---I can't give you the detail of exactly howmany people there were. I indicated earlier that to myknowledge there were at least three slip-on units and

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their crews operating on the eastern side. So my responsewould be that there would be more than that numberoperating with the burning out operation, but I'm unableto tell you exactly how many firefighters there were atthe operation.

And the slide to which I took you earlier this morning thatcame from DSE training materials which tends to paint apicture of there being no-one there and the fire escapingessentially while backs are turned doesn't fit withthe information you have as incident controller on theday?---No, that's correct.

When the fire did escape from that corner that we have talkedabout, did you direct that crews then move over there andfocus their attention there?---Certainly. The focus ofour attention shifted from the burning out operation,which at that stage was still being undertaken, across towhere the escape had occurred. I think I indicatedearlier, but if I haven't, as soon as that spot-overoccurred we requested additional resources to help containthat spot-over both in the form of machinery and aircraft.

Now, you say in paragraph 41 that you got word, you are notsure who from, at about 1.45 of this escape. At paragraph42 you say you had reconnaissance aircraft already there,but you approved a request for fire bombing aircraft.Now, it was critical to contain that escape from thatcorner very quickly, wasn't it?---Yes, as quick aspossible.

Do you know what time any air support arrived to assist you inthat?---I can't recall the exact timing, but myinformation after was that at least one of the mediumhelicopters was deployed within minutes from Olinda. The

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distance from Olinda to the Bunyip Ridge fire is not thatlong in flying time. So it was within a matter ofminutes, is my understanding of the first water bombingaircraft arriving at the spot-over.

You note in paragraph 45 of your statement at 2.30 your logrecords that fire bombing aircraft were on the spot-over,and in paragraph 46 you say at 1500 you have noted thatair-crane 341 was deployed. That would make it more thana matter of minutes, or do you think that some otherresource got there first?---Paragraph 46 refers to thefact that there were two medium helicopters working at thetime and the air-crane was deployed to replace one ofthose medium helicopters. So there were aircraft alreadyworking on the fire at this time and this was about themanagement of those aircraft.

Is there a possibility, Mr Nugent, that if more aircraft hadbeen deployed in that critical period after this escape inthose couple of hours that you may have been able to holdthat spot sooner?---It is my belief that the aircraft thatwe had was sufficient to deal with what we were trying todeal with. The spot-over was in - I think I mentionedearlier in describing the situation that it quickly movedout of tea-tree swamp into steep, dry, long-unburntforest. So the aircraft in terms of the size that we hadand the type was sufficient to deal with what we weretrying to deal with. It was just a very high-risksituation in fuels that were difficult to control.

It looks as though from paragraph 48 that you then had adiscussion with the CFA about the possible deployment oftheir crew. Now, is this an indication, Mr Nugent, thatyou were considering every way in which you might throw

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something at this escape? You were now going to turn tothe CFA?---Yes, certainly when that escape happened onthat afternoon again my eye was on February 7th and thereis no doubt that this escape was a significant developmentin our management of this fire. I had a discussion with aCFA officer at the time, I can't remember exactly who itwas, about what was going on with that escape and thepotential that it would - it would become necessary for usto utilise CFA resources where we could as well as theresources that we had on the fire at the time.

COMMISSIONER PASCOE: In relation to the resources that youwere able to put to that fire and even possibly to2 February, to the initial lightning strike, if the largeraircraft that's been leased for this fire season had beenavailable do you think with the larger water drops itmight have been more effective at initialsuppression?---The aircraft that we used on all thelightning strikes on 2, 3, 4 February were effective indoing what we needed to do. I mentioned earlier in myevidence that of the number of fires that we had on thosedays that they were effectively all contained. So theaircraft did a great job for us. The question aboutlarger aircraft; big is not always better in aircraft inforest firefighting because we are often dealing withdifficult terrain where aspects of accuracy of where youput water and other retardants becomes critical. We werecertainly using the air-crane. So the heavy helicopters,the big helicopters were being used. They are effectiveat reducing the fire intensity in places like the headfire that is in a forest area. So my response is they areabsolutely critical and important to what we do. But

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bigger is not necessarily always the most effectiveoutcome for us with aircraft.

So is it your judgment then that this was an exercise ofcontainment and not suppression; in other words, youcouldn't put these fires out?---No, I wouldn't describe itas that. Our major aim on those days was certainlyfirstly containment to make sure that the fires weren'tspreading, but we knew that with that forecast that we hadto black out those fires; so effectively put the activefire out as well. We were certainly working towards that.As I indicated, out of the dozen or so other fires that wealso had to continue to patrol and black out while we weredealing with fire 47, our major aim was to put them out,not just to contain them.

So, as a lay person in terms of firefighting, it is not clearto me why the availability of larger drops wouldn't bemore effective in suppressing a fire?---The aircraft arehelpful for us to stop the run and reduce the intensity.We also use them when we have a containment or a controlline around a fire to, if you like, put out active edge oractive fire. But in forest firefighting we have to dealwith what we describe as hotspots all the time. They arethose bits of material, logs and things that continue toburn along the fire edge. Blacking out is about trying tofind as many of those as possible and to put those out.So aircraft have a role, absolutely, in those situations.But we also have to have people on the ground who areactively doing that blacking out work as well. So, yes,they can be used to deal with the things that we know andthose active fires, but we also need that other element ofour firefighting force as well.

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I think it is fair to say that that's not well understood inthe community because a number of the statements speak toa frustration that the fire wasn't quicklysuppressed?---I agree. I'm aware that there arestatements that question in the days leading up toFebruary 7th why the fires weren't contained. You arequite right; it is not a simple matter of just getting inthere and, if you like, putting out the flames andassuming everything is right. In forest firefightingthere is material that will burn for many days and in factin some cases weeks after the initial flames, if you like,are put out. So, while we will certainly contain a fireand put those flames out, there is much work that needs tohappen in the days after that initial phase of firecontainment.

CHAIRMAN: Can I inquire as to whether your experience in theUnited States, Idaho and Washington and so on, led to yourhaving experience of the use of larger planes?---They dohave lots of aircraft and lots of big aircraft in theUnited States. They use that effectively. In somecases - - -

Were you present when they were being used?---Yes, I saw largeaircraft being used.

For forest fires as well as others?---Yes. A lot of the biggeraircraft are more effective in perhaps what we might sayis flatter, more open country for the reasons I describedearlier, that often aircraft need to be accurate in how weuse them. So those bigger aircraft aren't necessarilyalways the right ones to use. But, yes, they do use themeffectively in the United States. The conifer fires areoften a bit different to our eucalypt forests. So they

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have a different combination. But, as I say, I think weneed to understand and appreciate the differences that arethere as well.

MS DOYLE: In that context, can I ask you, Mr Nugent, theaerial support that came in on the 5th to be focused onthis point of escape, was that solely water bombing or didit also involve use of retardant?---At that stage it wasfocused around water bombing, rotary wing helicopters.But certainly at that point we were also planning for useof fixed wing bombers as well, retardant dropping.I mentioned in the earlier presentation that we certainlyused those on February 6th to assist us in using retardantalong control lines. That's an application that is veryeffective, of using retardant.

Was there any reason for not using retardant on the 5th aswell?---At that stage we were more about containing themovement of that head fire. So the helicopters were theeffective tool for us to try and contain or, if you like,reduce that fire behaviour often at the head of the fire.So that enables us to get on the ground and put thecontainment line in.

I understand, Mr Nugent, that the focus for a period there atleast was on that escape from the north-east corner. Butdid you continue to have regard to any possible spread outof the eastern flank of the fire during the 5th?---Theeastern flank of the existing fire?

Of the existing fire?---Certainly. In addition to thatI mentioned there were a number of other fires that alsostill we were managing in the complex, if you like. So,while our attention had to refocus towards the escape ofthe fire to contain that, we were also absolutely having

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to ensure that the fire wasn't going to escape from otherlocations on that fire and, as I said, the other fires aswell.

In paragraph 49 you say that by 4 o'clock the spot-over wasseven to eight hectares in size. Working on your originalestimate, which turns out to be an underestimate, of a12-hectare fire, by 4 o'clock you have a spot-over almostas big as the original fire. So this was a serious escapethat was going to require a lot of work into the afternoonand evening?---That's correct.

Before we started talking about aerial support, I drew yourattention to the fact that you considered seeking CFAresources. It is the case, though, Mr Nugent, that no CFAresources fought the fire directly on 5 or6 February?---That's correct. I haven't got these detailsin my log, but my recollections will be that I certainlyhad those discussions around awareness with the CFA. Wehave described the terrain and the location of this fireas being in a location where it was difficult to access.What I think would have happened on that day would havebeen making the CFA aware of the potential need forresources but, on assessment of the situation, it wasclear that the fire needed to have access by smallerfour-wheel-drive vehicles that weren't necessarily at thedisposal of the CFA at that time.

I can indicate to you, Mr Nugent, that the evidence ofMr Trevor Owens, the operations manager for region 8 forthe CFA, at paragraphs 51, 45 and 56 will be that the CFAdid not become heavily involved at that stage because itsresources and equipment were not suitable. Does that fitwith your recollection about the ultimate disposition of

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that request?---Yes.In terms of other resources getting out to that escape, in

paragraph 49 you say that you have been told that"bulldozer D6 is 200 metres away and another aircraft hasnow arrived". If we move down to paragraph 51 it isindicated there that at 4.30 you have noted that the D6was now working on the control line. Do you know whattime the bulldozer actually arrived?---I don't have theexact details of when that machine arrived. It may wellbe this was an additional machine. There was an existingmachine working there and there was request for otheradditional machines to come in as well.

In the middle of all of this there was a teleconferenceorganised with the chief fire officer, Ewan Waller. Didyou participate in that?---Yes.

We have minutes of that which were provided in evidence earlierin the hearings. I will get the reference number. Theseminutes appear at (WIT.002.001.0830). You may not haveseen these, Mr Nugent. They are the minutes of theteleconference. It would appear the time must be wrong.It must be 1600, i.e., 4 pm. There is a notation of thepeople who participated, including Mr Waller and the stateduty officer on the day, Ms Douglass. The chief fireofficer sets out a number of statements about the forecastfor the Saturday. Under the heading "Important message"he says, "Don't hold back on first attack. Got to get toall fires as quick as possible." If we go down to"Mission for Saturday", a couple of the dot points are,"Do whatever we have to to keep fires out. No fires.Aggressive first attack. Firefighter safety." Yourecount this in your statement, I think, but you may not

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have had the benefit of minutes. Does this fit with yourrecollection of the messages Mr Waller was giving in theafternoon of the 5th?---Yes, I have seen these minutestoo.

On the next page there is an indication of feedback that wassought about your fire, in effect. Mr Barbetti from theregion reports that "the fire is a kilometre ahead of thepowerlines, struggling to keep it", but reports you asbeing more optimistic and confident of holding. Was thatyour view by 4 o'clock on the 5th, that you would holdit?---My confidence reflected there, given that this isone line about a very complex situation, is that, yes, wewere confident of putting a control line around the firethat day and in effect we achieved that by the end of theday. It doesn't necessarily then mean that the fire wastotally blacked out, as we have talked about earlier.But, yes, at that point the progress we were making and myassumption was that we were confident of putting thatcontrol line around the fire by the end of that day.

Did you take away from that teleconference the key message fromMr Waller being, "Let's not go into Saturday with firesthat are going"?---Absolutely, yes. The message from EwanWaller was very clear to me.

When you handed over the reins to Mr Hardman on night shift onthe evening of the 5th what was your expectation, what wasyour assessment? Was the fire likely to be held at theabout 122 hectares that it was by that evening?---As theafternoon progressed and we started to get moreinformation about this escape and our ability to put acontrol line around it, as I indicated, I had a level ofconfidence that we would put a control line around it.

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However, given the area of the fire that we were nowdealing with, it became increasingly clear that thepotential for this fire to escape under the conditionsthat were forecast for February 7th was quite likely. Sowe were, if you like, reinforcing our actions andactivities of the incident management team to reflect thatin terms of the township protection planning thatultimately Ivan Smith led the completion of in theincident control centre, the community information thatwas being provided through media releases, informationupdates and ultimately a round of community meetings onthe Friday as well.

Just one matter before we complete the events of the 5th. Thepublic website as at 6 o'clock on the evening of the 5thwas still listing the fire as 12 hectares and did notrecord it as being 108 hectares until 10 o'clock thatnight. Your own information in the IMT was the fire hadreached 108 hectares, 122 hectares by the time you handedover on the 5th. Do you know why it was that the publiclyavailable information was lagging so badly?---No.

When you handed over the reins, though, to Mr Hardman you wereof the understanding the fire was at least122 hectares?---It was around that size, correct.

I have finished the events of the 5th, so it may be appropriateto have a short break.

CHAIRMAN: Yes.(Short adjournment.)

COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Could I just ask Mr Nugent a question toclose off on the 5th. Just going over it again, at4 o'clock you obviously were confident that you hadadequate resources to be able to hold the fire. At

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8 o'clock, at a time when you were handing over toMr Hardman, the fire was no longer contained and there hadbeen a spot-over on the northern edge of the fire whichI guess from your point of view was not the best positionto be in in handing over. Would you like to just in a fewwords explain what it was that changed between 4 o'clockand 8 o'clock?---I suppose I would like to perhapsdescribe - again you are reflecting a bit on my commentsin those minutes, about controlling at 4 pm thatafternoon. There was considerable activity happening onthe fire line at that time during the afternoon. It isoften a very complex time of the day for us in terms offire behaviour and so there was still a lot going on. Theadvice I was getting from the fireground at that stage wasthat there was a confidence in being able to put thecontainment line or control line around the fire that day.So, again putting those words into context, holding, andit was really perhaps describing our confidence in puttingthe control line around. As the afternoon progressed,that fire moved into steep country. It was, as wedescribed earlier this morning, long unburnt, very dryfuels, steep and so the fire behaviour as a consequencebecame at times erratic, if you like, and as a consequenceof that, while we continued to construct the control line,there were times when it was - and the comment about thespot on the north-eastern edge of the fire - it was, youknow, there was spotting occurring at that stage and thatwas the case at the end of the day. But even then, asthose spots were lighting, we were obviously re-evaluatingour strategies, our tactics, if you like, to ensure thatwe were putting control lines around those spots as well.

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So, a very dynamic situation throughout the afternoon,changing as the weather does to fire behaviour throughthat time of the day, but we were still actively puttingthose in place. So, by the end of the day we were closeto achieving that control line around the fire, but therewas still a lot going on.

Was there any sense that, with hindsight, there may have beensome failure for you to be informed of the realcircumstances on the fireground, either because people onthe fireground were not aware of things that werehappening or that perhaps reports coming back were notclear enough to give you a different sense as incidentcontroller of perhaps a changing scenario?---No, I wasvery comfortable about my level of knowledge of what thefire was doing on that day. My operations officer waskeeping me informed. I was allowing him and theoperational firefighters to do their job, if you like. Itwas very clear what we were trying to do at that stage.So my level of involvement was keeping informed, gettinginvolved at some key points, but allowing that operationsteam to do the job that they needed to do that afternoon.

MS DOYLE: Perhaps arising from that, Mr Nugent, if I can justbring to a head a couple of matters about 5 February. Yougo into 5 February at 6 am with the fire contained andthen you have this escape at about 1.45 from thenorth-eastern corner. Your evidence is that, at the timeit escaped, a number of the crew were working on theburn-out area about 160 metres away from the point whereit escaped, is that right?---Correct.

But you believe there would have still been some crew left atthe point where it escaped on the north-east

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corner?---There was crew patrolling that section of theline. As I indicated in my evidence, the sector commanderfor that line actually identified and located that spot atthat time.

Is it surprising, is it acceptable to you that the fire escapedin those circumstances, where one had crew patrolling thatarea?---Any escape from a fire I wouldn't consideracceptable, but I appreciated the complexity of what wewere dealing with at that time in, as we described earlierthis morning, some complex fuel arrangements, a complexsituation where we had a swampy area, if you like, whichunder normal conditions would be quite wet, but under thescenario we were facing in February last year more of thatfuel was available. Our ability to spot and identifyevery hotspot was difficult. So, while I wasn't pleasedwith the outcome, I understood the scenario that we werefacing and, as I learned later on, why that occurred.

What I'm driving at, Mr Nugent, is given that if some were atthe north-eastern corner and a number were at the burn-outsite, which on your evidence was only 160 metres away,were there not enough people in the area to catch thisvery quickly before it escaped in the manner and thedegree to which it did on the 5th?---Perhaps a couple ofcomments I would make there. The 160 metres away betweenthe two, the burning-out operation and the spot-over, youmight remember in my earlier evidence I described thatthat was not trafficable by four-wheel-drive vehicles andso the accessibility of that 160 metres wasn't simplygetting in the slip-on vehicles and driving 160 metres toaccess that with the additional resources. There was thataspect. But certainly our focus, as I mentioned earlier,

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was on the burning-out operation, but we had resources onthe other side that were patrolling that section of theline as well.

I understand from your evidence earlier that you made a riskassessment before approving the burn-out and that youremain comfortable with that assessment in light of whatyou now know. But can I suggest to you that it ispossible that the burn-out provided something of adistraction on the 5th in that your crew were concentratedthere rather than the north-east corner where itultimately escaped?

MR LIVERMORE: I object to that question. I don't know if myfriend has just made up that hypothesis or whether thereis any evidentiary basis for it.

MS DOYLE: It is not a hypothesis. It is a question. I'llphrase it differently.

MR LIVERMORE: If there is no basis for it, it shouldn't justbe floated. These sort of questions must, in mysubmission - - -

CHAIRMAN: Sorry, I wasn't analysing the question at that stagebecause I was checking on the content of the statementthat related to the same area. Perhaps you might startagain.

MS DOYLE: I will break it down, then. Mr Nugent, you havegiven evidence that a number of your crew were located atthe burn-out point but not all of them, that you are awarethat a sector commander and I think you have said - I'mnot sure if you have given a figure - I think you saidthree slip-ons were over in the other corner?---Correct.That was my knowledge.

I'm suggesting to you first that there were more crew at the

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burn-out area than in the north-east corner?---There weremore resources associated with the burning-out operation,that's correct, but not all.

Now I'm putting a question to you. Is it possible that theconcentration of crew in the burn-out area meant that theywere focused on that rather than sufficient resourcesbeing focused at the north-east corner where the escapeoccurred?---The burning-out operation required sufficientresources to achieve that operation safely. It wasundertaken slowly and in a way that I was comfortablewith. But, at the same time, as I have indicated, we didhave resources patrolling the rest of the fire line.Their role was to continue to patrol and identify hotspotswherever they could and continue their blacking-out role.

Moving from the 5th into the morning of the 6th, becauseobviously Mr Hardman sat in the chair on the evening ofthe 5th, when you came on board on the 6th your statementdescribes you had a handover with him. I want to turn toa time at which you had contact with the IECC.Ms Douglass, who was the state duty officer that day,contacted you at about 8.30 and you refer to this inparagraph 67 of your statement and you say there she askedyou if you needed additional resources on the fire. I cantell you Ms Douglass has also given evidence in theseproceedings and she indicated she called you at about thattime. She was concerned that the fire might not be ableto be held and she wanted to know your plans. Now, whenshe asked you if you needed more resources, it seems fromyour statement you didn't give her an immediate answer butyou made some assessments and called her back with asuggestion?---That's correct.

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When you called back, you indicated that you could use twoadditional strike forces?---Two additional strike teams,that's correct.

Did you ask her about whether there were any additional aerialresources that could be made available to you on the6th?---To my recollection, no. That wasn't a part of theconversation.

Did you have a plan to use aerial resources on the 6th in orderto control the fire?---Yes. Certainly our aerialresources continued to be a key part of our strategy incontaining the fire.

What level of aerial resources did you have and what did youuse on the 6th?---The aerial resources that we had on the6th were - I can't recall whether they were redeployedback to their bases, but the aircraft we had on the 5thwere largely available to us again on the 6th, so at leastmy recollection is two of the heavy helicopters, theair-cranes, two medium helicopters and I mentioned earlierthat on the day before we were also planning to use fixedwing bombers as well with retardants. In addition tothose there were two light helicopters that were used tohelp with the air attack supervisors as well. So, intotal there were up to, I think, about six or sevenaircraft at various times on the 5th and into the 6th aswell.

Could you have used more or was it reaching a stage where therewas congestion in the airspace?---I was very comfortablewith the level of aircraft resources at that fire. Thereis a risk if you have too much aircraft that there iscongestion. As I mentioned earlier, different aircrafthave different roles in what they play at a fire as well.

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The combination of fixed wing and rotary winged aircraftis a complex situation and so you need to be careful aboutensuring the right combination and I was very comfortablewith that combination on 6 February.

But what time did the dropping of any retardant start on the6th? It didn't start until quite late, did it?---It didhappen later on the 6th, that's correct.

Isn't it the case that part of the reason is there was a delayin ordering the retardant and having it actually madeavailable?---That's correct.

Because you have a log entry in your log for 3.40 on the day inwhich you have recorded "Retardant only just ordered.Should have happened this morning." Could you explainwhat that's about?---Yes. As I mentioned earlier, we hadplanned to use fixed wing aircraft during Friday the 6thas a part of our strategy. As part of the preparation forthat we needed to have the equipment and the retardantavailable to do that and there were some delays in thatbeing made available on the Friday. As a consequence, asyou have indicated, it was later in the day on the Fridaywhen we were able to use the fixed wing aircraft to laythat retardant line.

For the purposes of the transcript, the log entry is at(DSE.HDD.0052.0620). Mr Nugent, it records you at 3.40saying "Retardant only just ordered." Whose job was it toorder the retardant?---The ordering of retardant would bethrough our logistics team in working with the aircraftunit as well.

It would have been preferable, wouldn't it, to have hadretardant available earlier and indeed to be droppingretardant much earlier in the day than 3.40?---I would

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have preferred it to have been a little earlier in theday, correct.

Have you investigated what happened? Was it somethingoverlooked by the logistics team, was it?---I haven'tinvestigated the detail behind why that happened, no.

I want to ask you about the plans and that aspect of the plansfor the 6th. I want to take you to a document which is(DSE.0034.0286.0073). This document has been provided -I haven't seen one in similar form - but it says it iscomments panel for the fire situation report. It issigned by Mr Hardman on the 6th and relates fire 47. Itrecords the fire as being 122 hectares. Have you seenthis document before?---I can't recall having seen thisexact document, no.

It refers to a plan suggested by the fire behavioural analystteam at the IECC. It says, "Control strategy for Fridayis to keep the fire contained and to black out to minimisepotential spread." Can you see the second paragraph says,"Advice from IECC fire behaviour analysts (Tolhurst,Billings and Slijepcevic) was to contain the eastern edgeof the fire as low as possible in the Bunyip River valleyto limit the impact of northerly winds on the fire, toprevent spread in a southerly direction and conductbackburning from the control line into the fire edge."Even if you haven't seen this document, were you aware ofthat advice coming from the IECC team as a suggested planfor the 6th?---Yes.

What Mr Hardman records here in the next paragraph is, "Thelimited amount of resources available on night shift wouldnot allow this to be undertaken in time before therelative humidity increased to levels that would not allow

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effective backburning operations to be undertaken." And herefers to what he understood to be the window ofopportunity during which that might occur. He then says,"Even if the eastern control line was constructed close tothe Bunyip River, fire activity on the ridge above theriver would not have been blacked out sufficiently onFriday to preclude spotting from the ridge across theeastern control line on Saturday. Although we agree thatthe strategy of control line placement in the valley issound, the available resources and limited timeframeprecluded this strategy from being undertaken". He notesthat in conjunction with the IMT and the regional dutyofficer it is decided to adopt a preferred strategy, whichis "contain the fire to its current size, consolidatecontainment lines and black out the fire edge thoroughly.Containment lines to be strengthened on Friday withretardant and use aircraft to bomb the fire to assistcrews in blacking out." Now, is this something thatMr Hardman conveyed to you when you took on day shift onthe 6th?---Correct. I was aware of the discussion thathappened around this strategy.

Having received this advice from the IECC team, did you agreewith the decision to adopt a different strategy from theone that they had proposed?---I did agree with theresponse as indicated there by Chris.

Did you then endorse the proposal that what would insteadhappen on Friday 6th is you would focus on containing thefire to the current size, consolidate the lines, black outthe edge and strengthen those lines usingretardant?---Yes.

Although, as we have just heard, the use of retardant was

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delayed well into the afternoon because of the simplematter the retardant wasn't ordered?---That was oneelement of the strategy, but in essence we continued toimplement the strategy as we developed it, that's right.

You see the strategy suggested by the IECC proposed a greaterfocus on the eastern flank. That was a sound suggestion,was it not, given the fact that the fire then ran off tothe east?---The focus on the eastern flank is absolutelysound and we had a similar strategy. The difference inthe strategies was, as you have indicated, one involved,as the evidence shows there, the construction of a newline and some backburning to be undertaken. Our strategysimilarly had a major focus on the eastern side of thefire because we knew that was where the wind change wouldput the line under the greatest pressure, so our strategywas to continue with what we had commenced, put thecontainment line in and strengthen that as much aspossible prior to the morning of Saturday the 7th.

Is it usual or typical for the IECC to have a team suggest onestrategy and have an IMT effectively override it and say,"Look, this is what we propose for the day"?---There isregularly discussion that will happen between experts andspecialists either located in the IECC or in the incidentmanagement team about what our strategy should be. That'sa part of what the incident management team is all about.It is about looking at what are the options, whatstrategies should we look at, discussion, debate, analysisaround those strategies and then a decision as to what isthe most effective and what is the most achievable, giventhe time and resources that we have available.

Is it your position that the strategy that was chosen by your

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IMT for the 6th was the preferable one?---Yes.However, in light of the delay in terms of use of retardant, is

it possible that there were people in the logisticssection who weren't aware of the merits of the plan orweren't aware of its components?---No. I mentionedearlier that strategies, if you like, in the incidentshift plan are a discussion as part of our incidentmanagement team meetings and so I'm confident that the keymembers of the incident management team were aware of ourstrategy, so it was clear to people in the team what wewere trying to achieve.

I want to ask you about another matter that unfolded on the 6thand that was the decision to convene community meetings.Mr Smith's evidence will also deal with that as will anumber of other witnesses so we won't go through all thedetail with you in order to save time. But your statementindicates at paragraph 85 that there was a decision tohold a meeting in Labertouche and the plan then expanded.You went with two meetings in Labertouche, one inJindivick, one in Tonimbuk and one in DrouinWest?---Correct.

Which of those did you speak at? Was it just the Labertouchemeetings?---I attended and spoke at the Labertouchemeeting on the evening of the Friday.

At 7.30?---That's right.Just that one, and others attended the others?---There were

either members of the incident management team or membersof the local CFA information team that were attending allof the meetings, that's correct.

There were flyers and, as I understand it, a map handed out tomembers of the community at those meetings to help inform

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them?---There were certainly community updates. Theissuing of the map, we certainly provided a map at thecommunity meetings to give people understanding of whatthe fire was doing.

Can I take you to just one example of the update. It isattachment 8 to your statement (DSE.HDD.0052.1720). Thisupdate informs those reading it that the newsletter comesfrom the IMT. It is to inform the local community aboutthe Bunyip Ridge fire. I just want to take you down. Itsays, "The Bunyip Ridge bushfire is currently burning inthe state park, 123 hectares." Then it says, "This fireis not currently posing a threat to communities, butextreme fire danger weather is forecast for the comingdays and it is likely to directly impact on" and thenLabertouche is referred to and then a number of othertowns in bold are advised they should also be prepared forsmoke, falling embers and possibly fire on 7 February."People should expect the dynamic and changing nature ofthe predicted fire situation may mean other local areascome under threat" and it advises people where meetingswill be held. It was your position as at 6 February thatyou obviously fervently hoped to hold the fire, but itwould have been your understanding that, if you did not,those towns which are mentioned there in bold stood a highrisk of being directly impacted by fire, by which I meanthe fire burning in those towns. Would you agree withthat?---That's correct. That's why this news update wasdirected to those communities.

The reference in the flyer to smoke and embers and possiblyfire, I just wonder whether some plainer language mighthave assisted. Would it have been more accurate to say to

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people, "We hope to hold the fire in the state park. Ifit escapes the park, it will burn in all likelihoodthrough Labertouche, Tonimbuk, Jindivick, Bunyip, DrouinWest." Is there some limitation about using plain languagelike that?---Our aim was to give those communities asrealistic a level of information about the situation andwhat they needed to do as possible. We used the term"likely to directly impact on the community". You maydebate that other language may have given a clearermessage, but from our point of view that was the messagethat we were trying to convey to those people that, as youindicated, we were actively at this stage right up untilthe morning of Saturday the 7th trying to contain thatfire, but we tried to ensure that communities preparedthemselves and were being realistic about giving them themessage about what might happen on that day.

What I'm suggesting to you, Mr Nugent, is that one can expressa hope and even a level of confidence in holding a fire,but that it may be more useful to say to people, "If ourhope is not realised, your community will burn," ratherthan more indirect language like "directly impact, preparefor smoke and embers," which is a little different frombeing "impacted by firefront"?---I take your point, thatwe could use slightly different language. I'm comfortableat the time that that was the approach that we were takingwith communities and trying to provide them withthe information. As I said, our aim was to give them thatpicture and I was comfortable with what we were saying inthose updates at that time.

There is no record of what was said at the meetings and therewill be witnesses who will have slightly different

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recollections, slightly different understandings. Butwould you agree that the key message you delivered at themeeting you convened was that which is set out in thenewsletter combined with a restatement of the orthodox"stay or go" approach; namely, people who were planning togo should go early?---Correct. The way that we undertookthose meetings was that my role was to give the situationof the fire, to indicate to the community what we weredoing to try and control that fire, give them a picture ofthe outlook and then the structure of those meetings meantthat one of the CFA community facilitators provided thatmessage in a very strong, clear and effective way, in myview, about how the community should prepare themselvesthat next day and, as you have indicated, at that eveningwe clearly gave the message about needing to leave earlyif their plan was to leave early.

That's really my point, Mr Nugent. You reiterated the messagethat people ought to activate "their" plan. Can I confirmwith you you did not recommend that anyone living in thoseparticular communities "should" relocate; rather, youinvited them to activate "their" plan?---Certainly myrecollection is that's the approach we took in all of ourcommunity meetings, was about community members enactingtheir fire plan. That's correct.

One matter I should put to you is that Mr Linklater, a farmerwho attended that meeting, will say that you gaveinformation in the meeting to the effect that the DSE hadconstructed a firebreak around 90 per cent of the fire andthat your expectation was that by the end of the meetingthe fire would be fully contained. Did you give that sortof information to those who were assembled there?---As

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I indicated, my role at those meetings was about providingthe facts. At that point we were confident of putting acontrol line around the fire by the end of that evening,so those comments would reflect those facts that I wasproviding at the meeting.

This is probably a fact of life, but Mr Linklater left themeeting with the impression that things were looking good.I can tell you Ms Buntine, another lay witness who willgive evidence today, left the meeting with a sense ofurgency and evacuated from Labertouche. Did any of thoseassembled at the meeting come to you afterwards and askquestions or advice?---Yes, I had discussions with somecommunity members afterwards. I was confident in leavingthat meeting that the message that we had given to thosecommunity residents was clear. As I said, I provided theinformation about what the fire was doing and the CFAcommunity facilitator at the meeting as well provided avery clear message about how they should prepare andimplement their plans. I was very confident in leavingthat meeting that people had an understanding of thesituation that we were going into on February 7th.

Can I just confirm with you, Mr Nugent, of course thesemeetings, and there were a number of them, sound as thoughthey were well organised and valuable. Of course, you hadtime to organise them because of the somewhat campaignnature of the fire prior to the 7th. Would you agree withthat?---Yes.

Can I take you to the 7th. You obviously weren't working onthe evening of the 6th and your statement records that yougot word at 6 am that at about 3 am the fire had brokenout. Did you gain an understanding then or by the time

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you got to the ICC about the sequence of events that ledto the fire breaking out? Were you given that kind ofdetail?---Yes. In my conversation with Chris Hardman, theovernight incident controller, when Chris rang me earlythat morning he gave me a brief outline of what hadoccurred and then on my arrival at the Pakenham ICC as apart of our changeover he gave me a more detailed briefingof the events earlier in the morning.

Did you form an understanding as to where the crew were, andwhat I mean by that is whether there had been a wind eventleading to erratic fire behaviour and the crew left forsafety reasons, or whether the crew departed thefireground before the wind event which propelled the fireover containment lines?---My understanding is that thedivisional commander was monitoring the weather conditionsright throughout the evening, as would be the normal wayof operating as a matter of course. At some point thedivisional commander has made a decision about the highrisk situation, discussed that with the incidentmanagement team and particularly Chris Hardman as theincident controller, and made a decision that it was nolonger safe to have firefighters at that fire edge becauseof the erratic fire behaviour and also the forecast windsthat had been provided to us by the Bureau of Meteorologythrough the morning.

So you started your shift with the understanding that thedivisional commander, who I take to be a reference toMr Patrick, had moved the crew out just before the firebehaviour changed?---I'm not sure whether I could answerthat level of detail.

Okay, I will pursue that with Mr Patrick. You start the day

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shift. You refer then to information that you had. Hadyou seen any spotfire weather forecast by the time youstarted day shift on the 7th?---Certainly the day beforeI had seen some detail around what the forecast forFebruary 7th was. Whether I saw a particular spotforecast, they were certainly being issued to the incidentmanagement team and I can't recall whether I sawspecifically one, but as a matter of course I would begiven spot forecasts from time to time as a part of thebriefing of what we were expecting.

There was one issued at 4.30 on the morning of the 7th. I willjust ask you to look at that. I think it is at the backof an incident shift plan. I will just have to locate it.It is (DSE.0001.0003.0138). My understanding, Mr Nugent,is that this spot forecast was attached to the incidentshift plan for 7 February, (DSE.0001.0003.0138). Have youfound that in hard copy?---Yes, I have. As you haveindicated, it was part of the incident shift plan that wasprovided on that morning.

It's timing is 4.30 am on the 7th. Do you recall whether yousaw this when you came on shift on the 7th?---It wasprovided as part of the incident shift plan. I would readan incident shift plan as a matter of course everymorning. I can't tell you whether I read it in detail,but certainly it would have been made available to me.

The indication it gives there is that the weather will be dry,a "brief southerly change early in the morning around 5 amto weaken, then north to north-westerly increasing duringthe morning ahead of a squally south-west change expectedaround 1900 hours." Your statement indicates that laterin the day you got superior information which indicated to

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you that that wind change would come closer to 6 o'clock;is that right?---That's correct. Throughout the day, as amatter of course, we would continue to close liaise withthe bureau about the weather as it approached and it isnot unusual for that information to be updated and moreaccurately obtained throughout the day, so that's correct.

It goes on to say, "Very strong gusts possible right on andimmediately following the change", namely what is thenreferred to as the 1900 change. In the next paragraphunder "Assumptions" it indicates that, "With weak troughearly this morning northerly may take a little longer topick up - maybe light winds at 0800 hours. Northerlywinds could reach 90-100 kilometres an hour by middaySaturday at a worst case scenario. Timing of thesouth-westerly change could differ by a couple of hoursfrom the forecast." And ultimately it did differ to theextent that it came through at about 6?---Correct.

If we look at the chart under that and the entry for 8 am, ithas the wind coming from the north at 65 kilometres anhour, 9 am from the north-north-west, which prevailsthrough until 2100. Do you see those two entries for 1800and 2100? It seems to indicate that at some time in thatblock the wind will shift north-north-west to south-west.Is that the right way of reading that?---Yes.

When you started the day shift what did this forecast tell youabout your chances of holding the fire and firefightersafety?---There is no doubt that the forecast for thatday, even prior to this one, indicated to me that thisfire would come under extreme weather later in the day asthose north-westerly winds picked up and that it wouldmake a run under those conditions as the weather

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deteriorated throughout the day.At the time when the possible wind change was approaching, did

one need to have particular regard to firefighter safetyas the wind swung around?---Firefighter safety is always aparamount consideration for us and is always in theforefront of our minds. The information around theweather was a critical part of briefing to ourfirefighters and the incident shift plan, but you arecorrect, the change in conditions is a critical time inthe weather scenarios that we face and so, yes, that timelater in the day was a particularly important time interms of firefighter safety and also information to thecommunity.

It seems from the rest of your statement that you ensured thatduring the day you were kept appraised of the real weathersituation, by which I mean reports from the IECC and yoursituation officer about what was actually happening interms of wind change events?---That's correct.

Before we go to that, I just want to confirm with you what thenunfolded during the day shift. You summarise this atparagraph 102 of your statement. At paragraph 102 youindicate that after you started your shift the aircraftwhich had already been arranged by Mr Hardman kept firebombing and you confirm there your understanding therewere seven aircraft operating over the fire by earlymorning. Were they using water, retardant orboth?---Both.

You indicate there, as does Mr Owens in his statement, that theuse of aircraft provided some utility, some success.There are people who have credited it with slowing theprogress of this fire by about two hours. Is that your

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view as well?---I certainly support the fact that the useof aircraft continued to be a critical part of ourstrategy to hold the progress of that fire and, yes,I would agree that it held back the fire, if you like, andslowed the run of that fire significantly for us on thatmorning.

Now, I will deal with this in detail with Mr Smith, but thefire did get out of the park and it progressed through thecommunities of which we have spoken, and at about1 o'clock you formally handed over to Mr Smith to be theCFA incident controller?---In fact it was 1.45 thatafternoon, but that's correct.

From then on you retained the role of deputy incidentcontroller?---That's correct.

Would it be fair to say the suppression efforts then continuedto involve the DSE but were principally marshalled by theCFA, focusing on township protection?---That's correct.

There is a matter about dealings with the community I just wantto check with you. Mr Charles Allen, who is a member ofVictoria Police, his statement will be tendered in theseproceedings, was the divisional emergency responsecoordinator on the day. He indicates in paragraph 32 ofhis statement that at about 12 o'clock, so noon on the7th, he was advised that the Pakenham ICC was preparing arequest for a standard emergency warning signal to besounded for Labertouche and Tonimbuk. He says that asacting superintendent for the division he was required toprovide approval for use of SEWS. The ICC provided him,he says, with the relevant documents and he prepared arequest. There is other evidence in this Commission thathe would have to action that request up his chain of

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command. He says, "The request for use of the standardemergency warning signal was withdrawn by the ICC, butI note that an alert of the threat to the townships namedin the request was in any event broadcast." Were you partof the request or any discussion about using the standardemergency warning signal on the day?---I don't recallbeing a part of the standard emergency warning signaldiscussion. But, as indicated, the information to thecommunity was very much at the forefront of our mind and anumber of awareness and alert messages were provided tothe community throughout the previous days and certainlyon February 7th.

So you didn't seek to make a request to use SEWS on theday?---Not to my knowledge, no.

I should indicate that, although because of time constraints Ihaven't gone through this detail, your statement and otherpeople's statements attach many alert and urgent threatmessages to the community that were issued in a timelyfashion throughout the day on the 5th, 6th and 7th.I don't mean to skip over them, but the documents speakfor themselves?---Yes, I was very comfortable with thefact that we were providing regular information to thecommunity to ensure they prepared for February 7th.

You yourself engaged in media interviews on the 6th and 7th, ifI recall correctly, in order to provide furtherinformation?---Yes, in fact the whole time I was therethere was regular contact with the media and I providedmedia briefings over radio and TV on a number of occasionsthroughout those days.

I want to take you briefly to the culmination of theinformation about the wind change material. Can I take

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you to paragraph 125 of your statement. At paragraph 125you say that at 1.55 Ms Clancy, who was the situationofficer, advised you the change was due between 5 and6 o'clock that evening. Mr Nugent, reading the subsequentparagraphs in your statement, I want to suggest to youthat that time may not be correct because it also appearsthat you go into a 3 pm IMT meeting still with the viewthat the wind change was coming at 1900. Also, if youlook at paragraph 138 of your statement, that might be thebest way for you to access this issue, paragraph 138 says,"At 1600 I received a report about the winds blowing," anddo you see the last sentence, "At this stage the windchange was still forecast to arrive at 1900." What I wantto suggest to you is that it was actually at 1650 you gotthe new information. This is what you say at paragraph142 of your statement. At 142 you say, "At 1650 I wasadvised of an updated weather forecast. The change was nowestimated to come at 6"?---Your point is correct. As theafternoon went on we were provided information about theearlier movement of the wind change. The exact times maynot correlate there but, yes, you are correct, theoriginal forecast was for it to come between 1600 and1800 - - -

17 and 19, I think?---1700 and 1900. But the informationprovided as the afternoon went on brought that detail ofthe wind change forward.

I take it, Mr Nugent, that you had ensured that Ms Clancy andother sources of information were available so that if theforecast was to be modified you were given the latestinformation?---Yes, that's correct.

At 1650 you seemed to have been given that information. You

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then say you discussed it with Mr Smith and agreed it didnot warrant a red flag warning because the change wasstill an hour away. Pausing there, nevertheless youensured that your crew on the ground had the informationgiven to them; i.e. "The change is coming at 6"?---That'scorrect. It was critical from my point of view that thepeople on the fireground, in fact all of us in the IMT andin fact through the information unit the community as wellwere provided information about the progress of the windchange. So at that time that information was conveyed tothe people on the fireground.

So can I put it this way, Mr Nugent: you didn't regard it asrequiring a red flag warning, but you regarded it asimportant and ensured that people were informed ofit?---My ultimate aim was to ensure that the people on thefireground in particular were clear about the detail ofthe wind change.

The other matter I should explain to you is that both Mr Smithand Mr Owens say that in fact their response to this eventwas to issue a red flag warning and they conveyed themessage to their crew in that form. Obviously that's amatter I will pursue with them. But are you comfortablethat the way in which you chose to do it obviated any riskto firefighter safety in relation to those under yourcommand?---I was comfortable that the message about thewind change was conveyed to the operational firefighters,yes.

The final matter I just want to ask you about, Mr Nugent, is itappears that the ICC was moved again after 7 February toNoojee and there are a number of witnesses from VictoriaPolice, Mr Allen, Mr Teer and Mr Smith, who indicate they

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were not happy with that decision and found that ICC toinvolve a number of shortcomings. Did you work out of theNoojee ICC at all?---No, I had finished my role with theBunyip fire prior to it being relocated to Noojee.

One other matter. As I put to you, there are a number ofincident shift plans that have been prepared for thisfire, some by you, some by Mr Hardman. The one which ismissing is the one for the night shift of 5 February. Doyou know whether you approved that document? Do youremember seeing it?---I can't recall - well, as a matterof course, an incident shift plan would be prepared.

Would you prepare the one for the night shift?---Correct. Theday shift planning team on my behalf prepare the incidentshift plan and I approve that and provide that to theincoming night shift incident controller. I'm not clearwhy we can't locate that. As far as I'm concerned, thatincident shift plan would have been prepared and wouldhave been made available to the incoming night team.

I will just confirm the documents do speak for themselves, butwhat you have done in terms of attachment to yourstatement is ensure that every other incident shift planwith which you were involved is attached. Likewise, youhave attached all your log entries for each relevant dayshift that you worked?---Yes.

I have no further questions for Mr Nugent.COMMISSIONER PASCOE: Just briefly, Mr Nugent, you noted when

you were taking us through the STAR Tool that you were atthis stage unable to estimate the impact of the fuelreduction burns on the passage of the fire. Is there aparticular reason for that?---Only in the sense that wehaven't had the opportunity to analyse in detail the role

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that the fuel reduced area may have played in the firedevelopment. So, yes, that work just hasn't been done atthis stage.

The intention is to do it at some stage?---Yes. There isintention for us to understand the role that fuel reducedareas played in a number of situations, and I think theCommission has heard evidence from other fires as well.

We have?---So, yes, we would be looking at that with Bunyip aswell.

You would be aware it is a topic that the Commission is lookinginto in the future?---Yes.

So it would be information of great interest to the Commissionas it explores that topic?---Yes.

So I presume we can look forward to seeing any analyses whenthey are available?---Yes.

Thank you. Just one final thing. You note in paragraph 106 -this is in the general section talking about the briefingsyou were providing to the community. Now that we have anew fire danger rating with a catastrophic or code redrating, in those circumstances in the future if you had asimilar scenario that you were dealing with do you thinkyou would be likely to recommend relocation to thoseresidents rather than enacting their own fire plan?---Theissue of relocation is going to be a very complex one. Asincident controllers, it is one that we are facing nowwith some interest. I appreciate the role that we mustplay in providing advice to the communities. We are goingto have to make that judgment under each scenario. If youare asking me to look in hindsight at this situation wouldwe have recommended that, that's a very difficultquestion. As I said, we were working towards trying to

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contain this fire as much as we could, but we understoodits potential. So the potential advice about relocationmay well have been applicable to some communities in thisarea.

I suppose it is always going to be a judgment about stressingpeople leave early or going that next step and making it acall for relocation?---Certainly. The new system that wehave, if you like, I think much better provides advice tothe community about relating their decisions about leavingearly with their level of preparedness of theirproperties. It quite clearly says, "If you are at thislevel of preparedness, under these situations thenrelocation might be the option for you." So in my viewthat new system will help us - will in fact help thecommunity to make a better decision in those particulardays.

CHAIRMAN: It seems that there is training material that'sbeing used that shows how the events occurred on5 February that does not accord with your recollection ofthose accounts. Would you propose to take any steps tosee that that position is rectified?---Yes. I'minterested now to understand - because one thing that maybe an explanation for that is the timing of thepreparation of this material. The training material maywell have been prepared prior to us having the opportunityto fully analyse what did happen and so have the actualdetails there. So to answer your question, yes, I wouldbe interested to relook at that material and just makesure that it does relate to what our understanding is ofthe fire situation now.

It seems from a report - a report prepared by Mr Nimms, is it?

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I'm only going on the material that's been provided that'sgiven that particular chart at the back of the report of -- -

MS DOYLE: Of the wildfire investigation report, yes.CHAIRMAN: That may be the means of at least enabling the

matter to be followed through.MS DOYLE: Yes.<CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR LIVERMORE:Mr Nugent, can you explain the meaning of the word "contained"

in terms of firefighting suppression?---Yes. We havedifferent status as the firefight goes with fires. Theword "containment" is one that we use after a fire isgoing, the next stage of the firefight. It relates to amineral earth track being constructed around the fire. Itdoesn't necessarily mean that the fire has been totallyblacked out. It doesn't mean that the fire is controlled.It means that we have a mineral earth track around thatfire but it still needs considerable patrol, considerableblack out to ensure that we take away the risk of materialinside the fire perimeter posing a risk of escape.

So it goes from "going" to "contained" when there is a mineralearth break around it?---Yes.

What's next in terms of the suppression?---We have a termcalled "under control 1" and then "under control 2" andthen "safe". So there a number of statuses that we movethrough as different stages of the firefight continue.

Just in terms of blacking out, can you explain what blackingout is?---Blacking out is a part of the operation that iscritical for us particularly in forest firefighting orfirefighting wherever there is more heavier fuels, if youlike. It is an operation that involves making sure that

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all of the fuels, particularly adjacent to control lines,don't pose that risk of escape. So in an operationalsense it is about getting in there, putting water onhotspots, if you like, so material that is still burning.It is about breaking open with hand tools. We oftenundertake blacking out as a part of dry firefightingoperations, so not necessarily using large amounts ofwater, where we have to break open material and ensurethat that material is no longer hot, is no longer having apotential to under certain wind conditions and so on throwspots over our control lines.

Can you black out just by the use of aircraft bombing wateronto a fireground?---Certainly not. Aircraft, as I haveindicated earlier today, are an absolutely important partof our firefighting. In terms of blacking out, I thinkI mentioned earlier, it is the hard slog of ourfirefighting. Aircraft are certainly able to assist wherewe have areas of particularly hot fuels that are stillburning near a control line. But in many cases theblacking out operation involves the breaking open and thewetting down of smaller areas of fuel and is noteffectively done by aircraft alone. We have to have thecombination of all of our firefighting tactics availableto us, of which aircraft is part, but certainly groundcrews play a critical role.

Do you initially attempt to black out about 30 metres fromthe control line back into the fireground?---As thedifferent phases of the firefight continue, the distancein, if you like, that we black out will increase. As apart of that initial phase of containment through to undercontrol 1, 30 metres is about the distance that we would

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be working towards. As the firefight continues, if thetime is available, we will often continue the depth ofthat blacking out distance further, in some cases up to50 metres and depending on the weather conditions as towhen that fire then becomes under control or safe.

Because a contained fire can break out by reason of an emberbeing picked up from anywhere within that fireground andsimply blown over the control line and starting a spotfirein its own right?---That's correct. The language often ismisconstrued by people outside of the firefightingindustry, if you like. We use terms to help us understandand determine what we do. The word "containment", as youhave indicated, doesn't mean that the fire is totally freeof risk of material inside the containment lines blowingunder certain conditions outside. So to reinforce thatcontainment status is about stopping the active firespread by the construction of a mineral earth controlline.

COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Mr Nugent, on the DSE and CFA websites doyou use the terms "contained", "under control","safe"?---To my knowledge, yes, those statuses arereflected in the information that we provide to thepublic.

Do you feel satisfied that members of the public, hundreds ofwhom sought information from those websites on the 7th,would understand the difference between "contained" and"under control"?---No, I could appreciate that noteverybody would understand that difference. As I said, insome ways it is a definition that helps us to undertakeour role. It is not necessarily designed for thecommunity to understand where we are at with our

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firefighting.But it does raise a question, doesn't it, if an operational

term is available on a publicly available website that ispromoted as a source of information for members of thepublic on a day of bushfire danger?---Yes, I take yourpoint. I'm not familiar with all of the detail that's onthe website, but there may be opportunity to ensure thatthose definitions are clearly available there for peopleso they understand them.

MR LIVERMORE: I think they might be, but my friend Ms Doylewill clarify that. I just have a couple of questionsbefore that occurs. So for a fire to break thecontainment line an ember could be picked up from400 metres inside the containment line and blown400 metres over the containment line and a spotfire startsand that fire has broken out?---Under the conditions thatwe faced on February 7th, that's a quite likely scenario.It is dependent on weather conditions and in particular inthe scenario of spotting the winds that we are facing.But, yes, that is a possible scenario. If material isburning well within the containment lines under certainconditions it can blow a considerable distance andpotentially across control lines.

That is why, although you are putting in your best effort toblack out this fire and keep it contained, you realisedthat realistically it was likely that something like thatwould occur given the conditions forecast for the7th?---That's correct. As I mentioned earlier, we wereabsolutely focused on containment and ultimate control ofthe Bunyip Ridge fire. But, given the time that we werefacing towards February 7th, it became clearer certainly

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on the afternoon of the Thursday, February the 5th, andthen certainly on the Friday, the 6th, that it was likelythat this fire would, through that scenario that you havedescribed - embers would be blown outside of the fire tocause it to run.

Also can you just clarify the difference between the terms"burn out" and "backburn"?---Yes. Burning out is atactical operation, if you like. Burning out is generallyan operation, as I described earlier, where there aresmall sections and areas of unburnt vegetation generallyclose to a containment line at a scale generally in squaremetres where an operations officer or sector commander ordivisional commander will make an assessment and determinethat it is better that we remove that unburnt vegetationand so conduct a burning out operation, as compared to abackburning operation which is more of a strategic controlstrategy and often involves a much bigger scale operationgenerally in the scale of many hectares where we would usea backburn as an indirect fire control strategy to burnlarger areas towards a moving firefront so that as thatfirefront - we are basically removing large areas of fuelto help stop that fire. So burning out operation,tactical level, smaller area; backburning operation,strategic tool at a much larger scale.

Finally, you have given evidence that on the 7th the use ofaircraft to bomb the head of the fire kept the head of thefire contained for about two hours than otherwise wouldhave happened. Have you had a look at where the firewould have run to with the northerly wind if that twohours hadn't been saved by the use ofaircraft?---I haven't looked in detail at that scenario.

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But what it meant in effect was that the longer we wereable to hold back that movement of the fire meant that itsrun under the northerly wind as it picked up later in theday was similarly reduced. So the longer we were able tohold back the movement of that fire reduced the length ofthat firefront as the day progressed. So, if we didn'tundertake that operation, the fire potentially would havemade its run much earlier and under those strong windsthat developed throughout the afternoon it potentiallycould have run much further in the cleared private landand created a much greater threat than what it did.

<RE-EXAMINED BY MS DOYLE:For clarification, Mr Nugent, in terms of the explanation you

just gave about the meaning of the words "going","contained", "under control" et cetera, I can confirm foryou that the DSE website contains a definition of the word"contained" as follows, "Not spreading beyond theperimeter or an external edge but requires continuoussuppression action to bring about a controlled situation."You agree that's an adequate definition of the term"contained"?---Yes.

For completeness, the CFA website contains this definition ofthe term "contained", bearing in mind that some people mayaccess that, "Fire spread has been halted but may still beburning freely within the perimeter. Further work isrequired to bring under control." Now, in light of thefact that those two definitions are available on thewebsite, I just want to confirm one other matter with you.Do you know whether you provided those definitions oranything like them at the public meeting at Labertouche at7 o'clock?---I can't recall if I provided those exact

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definitions. I'm confident that in the description ofwhat we were doing to control the fire that I conveyed themessage about the strategies that we had in place and whatwe were doing and the outcomes of that work.

I have no further questions for Mr Nugent. May he be excused?CHAIRMAN: Yes. Thank you, Mr Nugent. You can be excused.<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)MS DOYLE: I now call Mr Hardman. While he is making his way

forward, can I indicate that our intention is in orderagain to be efficient and save time to operate on thisbasis: most of the background to the fire and the spreadof the fire I have adopted the device of leading throughMr Nugent. It may be therefore that when both ofMr Hardman and Mr Smith give evidence I will skip overmore of the detail in their statements because thatbackground has been provided, but both of them ought tounderstand that the detail that's in their statements, inparticular Mr Smith's statement, which is incrediblydetailed, will not be overlooked and is given the sameweight as it will be tendered.

CHAIRMAN: Yes, indeed. Thank you.<CHRISTOPHER STEPHEN HARDMAN, affirmed and examined:MS DOYLE: Your full name is Christopher Stephen

Hardman?---That's correct.And you have prepared a statement with the assistance of the

Victorian Government Solicitors Office. Do you have acopy of that with you?---Yes, I do.

Are its contents true and correct?---There is a smallcorrection.

If you could just indicate where that is?---Paragraph 49.What is the change you would like to make?---The title of

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Trevor Teer. He was actually the municipal emergencyresponse coordinator from Victoria Police. I haveincorrectly identified him as the municipal emergencyresponse officer.

He is traditionally referred to as the MERC?---That's correct.With that alteration, are the contents of the statement true

and correct?---Yes.I tender that statement.#EXHIBIT 585 - Witness statement of Christopher Stephen

Hardman dated 24 November 2009 and attachments(WIT.3024.005.0054) to (WIT.3024.005.0080).

MS DOYLE: Mr Hardman, you have been employed by Parks Victoriafor 23 years and in your current position as manager ofoperations for bays and maritime division for18 months?---That's correct.

You worked the night shift on at least 5, 6 and 7 February forthe Bunyip fire?---Correct.

You explain in your statement some of your background and yourqualifications. Reading paragraphs 9 and 10 together,tell me if I have this right: as at the February firesthis year you were of the view and understanding that youwere accredited to be a level 2 incidentcontroller?---Correct.

As it turns out, those level 2 qualifications had expired in2005?---That's correct.

So you have since taken steps and you are engaging inre-accreditation which will see you ultimately qualifiedas a level 3 incident controller?---Yes. There-accreditation for the level 2 is complete and I'mtwo-thirds of the way through the level 3 accreditation.

So your understanding when you were working on these night

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shifts was that you were at level 2?---Yes.It transpires that understanding was incorrect. How could it

be that you would not be aware of your qualificationsrunning out in 2005? Is there not some record you canaccess to check?---There is, and I didn't. There isstatus of training on what we call Fireweb. I hadn'tchecked it. I was accredited as level 2 incidentcontroller in the year 2000. I actually wasn't aware thatit had a timeframe on it. My view was that I wascontinually asked to do the job as an incident controllerand sort of I suppose carried forward the view that thatmaintained currency for me.

During that period it would appear from your statement you hadworked on a number of fires and continued to gainexperience at level 2, so that contributed to your beliefthat it was current?---Yes.

You were not level 3 as at February fires on any view, but youare going to gain that qualification?---That's correct.

On the evening of the 5th you worked night shift, and we mightpick up the story there at paragraph 23 of your statement.Just pausing to note you worked the night shift on the 4thas well, but if we pick up the story on the 5th you say inparagraph 23 you returned to night shift at Pakenham at7.30 on the evening of the 5th and you had a handover withMr Nugent, who had obviously been working on the dayshift. He reported to you that the fire had jumped thecontainment lines in the north-east corner?---Yes, he did.

What strategy did you determine to undertake throughout theevening of the 5th to deal with any ongoing effects ofthat spot-over?---Whenever we get a spot-over in any firesituation the most important thing would be to contain

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that fire, to construct mineral earth breaks as close tothe fire edge as possible. So the task for the nightshift would have been to focus on constructing containmentlines on the east, west and around the northern part ofthe spot-over as quickly as possible.

There is a situation report for 7.30 that night which refers tothe size of the fire being 108 hectares. Have you gotaccess to that situation report there? I can tell youwhere it is to be found. This is in the tender bundle at(DSE.HDD.0031.0195). This is behind tab 1 in the tenderbundle. Situation report for 1935?---I now have that.

That will come up on the screen, but while you are looking atit can you see the size of the fire was then recorded tobe 108 hectares?---That's correct.

A lot bigger than when you had left the fire the nightbefore?---Yes.

When it was recorded at 12 hectares?---Yes.It also indicates in terms of DSE resources 31 personnel, if we

can go down to that chart, 17 slip-on units, two firstattack dozers, four large dozers and two fixed wingaircraft and seven helicopters. Did those aerialresources work during the evening? As I understood it,they would have had to wait until first light?---Yes, allaircraft working on fires work during daylight hours. Soas soon as the sun goes down the aircraft are no longeroperational.

So they obviously weren't part of the picture for the evening.Do you know whether those 31 personnel with their 17slip-on units worked throughout the evening of the5th?---Yes, during night time, between the 4th and the 7thon night shift I arranged between 30 and 60 personnel. So

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at that time around 30 firefighters would be correct.What did you instruct those crew to do throughout the evening?

Was it a matter of constructing containment lines and/ordid it also involve holding the ones that were alreadyprepared?---It would have been construction, consolidationof the containment lines and aggressive blacking outactivities to endeavour to hold the fire as long aspossible.

In paragraph 28 of your statement, if we can return to that fora moment, you say, "Given the unprecedented fire weatherforecast for the 7th I was thinking about contingencies inthe event of the fire escaping and potential impact. Forinstance, I was considering alternative containmenttactics such as chemical retardants to minimise the spreadand size of the fire." Now, was that something that youwere considering arranging for first light on the6th?---Yes. One of the things that we do on night shiftis we do have the ability, because of the reduced fireactivity, to spend significant amount of time thinkingabout how we can best deal with the situation as it maydevelop in the next shift. I think David made it veryclear that we were all very concerned from very early onon this fire about the potential devastating impacts thatit may have on the communities to the south of the fire.Right from arriving on that fire the whole team wassaying, "If we can keep this fire as small as possible foras long as possible right through to the 7th and really,really concentrate on that and ensure that we absolutelydo everything we can to contain it and hold it, it's goingto be better for those communities to the south."

Now, at paragraph 31 you refer to an IMT meeting late in the

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evening, 2245 hours. During the meeting you discussed anumber of things, including the weather. You say aboutthe third sentence in, "The IMT also discussed thepotential threat to powerlines and the possible use ofchemical retardants." So that's still a matter beingdiscussed as a possibility at 2245. Did you form a viewat any time during your night shift that, "Yes, we will gowith retardants" or was another view formed?---No,certainly the discussion at the IMT, we sort of - theinteresting thing when using water bombing and retardantsis how dense the canopy is in the forest and are you goingto get good penetration, is it going to be effective. Sosome of that is unknown. But, with the best collectiveintellect around the room, we felt that there was a reallygood chance that laying chemical retardant could make apositive difference. But with all of the decisions thatwe make within the incident management team there isrobust discussion. There is sometimes disagreement. Therole of incident controller, you tend to pull the threadstogether and make a determination. But my recollection,and I can't say I am familiar with the shift plan for theday shift, is that we agreed that the use of chemicalretardants would be of benefit and it would be part of thestrategy for the next shift.

Did you take any steps to ensure that the aerial resources andthe retardant would be available early on the 6th?---Yes,the planning unit would have looked at the resourcing,what aircraft were available. Sometimes it is difficultto make really strong arrangements on night shift. So alot of it will be to send the information through, have itthere for first light so that when the day shift comes on

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they can enact the final level of arrangements to achievea particular resourcing for a particular task.

In terms of plans for the 6th, I want to ask you about thesuggestion that was made by the IECC team. This documentwas the one Mr Nugent was taken to. It is(DSE.0034.0286.0073). This is a document signed by you onthe 6th, Mr Hardman, and contains, if you like, ananalysis of competing strategies for 6 February. It is upon the screen now. First of all, do you remember when youprepared this document?---Yes, I remember that we had avery, very significant discussion around the suggestionscoming from the IECC.

So it must be, if it is dated the 6th, some time during thenight shift of the 5th but into the early hours of the6th?---That's correct.

What was your purpose in recounting the debate and signing it?Did you provide it to anyone?---Look, the discussionaround the opportunity to implement this strategy was asignificant debate within the incident management team.My recollection of approving this is so this informationcould be circulated, particularly for the incoming shift.When you get some of these suggestions coming from thecentral area you do take them very seriously. Thediscussion around the table, as I recall, was that thebiggest concern we had was introducing more fire into theenvironment with a control line along the Bunyip River.We were feeling that the amount of fire already in theenvironment was a very significant challenge. It wasunlikely that that fire would stay contained on the 7th.So our assessment of the suggestion from the IECC, wedidn't feel confident that that would have been the best

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way to go in the circumstances we were facing.So ultimately you propose a different course, and that's the

strategy set out in the final paragraph of the document.What I am really asking you about, Mr Hardman, is the stepyou took to set out the rationale and to set out theultimate conclusion is not something that we normally seein a situation report or an incident shift plan. In otherwords, those documents don't usually show your workingout. What I'm asking you is did you have some concernthat you might later be asked, "Why did you go with thisstrategy and not the one that central officerecommended"?---Absolutely. When you get suggestions, youdo the analysis. Quite often the ideas coming from theIECC are excellent and you can just implement them,therefore you don't need to actually demonstrate yourworkings out. But where you do have a differentperspective and you have considered it carefully, I justfelt it was important that we articulate that.

Ultimately you then have this record of what your thinking was.As you record in the last line, your preferred strategywas strengthen the containment lines on Friday withretardant?---Yes.

So was that a matter that you took steps, as you say, to leavefor people to implement at first light?---Yes, that'scorrect.

No doubt you have heard Mr Nugent's evidence that the retardantwasn't even ordered until 3.40. Was that part of yourplan?---What, not to order the retardant?

Yes?---No, it would have been obviously to ensure that - if youmake a strategic decision to discharge a particulartactic, then logistically you want all of that to work and

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come together at the right time. So, along with Dave, itwould have been much better if the retardant was thereearlier. We would have been more effective.

Before we leave the topic of plans suggested by the IECC, wereyou also made aware throughout the run of this fire offire spread prediction reports that the team theresupplied plotting out where the fire might reach atcertain times based on assumptions relating to theweather?---Yes, I was briefed by my planning officer, VinWright, who showed me the potential spread map.

Is it your view that throughout the run of this fire you hadgood information in the form of predictive maps and mapsthat showed the location of communities and assets thatmight be affected by the fire?---Yes, I was very happywith the information that was available and the work thatwas being done to address that.

We have heard some evidence from Mr Nugent and there will bemore from Mr Smith about the work the CFA did on the 6thand the process that was developed of the CFAconcentrating on community or township protection plans soas to be ready for that and fresh for that on the 7th,whereas DSE/Parks Victoria focused on the firefront in thehope of maintaining the fire within the park. One mightthen describe that as two separate IMTs working on the 6thrather than a fully integrated team. Did you have someconcern about that mechanism, of having the CFA focus ontheir patch, if you like, and the DSE focus ontheirs?---No, definitely not. I think the development ofthe operations plan was critical, essential work and thepeople involved in the development of that plan needed tobe able to focus on that activity. David has indicated

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where the two levels of expertise reside. Certainly thelocal CFA people like Ivan know that area really well andI think the work they did was excellent.

Although as at the 6th you held a view that there may have beeninsufficient or incomplete planning for the run of thefire following the south-west change, didn't you? Youthought the CFA may not have factored that in stronglyenough?---Yes, I had an opportunity to spend some timealone in my office reviewing the operations plan andlooking at the predictive potential spread map. WhatI noted is that the potential spread map showed that,following the south-west wind change, the potential spreadof the fire to the north-east was a larger area than wascovered by the operational plan. So I recall making anote in my log thinking, "Look, I really do need to havesome discussions with a range of people about that."Communities like Jindivick were not covered in thepreliminary operational plan. So I recall talking to awhole number of people. I was looking at that inisolation without any advice. That was just the feelingI had when I looked at the plan. Subsequently I spoke tomy planning unit. I certainly spent some time with Ivanin the morning and I was satisfied that the flexibility,the ability for that plan to adapt to the change incircumstances was well considered. If you look at theoperations plan, it shows that it is really looking at thefire as it takes the big run to the south, south-east, andas circumstances changed resources would have been movedat different locations. So I did have that concern.I think it is important that when you look at these sortsof things that you do look at them critically and that you

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have a number of conversations. But I was satisfied thatthe plan was effective.

Did any of your concerns persist? What I want to ask you aboutis a reference in your log for the morning of the 7th. Ifwe go to your log, which is annexure 2 to your statement,at (DSE.HDD.0052.1976) there is an entry for 6.10 am, soit is very early on the morning of the 7th. This is atpage 1976, "Split incident concern". I can't read all thewriting there. Perhaps you can read it, "Planning unit toexpand to do wind change plan. Informed Ivan to ensureintegration of this incident. I am concerned that Ivanwants to run his own show"?---The break-out of the fireoccurred about 3.30 on that morning. Ivan obviously wasday shift. I was night shift. Ivan had activated anumber of his team members to get to the ICC early.I recall talking to Craig Bray about the currentsituation, saw that Ivan and his team were gathered aroundthe central desk in the Pakenham ICC. I recall making anote saying, "Okay, what's going on here? I need to makesure we are working together here." I went over, had a bitof a chat to Ivan. I said, "The best thing we can do hereis ensure that the day shift and night shift operationsare combined." Ivan was very much focused on what wasgoing to happen later that day. We had a bit of aconversation about that. Ivan then invited Vin Wright,who was my planning officer, to work with his group toensure that when we did hand over from night shift to dayshift that there wasn't any gaps in the information. Soit was a concern. I saw a group of people workingindependently. It was really important to me that it wasone team. Subsequently after that conversation that

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worked really well.I want to ask you what information you went into the early

hours of the 7th with at your disposal about the weather.There is a spot forecast that was issued at 5.30 pm on6 February. I will take to you that. It is an attachmentto another witness's statement. It is at(DSE.0006.0024.0015). It is an attachment to Mr Patrick'sstatement. This was issued during what would have beenday shift on the 6th, but was this made available to youwhen you came into night shift on that evening?---Yes,absolutely. I was very much focused on having a reallygood close look at all of the spot weather forecasts. SoI do recall seeing this.

What does this tell you about what might happen in the earlyhours of the morning of the 7th? I can see there is anentry, "Weather overview. Winds easing tonight and thentending north to north-westerly overnight. Increasingduring the morning ahead of a change expected after theend of this forecast." It then says under the heading,"Assumptions", "Timing of northerly increase tomorrowcould differ by a couple of hours from the forecast andmay be quite dramatic when the low level inversion breaksdown. Northerly wind gusts could reach 90 to 100kilometres by midday Saturday." What was yourunderstanding reading that and the accompanying chartabout what was likely to happen on the fireground, say,from 1 am on the 7th?---Certainly we had had discussionabout the pressure that this would put on the easternflank of the fire and that's where the majority of ouractivity was occurring. Previous to the northerly winds,most of the winds had been of a southerly nature and

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putting pressure on the north and north-western part ofthe fire. But certainly for the night shift of the6th/7th we felt that the pressure would come onto theeastern flank.

That is, as I understand it, principally because from 2200onwards the wind is blowing from the north/north-west, itthen shifts around to the north-west by 1 am and then backto the north/north-west by 7 am, and you say thosefeatures combined would put pressure on the eastern flankof the fire?---That's correct.

The shifts described there, it switches from north-west tonorth/north-west, are undoubtedly shifts but they areshifts within a much smaller compass or range of degreesthan a traditional late afternoon southerlychange?---That's correct. The winds are tending from thesame direction so we wouldn't expect there to be anydramatic effect or change to fire behaviour under thosecircumstances.

MR LIVERMORE: Can I interrupt for a moment. My friend did itwith the last witness but I didn't take the point. I justwonder why my friend is focusing on the 1,000 metres aboveground level column of the document rather than the groundlevel column, which has different directions and differentspeeds. I'm just not sure what point is being made.

MS DOYLE: Sorry, I should have referred to the other column incombination. If we focus on the 10 metres column it hasit shifting south-west to west. I was going to ask youabout this notation, VRB. Is that variable?---Yes.

Then moving to the north at 7 am. Focusing on that column,what does that say about the fire behaviour and/orfirefighter safety during that period?---As I said, the

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preceding winds were of a southerly nature which wereputting pressure on the north/north-western parts of thefire, and when it swung around to the north/north-west itput pressure on the eastern flank.

The gap between 1 am and 4 am where at the fireground the windcould be expected to shift from the west and becomevariable before returning to the north, did that pose anyparticular threat to firefighter safety?---What I canrecall is having a discussion with the operations officer,who was in direct contact with the guys out on thefireground and the planning unit, Adam Whitchurch and VinWright. Keeping an eye on the wind and exactly what wasgoing on and ensuring that crews were very much aware ofwhat was going on is a priority for me. I personallydon't necessarily get involved in all of those discussionsother than being really confident that they are occurringand asking the questions that they had occurred in atimely manner. So we did have the spot weather forecast.I had very experienced people in the planning team. I wasreally confident that all of the wind change informationwas getting through to the troops on the ground.

In the event the report you got, presumably through Mr Bray, inthe early hours of the 7th was that at about 2.30 thesoutherly wind picked up and that shortly after that crewon the ground moved out of the area. Can you explain tothe Commission what you were told and what you understoodto be happening on the fireground in those early hours ofthe 7th?---Okay. I had a discussion with Craig at about2.30.

That's your operations officer?---Craig Bray is my operationsofficer. The conversation I had with Craig was very much

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about what was going to occur later in the shift and therewas quite a lengthy discussion around ensuring that wedidn't put firefighters at risk and that subject to groundobservations, subject to advice from Rob Patrick and otherfolk out on the fireline, I just wanted to ensure thatnobody was out there in a situation where the wind couldput their safety at risk. So the conversation I had withCraig and the planning team was, "Watch the wind changes,ensure that the information is out there, make sure thatnobody is put at risk during that period of changingwinds."

What did you regard as the risk period? Was it the periodbetween 1 am and 4 am?---Look, from my point of view itwas following the conversation I had with Craig Bray at2.30. At that stage there was some spotting and some fireactivity earlier than that, but certainly that started topick up as those southerly winds picked up at 2.30. So atthat point I was very focused on ensuring that allpotential risks and changes to fire behaviour werefactored in and considered by the entire team.

If we go back to your statement at paragraph 45 you certainlyrecount that conversation with Mr Bray. At paragraph 45of your statement you say at 2.32 you get a report fromMr Bray the southerly wind is picking up. In anticipationof the north-westerly change forecast for later in themorning the two of you agreed for safety reasons toposition dozers on the south-west edge of the fire. Yousay at this time all crews were still working on thefireground and it was agreed Craig would make arrangementsfor the withdrawal at an appropriate time. So it lookslike as at 2.30 the two of you have discussed the fact

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that there will be a time at which withdrawal will berequired because of the wind; is that a fairsummary?---Yes.

Then at 3.30 you recount in paragraph 46 Craig Bray reports toyou the crews working on the fireground have told him thefire has escaped to the east. I just want to pause thereand ask you your understanding. Did you understand thatthe crew were on the fireground when the fire escaped orthat they had commenced to move out and the fire escapedessentially once they had left?---My understanding is thatthe fire crews were still in place when the escapeoccurred. That was my understanding.

Mr Patrick, who will give evidence later in the proceedings,says at paragraph 81 of his statement that he saw theconditions on the fireground and formed the view that thechange might be arriving between 2 and 3 am and that crewhad already started to move out by 3. Then in paragraph88 he says he reported back that they had lost control ofthe fire. It is not entirely clear from that which camefirst, but it was your understanding that the crew werethere when the fire escaped?---I can recall theconversation I had with Craig Bray that the crews werecommencing to be withdrawn and the plant and equipment,which sometimes takes a bit of time. I'm not absolutelycertain when that did occur, but Craig did inform me thatwe would retain crews on the fireline to observe themovement of the fires. So, although firefighting activitymay have ceased, I recall Craig indicating that we wouldretain people observing the fire to inform the strategyfor the next shift.

Those who remained there to observe engaged in some liaison

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with you which culminated in you effectively ordering at6.25, "No-one is to go back onto the fireground"?---Yes,there was a request I received from the operationsofficer, Craig Bray, again that the fire behaviour haddied down significantly by about 6 o'clock in the morning,that the flame height was down to about half a metre andthe guys on the ground were indicating that they thinkthey could go back in and make a difference and see ifthey could start to construct a containment line aroundthe spot-over. At that stage I didn't feel that I hadenough information to allow that to occur. I asked Craigto let me now how long it would take to build that newcontainment line around the spot-over area because at thatstage I did have the spot weather forecast which wasissued at 4.30 which indicated that by 0900 moresignificant winds, I think between 45 and 70 kilometres anhour, were due on the fireground which didn't leave muchtime. So Craig informed me that it would take about fourhours to bring the machinery back and to reconstruct thatcontainment line around the spot-over. In my mind it wasa simple decision that the forecast whether wassignificant which could have had a negative effect on firebehaviour, put crews at risk. So I subsequently rejectedthe request to go back in and recommence suppressionactivities on the fire edge.

Can I just clarify the sequence of events. You are firstinformed that people are watching and looking out for anychange in the weather. You then get word that crew - youmake the decision that crew ought to be at leastpositioned and ready to leave at some stage prior to thearrival of variable winds at 4; is that right so

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far?---Yes.You hear word back from the fireground of two things: the fire

has escaped and crew are moving out. It was yourunderstanding that it happened in that order: fireescaped, crew moved out?---That was my understanding, yes.

As the hours progressed you then had a request from thefireground at about 6.30 the tenor of which was, "It lookssafe enough for us to go back in." Your response to thatwas, "It is not safe enough. Everyone stay out"?---Yes.

So is it the case, Mr Hardman, there was no direct attack or nosuppression efforts applied to this fire fromapproximately at least 3.30 onwards on the morning of the7th?---That would be my understanding, yes.

And indeed by 4.30 I think you had approved the crew fallingback to the staging area from Dyers Picnic to Gembrookrecreation oval; they fell back to the oval?---That wasabout relocating the staging area. I approved therelocation of the staging area away from an area whichcould potentially be impacted by the fire.

You have indicated it takes a while for crew to get out of ascenario like that, and their equipment. I thinkMr Patrick's evidence is it took at least an hour for allcrew to exit the park. Was it your understanding thatcrew should have then been making their way back to thenew staging area from 4.30 onwards?---I'm not exactly surewhere they went. Part of the discussion I had with Craigis that they would be to the south and west of the fire,which obviously with the prevailing and proposed weatherwas a safe area for them to be. How they relocated backto the staging area, I don't know. But I was aware thatthere were a number of bits of plant and equipment that we

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could make available to assist in the asset protectionworks which was planned by Ivan and his team, and spentsome time working out what of those resources could make apositive material difference to what Ivan was trying toachieve.

So effectively having ordered at 6.30 that people not go backonto the fireground, your alternative plan became to useyour resources which had tracked out of the fire to startpreparing for the inevitable spread of the fire towardscommunities?---Yes, that's correct. The other thing wedid do, I think it is important to recognise, is that dueto the fact that I didn't consider it safe to putfirefighters back into that environment I rang the stateduty officer, Dennis Ward, and we endeavoured to activatethe airdesk earlier to get aircraft as close to firstlight as possible to commence bombing activities andretarding activities to stem or slow the run of the fire.

Now, the strong winds that you anticipated at 9, are you ableto say what time they actually arrived?---No, I was inbed. But certainly they didn't arrive at 9, is myunderstanding.

In fact on day shift others continued to debate up throughuntil 9 and 10 am whether or not they could have or couldnow send people back to the fireground. Are you aware ofthat?---Yes, I subsequently became aware of that. I justhad to make a decision with the information I had.I couldn't determine what may or may not happen. I hadstrong winds coming through at 9 o'clock. That was asimple decision for me to make.

Can I suggest this to you, Mr Hardman: it now appears possiblethat if crew had not left the fireground they could have

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put in that three or four hours of work between 3.30 and7.30 in the morning and it is possible that may have had abeneficial effect. But is it your evidence that in themoment you were in the best information you had was thatfirefighter safety would be compromised if you didn't (a)move them out and (b) decline the request for them toreturn?---Yes. It would have been completelyinappropriate for me based on the information I had toapprove the firefighters to go back in and activelyundertake firefighting on the fire edge.

Looking at it from another perspective, the brutal perspectivethat ignores firefighter safety, one might look at thesesequence of events and say, "If they hadn't left thefireground at 3.30 this may never have escaped the park."What do you say to that and how do you weigh that againstyour concern with firefighter safety?---Well, firefightersafety is the most important thing to me. I wanteverybody to go home safely to their families at the endof every shift. That's the most important thing to me.They are my responsibility. We had a number of days above40 degrees before the fire. We had quite a large fire,around 160 hectares at this time. There was a lot of firein the environment. I don't think it would have made anydifference whatsoever. There was so much fire in theenvironment, this fire was going to come out at thatstage. It actually did come out not where the originalspot-over first occurred; it came out further south. Soit wouldn't have made a material difference, in myopinion.

Can I suggest two more things to you. You had a report, albeitthrough Mr Bray, from an experienced divisional commander

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that he felt it was unsafe to remain. No doubt thatplayed a large part in your decision making?---Look,I think I tried to indicate before that the advice anincident controller gets and the discussions that we havelead to most of the decisions we make. Having veryexperienced people out on the ground telling you what thecurrent situation is, absolutely that is one of the keyreasons for making the decision in the first place.

The final matter I will suggest to you is that, guardingagainst the worst case scenario, you were aware that theCFA and others in your team had worked hard to ensure thatthere were plans in place for the worst case scenario,namely the escape from the park?---Yes, the operationsplan, I was very much aware of that. We were aware of theimplications from Thursday onwards. Everybody was veryfocused. We knew this fire was there. We knew it hadvery significant potential to come out and impact oncommunities in the south. Although we worked very hardand strongly to contain and keep this fire as small aspossible, there was this worst case scenario. We wereliving with that every day.

Do the Commissioners have any questions for Mr Hardman?COMMISSIONER PASCOE: Two brief ones, Mr Hardman. I'm

interested to know how typical it would be thatfirefighters are engaged in activities such as you havedescribed overnight?---Firefighting overnight, sometimesit is the best time. As the humidity picks up,particularly if we are undertaking backburning operationsor burning out operations, sometimes at night that'sabsolutely the best time to do it. Fire behaviour is muchmore predictable normally. Obviously these circumstances

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were quite dramatic. But normally fire behaviour is morepredictable, weather is more stable and we are able toundertake really good work which helps set the day shiftup to achieve the broader strategy for containment of afire.

So it is a fairly standard strategy in a campaign fire?---Yes,absolutely. Lots of work done on night shift onconstruction and burning out operations and evenbackburning operations as a rule. Most of that will occurat night.

Just one other question. You had a number of questions fromMs Doyle on the decision about the laying of retardants.In making that judgment is there a consideration ofenvironmental impact?---Yes. Because we were relativelyclose to the Bunyip River, even though this was a verydramatic situation, laying chemical retardants near awaterway is a concern. I did look around forsome - I remember getting on the web myself and lookingaround at what best practice was in regard to how close weshould lay retardants - how close we should get them to awaterway. Above 100 metres away from a waterway seemedokay. The closest point that I recall in my planning forland retardant was somewhere between 150 and 300 metresfrom the Bunyip River.

MS DOYLE: I have no further questions for Mr Hardman. Thereis no cross-examination. I would ask that he be excused.In terms of programming for the afternoon and to informwitnesses who may be waiting in the court, we will resumewith Ms Buntine at 2. Mr Smith need not attend thehearing room until 2.30 and Mr Patrick need not attenduntil 3. We hope to get through those two witnesses after

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the lay witness this afternoon. So 2.30 for Mr Smith and3 pm for Mr Patrick.

CHAIRMAN: Yes, thank you. You are excused and we willadjourn.

<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT

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.Wordwave:MB/SK 09/12/09 BUNTINE XNBushfires Royal Commission BY MR ROZEN

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UPON RESUMING AT 2.00 PM:MR ROZEN: Commissioners, I call Michelle Buntine.<MICHELLE LORRAINE BUNTINE, sworn and examined:CHAIRMAN: If you take a seat, make yourself as comfortable as

you can, but be roughly in the middle of the microphonesand then ignore them.

MR ROZEN: Ms Buntine, your full name is Michelle LorraineBuntine?---Yes.

You live at 355 Forest Road, Labertouche?---Yes.For the purposes of the Royal Commission and with

the assistance of solicitors here, have you made a witnessstatement?---Yes.

Have you had an opportunity to read through that witnessstatement before giving evidence today?---Yes.

Are the contents true and correct?---Yes.I tender the statement.#EXHIBIT 586 - Witness statement of Michelle Lorraine Buntine

(WIT.127.001.0001).MR ROZEN: Ms Buntine, you have lived at the property in Forest

Road, Labertouche, for 10 years?---I have owned it for10 years. I have only lived there for just over five.

I think you say in paragraph 3 you built the home there fiveyears ago?---Yes.

I think we have a Google map which can be brought up on thescreen which will help us understand the location of theproperty and what's on it. We see that winding road nearthe hand, that's Forest Road?---Yes.

As we are looking at the photograph, on the right-hand side ofForest Road is the Bunyip State Park, is thatcorrect?---Yes.

That is in fact the boundary of your property, Forest Road, on

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that side?---Yes.It is a little bit difficult to see I think on this map, but

the property on the other side of the property, on thewestern side, are you able to indicate what the boundaryline is of the property?---Yes. The boundary is ForestRoad and the transmission lines are in our property. Sowhere the transmission lines run through, if you'relooking to the left of the property, that's the boundary.

We can see the dam that you make reference to in your statementis indicated just there by the hand?---Yes, that'scorrect.

Perhaps we can come a little closer. Then we can also see thehouse there in that photograph. What's the distance fromthe house to the dam, or where the house was, I shouldsay, to the dam?---I'm not great with distances. Forty or50 metres.

You give a description in paragraph 3 of your statement of theproperty. The house itself was a two-storey house madefrom timber?---Yes.

You and your partner, Brett, had done a considerable amount ofwork on the house yourselves?---Yes.

And the garden as well, which you describe?---Yes.The garden beds were extensive around the house?---Right around

the house, except to one side.What was the nature of the vegetation that you had

planted?---Native.All native, was it?---(Witness nods.)You describe in paragraph 4 various outbuildings, including a

machinery shed which is now home for you and the family,is that right?---Yes.

We will come to how that came about in a moment. Now, living

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at Forest Road was yourself, your partner, Brett, and yourdaughter, Savannah, who you say was 13 months old on BlackSaturday, so she is now two, is that right?---A couple ofweeks short of two, yes.

You describe at paragraph 10 of your statement your firepreparation that had been undertaken at the house. Canyou just give us an overview of that, a description of thefire preparation that you had undertaken at thehouse?---We never had a formal written fire plan. We hada firefighting pump. We had lay-flat hose, which is widerthan ordinary hose. We had enough hose to reach from thedam and physically wrap around the house. We had brassconnections for it. We kept the property relatively clearof debris. We've got quite a few groups of trees on theproperty. We've always been pretty good at cleaning upunderneath them, cleaning up branches, limbs. A couple oftimes we've borrowed a friend's bobcat and been in andphysically scraped the earth under the trees and pushed itall into a pile and burnt it off. Around the house itselfwas garden bed and then grass, which was always keptshort, and one of the paddocks we cut for hay every year,so that's usually short by Christmas time.

By way of water supply you had a dam on the property which wehave seen in the photo and that was full as at BlackSaturday?---Relatively full.

Or close to full?---Yes, close to full. I think its capacityis probably about a megalitre. I'm not really sure whatit could hold. It is about 16 to 18 feet deep.

You also had two water tanks, both plastic tanks, one which hada capacity of 22,000 litres and it had about 20,000 litresin it as at February of this year and there was a second

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tank which had 12,000 litres of water?---Had a capacity of12,000 litres. I'm not sure what the water level was init. I know it was over half full.

All right. You mention that you attend CFA summer meetingseach year in mid-December. Have you done that in each ofthe years that you've been living at Labertouche?---LastDecember I didn't attend because I had Savannah. Everyother December I have attended.

Are they general information sessions in preparation for thefire season?---Yes.

If I could ask you about the Bunyip fire, Bunyip State Parkfire. You became aware of the fire on Tuesday 3 Februaryfrom the DSE website; is that right?---I was aware thatsomething was going on on Monday when the storms camethrough because I'd seen fire trucks go past. SoI certainly had an awareness that something was happeningin the forest on the Monday, but had access to informationon the DSE and CFA websites on Tuesday.

Between that awareness as a result of the storms on the Mondayand attending the meetings which you describe on theFriday, that is 6 February, were you able to see smoke orsmell any evidence of the fires?---Not where we live youcouldn't see it, smell it or hear it.

Have you since been able to speak to other neighbours who livein the vicinity of your place to see what awareness theyhad of the fires during the week?---Absolutely.

What have they told you?---We've had people from Morrisons Roadand Labertouche North Road, which are west of us, statethat they knew by Wednesday it was going to be quite bad.They had a visual of the smoke. Whether they could smellit or not, I'm not sure, but they certainly could see it.

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I've had some people say to me that they were evacuatingby Thursday and were surprised that we hadn't.

What do you put that down to? Why is it that they are able tosee it and you're not? Is that just because of theelevation of their properties compared toyours?---Absolutely. We are down low, tucked in behind aridge. You can't really see much behind us other than ahill with trees.

If I can take you forward to Friday 6 February. You say atparagraph 15 that you were aware in general terms thatSaturday the 7th was going to be a particularly bad day sofar as fire risk is concerned?---Yes. They were alreadyannouncing it on the news on TV when they were doingweather, saying that the conditions were going to be quitebad.

At paragraph 18 of your statement you refer to your friend,Nick, telling you that there was going to be a communitymeeting about the Bunyip state fire at 1 o'clock at theLabertouche Hall?---Yes.

You describe attending at the meeting together with yourpartner, Brett, and you also weren't able to make anyother arrangements for Savannah, presumably, and so youtook her along to the meeting as well?---That's right.

As you explain, not surprisingly Savannah didn't enjoy themeeting terribly much and made it pretty difficult for youto concentrate absolutely on what was being said?---Thehall was stifling hot. There is no ventilation in thereand it was a lot of people in there, a lot of noise. Shewas strapped into a pram. She pretty much cried the wholeway through the meeting.

How many people would you say approximately were at the

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meeting, the lunchtime meeting?---I couldn't tell you.I just remember there were people there, a lot of peoplein the hall. I couldn't give you a figure.

We don't have the benefit of familiarity with the hall. Waseveryone able to be seated or were there people who had tostand?---Some people chose to stand. There is not thatmuch seating available, so a lot of people were standing.

The people that spoke at the meeting, do you recall whether itwas a person just from the CFA or was there someone fromthe DSE that also spoke? Are you able to recallthat?---I can recall that the CFA spoke at the lunchtimemeeting.

Yes?---And I can recall that the DSE and the CFA spoke at the7 pm meeting.

You say as a result of the information you received at the1 o'clock meeting you returned home and startedimplementing some of the suggestions that were made by theCFA representative?---Yes.

Including clearing up the property and removing the woodpileand filling up containers with water?---Yes.

After the lunchtime meeting, what was your intention so far aswhether you would stay at the property or whether youwould leave?---My intention was to go. I had pressurefrom other people as well, my mum, Brett in particular,friends, people telling me that I should leave, so myintention was to go, but I didn't want to leave until thenext morning.

That is on the morning of the 7th?---Yes.What was said during the meeting by the CFA representative

about the risk of the fire breaking out of the park ontoprivate land on the 7th?---They talked about potential

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impact zones, so I just recall them putting up a map andshowing what the potential impact zone would be. At the1 o'clock meeting I wasn't really tuned in. I spent moreof the meeting outside the hall than I did inside becauseSavannah was disrupting the whole meeting.

Were you able to glean, at least from the impact zones thatwere indicated on the map, that your property was withinthe impact zone?---The impact zone was as far as Warraguland Drouin, the potential impact zone.

You describe going home and then getting a knock on the doorfrom the police at about 3 o'clock on Friday the6th?---(Witness nods.)

What did the police ask you?---They just wanted to know wholived in the house and who was going and who was staying.

They weren't giving any advice about whether you should orshould not stay?---I can't remember what was said. Wewere pretty frantically starting to get things ready.I don't remember them telling me I had to leave. Theycould have suggested it was wise to leave. They couldhave done that; I can't recall. It was quite a franticday. But certainly I know that they recorded our name andthe three of us that were in the house, the names of thepeople that lived in the house.

You say in your statement that the police arriving triggeredsomething in you. Did it bring home to you theseriousness of the situation?---Absolutely. We have neverhad that happen before, so I was surprised that they cameand did that. They also asked if we knew other neighboursthat may not be home, so we gave them details of otherneighbours that we knew were at work.

You also attended the evening meeting in the Labertouche

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Hall?---Yes.What was it that led you to go to the evening meeting despite

the fact that you had been to the one in theafternoon?---Because I didn't really catch what they saidat the afternoon meeting. I'd spent half the meetingoutside with Savannah. I knew if I went back without herI'd be able to listen to what was being said.

Did both you and Brett go to the meeting in the evening?---Yes.And your mother was looking after Savannah, is that

right?---Yes.What was the mood, if I can use that expression, of the evening

meeting compared to the one in the afternoon?---There wasa lot more people, from memory, at the evening meeting.

People speaking or people listening?---People attending, thecommunity attending. Obviously it was a better time ofday, too. People were home from work, I'm guessing. Tome there seemed to be more urgency about what they weresaying. Certainly they did suggest that you evacuate.They didn't tell us we had to, but it was suggested thatyou leave. The words were, "If you're going to leave,leave now." I remember someone saying, "Now is a good timeto leave. Don't leave it 'til the morning."

That someone, was that someone from the CFA or the DSE or wasit - - -?---It would have been one or the other, becausethey were both the people speaking.

The messages that you were receiving from the DSErepresentative and the CFA representative, was there anydifference in the messages that were being conveyed toyou, so far as you understood it?---I felt that there wasmore urgency around what they were saying and certainlyI felt that even people's expressions on their faces were

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far more serious than they were at the earlier meeting.I know at the earlier meeting the community people weresaying "Gidday" to each other in the hall, with at theevening meeting everyone was silently listening to whatwas being said. The DSE, I think it was the incidentcontroller, addressed us at the evening meeting. I don'trecall him addressing the earlier meeting. He possiblydid speak, I can't remember. I was outside half the time.

Does the name Mr Nugent ring a bell at all? There is evidencethat Mr Nugent, the DSE controller, spoke at7.30?---I couldn't tell you what his name was. I justremember he was the DSE incident controller and he had iton his vest.

You say in the middle of paragraph 20 of your statement that,"It wasn't until we attended the evening meeting thatI realised that the situation was really serious." Thatcrystallised in your mind the need to leave and leave on6 February, is that right?---Absolutely. The words usedwere "If you're going to leave, now is a good time toleave." That's also saying, "Well, you'd better get out."

There is evidence in a statement from Mr Owen which is going tobe part of the evidence before the Commission tomorrowthat at the meeting at 7.30 there was a reference to"undefendable properties". That was an expression thatwas apparently used at the 7.30 meeting. Does that ring abell with you at all? Do you recall any reference beingmade to "undefendable properties"?---I can't recall it,no. The answer is no. It could have been said. I can'trecall it.

If it was said, is that something that would trigger in yourmind a reference to your place? In other words, would you

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make the connection between hearing a general expressionlike that and where you lived?---Now I would. Then, no.I probably needed it to be directed at me personally,saying, "Your house is undefendable."

And that would be useful information to you, presumably, inyour decision making?---They're telling me it's going toburn, really, aren't they.

You go on and describe the difficulties you had with actuallyevacuating; what to take, what to leave behind, and ofcourse all the while having to be concerned with your babyas well. It was obviously a very difficult process foryou?---I can only describe it as chaotic. That's the wordthat comes to mind, it was very chaotic. We had peoplethere, we were trying to load horses on, I had a screamingbaby, I had Brett putting the pressure on me, saying, "Getthings and go now." It was late. It was hot. It waschaotic.

Brett decided that he would stay behind and attempt to defendthe property?---Yes.

And what was your view about that? Did you try and convincehim to come along or was it your view that it wasappropriate for him to stay?---No, it was my view that itwas appropriate. I thought that he would be okay. Theonly view I had was I didn't want him to be alone. So,another friend of ours came up and I was okay with thatwhen I knew that he was going to have someone else therewith him. I knew that he had an enormous water supply andthat we had firefighting pumps, so I thought on the Fridaynight that he would be okay.

During the course of the Saturday, however, you became veryworried about his safety as well?---Absolutely. I made a

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call to a friend in the CFA, who told me that Brett neededto go now. He knew the forest and what was going on andhe said, "You need to get Brett out of there." I alsoasked Brett on the phone in one conversation to describeto me what was going on around him, what he could see,what he could hear, and based on that description, yes,I pretty much panicked when he gave me a description.

He reassured you that he would know when it was an appropriatetime for him to leave?---Yes.

And ultimately, as you describe in your statement, he did leavethe property?---Yes.

When it overwhelmed him?---(Witness nods.)He described to you going to the Labertouche Hall?---Yes.The same hall where you had been at the meetings the day

before?---He went to a neighbour's first, was there only afew minutes and then went on to the hall.

Did he tell you why he chose to go to the hall, what histhinking was?---At that time I don't think that therewas - he didn't tell me his exact thinking, but I think hefelt that that was the only safe place to go. I mean,both sides of the road were burning, he was drivingthrough flames, is what he has described to me.

You give a description in paragraph 32 of your statement ofwhat he found when he got to the hall and he told you thatthere was a fire truck there and there were in fact CFAcrew members who appeared to be terrified and were in factvomiting?---Yes. He just said that there was a truckthere and there was a crew there and he said they lookedexhausted. He said that he could see fear in their eyesand he said two of them were curled up on the ground withtheir heads down and they looked like they were vomiting.

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He said that the crew seemed to be either younger men orolder men as well. That was the other thing he said.

Eventually Brett was able to join you on the Saturdaynight?---Eventually, yes.

And the two of you were able to get back up and have a look atthe property on Sunday morning?---It was an ordeal to getthere because of the roadblocks but, yes, we did make itthere eventually.

What did you find when you got back to the property?---My housewasn't there. It was just a crumpled mess sitting on theground.

What about the other buildings on the property?---The machineryshed was still standing. The hay shed was gone, it wasjust a crumpled mess. The machinery shed was stillstanding and we opened the door to go in there and checkedit and anything that was in there was still there. Thebiggest thing that I can recall about that was there was agazillion dead flies in there. I have never seen so manydead flies in all my life. There were millions andmillions and millions of them.

You make the point, Ms Buntine, that if you had had informationabout the fire on the Thursday night rather than theFriday night, that would have helped you in evacuating ina more orderly manner?---Absolutely, or had I have stayedthe night on the Friday night. My intention was to staythe night and then put Savannah to bed and then whenI wasn't focused on her I could then concentrate onpacking up things that were meaningful to me and her andBrett, but I didn't get that opportunity. If I had havehad the information Thursday night, then certainly FridayI would have spent the day packing anything that was of

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value to me. It may not have been big things. Usuallyvaluable things are small, like keepsakes and jewelleryand - - -

And photographs?---Pictures and things like that.As it turned out, you really were only able to grab the bare

necessities?---Yes.If I can go to the events since 7 February 2009, you give a

very detailed and, if I may say so, a very moving accountof life since 8 February and how you have coped withlosing the house and returning ultimately to the propertyand converting the shed into a home for yourself and Brettand the baby?---Nothing is easy. Everything is just sodifficult. Being homeless is a really hard situation.I know that after the fires I visited a very dark placeand I know that I wasn't a good mother for a couple ofweeks there. That's just because you're homeless and youhave nothing. You are relying on people to give youthings or help you. I think if it was just Brett and I,it would have probably been easier, but with a little oneit certainly is, yes, really hard, really difficult.

You were unable to continue breastfeeding Savannah in theaftermath of the fire?---I lost my milk supply straightaway, immediately.

And you do raise concerns about Savannah in your statementabout her gaining weight. How is she now?---She doesn'tsleep properly, she wakes three to four times every night.That's happened since the fires. She relies heavily onmilk during the night, so therefore she's not eating thecorrect amount of solids because she is full from milk.The statement covers a lot of issues that we've had withher. We've had her to the maternal child health nurse,

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we've had her to local GPs, I've had her back to herpaediatrician. What we try to do is maintain a routine inthe shed for her sake, we try to keep everything asroutine as we can, but certainly the sleeping is a bigissue. She is still up three to four times every nightand it's a bit of a killer, really.

How does that compare to the situation with her prior to thefires? Was she a better sleeper before thefire?---Certainly she was a better sleeper, yes.

You describe in your statement how, having done your very bestto set up the shed as a home, just a couple of weeks agoin the heavy rains you had to endure a flood on top ofeverything else?---I think, what was the date,26 November, I was ankle deep in water in the shed. Itwas quite an ordeal. We flooded, totally.

In amongst all the difficulties that you've had to endure sincethe fire, you do describe one experience that is apositive one, and that is the assistance that you receivedfrom the Bayles CFA captain. Do you want to tell us a bitabout that, please?---Karleen deserves a medal. She's amother and a wife as well, so I think she has a prettygood understanding. She came up with an idea straightafter the fires. She wanted to help a community that was30 kilometres from her and she knew that she couldn'tdisburse money so she called upon people for supplies andthey were water tanks and fencing material, water,machinery, stock feed and she set about trying to find outwho needed it and then distributing it. It got so bigthat the CFA at Bayles said their station couldn't copewith the amount of supplies there, so it was moved to theLabertouche Hall. Also she recognised the distribution

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point needed to be closer to the fire-affected area. Shealso provided people straight away to assist us withthe boundary fencing. I needed that up for my ownsecurity reasons. She even sent along women as part ofthe volunteer crew who offered to look under the rubbleand try and salvage little things under there. So, I dida lot of crying with Karleen. I did a lot of crying onpeople's shoulders that came up. Yes, it was anoverwhelming experience at the time, but it was alsowonderful.

For the benefit of the people that hand out medals, it isKarleen Elledge, is that right?---Elledge. I'm not surewhat her surname is, but obviously it's Elledge.

E-l-l-e-d-g-e in your statement. They are the questions thatI have for Ms Buntine, Commissioners. Any questions?

COMMISSIONER PASCOE: Yes. I'm interested that in yourstatement you talk about needing to secure the propertyand it seems from reading it that that's an important partof emotional security as well as physical security andgetting that done as quickly as you could. But you alsotalk about the inconvenience that your sister in BelgraveSouth has had in the weeks following 7 February, that shehad to evacuate four times. Now, I'm just wondering doyou think that there's a point that people would say, "I'mnot sure that this inconvenience is worth it and I mightmove somewhere else"?---I know that my sister said to me,because at the time she had a two or three week old babyand an 18 month old toddler, so her hands were full, andshe said to me, "I'm so tired of evacuating." She alsofelt bad because a couple of photos that I did grab werein a box at her place, so she said, "If my house burns

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down, anything that's precious to you is gone." Certainlyshe was sick and tired of evacuating. She still took itseriously enough to evacuate. I think that a part of herwould like to move away from the area because of the riskthey have of bushfire now, but a part of her knows thatthat's her home and her children are familiar there andshe has established friends and other mothers withchildren the same age.

I'm wondering for yourself, because you talk in your statementabout modifications that you're going to make to make yourown house more fire-resistant, but do you think for youthere would ever come a point where it would just get toohard and you'd rather move somewhere that wasn't quite asfire risk?---Straight after the fires I didn't even wantto go back initially and when I went back I looked aroundand thought, "Oh, I can't live here." That was my reactionimmediately. That obviously changes over time. You can'tget your head around everything straight away. I don'tfeel threatened by bushfire at the moment becauseeverything is so black around me that I know there isreally nothing left there to burn. We have been to thesummer meeting by the CFA and been told that the riskisn't as great now that the forest isn't there. However,if other areas burn, we would certainly experience emberattack and grass fire could be an issue. A grass fire anda forest fire are totally different. You can defendagainst a grass fire, but not a forest fire. I know thatthat threat is not there for me at the moment becausethere is nothing there still.

In the Royal Commission we are looking at both buildingregulation and planning and of course that includes the

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kinds of regulation that government make to either allowor preclude people building in certain areas. Do you havea view about whether the government should restrictbuilding in certain areas?---I don't necessarily thinkthat they should restrict it, but it needs to benon-flammable or defendable. Certainly the house we arebuilding now, I know that there is nothing reallyflammable about it. It is far more defendable than thehouse I'd built five years ago, so I have peace in knowingthat and I think that other people should certainly lookat building more defendable homes. I was adamant at firstI didn't want a brick home. Now I look at it and thinkthat it's the right thing to do. Certainly I think thatregulations should certainly be there in areas where thereis really high risk. Whether or not you stop buildingaltogether, I don't necessarily know if that's the answer.Brett was asked by a building inspector from council justafter the fires what he felt would have survived that fireand Brett said an underground dwelling. So, certainly ifyou are in a higher risk, there's underground dwellings inCoober Pedy, so I suppose we could have them here.

Thank you.MR ROZEN: I understand the State have some questions for

Ms Buntine.<CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR LIVERMORE:Ms Buntine, my name is Livermore and I represent the State of

Victoria, which includes the CFA and the DSE. When youwere making your statement to the solicitors for theCommission, at the very end at paragraph 72 on page 21,you say there, "There are two things that I keep comingback to in relation to the Bunyip Ridge fire. Firstly,

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why wasn't the small fire which started on Monday attackedharder from the beginning when the opportunity was therebefore the conditions worsened later in the week." Whenyou were making this statement, were you told that thefire that ended up escaping the park and running on theSaturday actually didn't start until the Wednesday? Didsomeone tell you that when you were making yourstatement?---I have heard all sorts of things about whenthe fire started from both local CFA and local people,community people, that are connected to people in the CFAor DSE. Certainly I have heard that the fires could havebeen deliberately lit on the Wednesday. I have heard thatthere were three or four fires started on the Monday bylightning strike. So I have heard - - -

When you were making your statement, though, you were makingyour statement with solicitors for the Commission?---Yes.

When paragraph 72 was being discussed, did someone tell you,"No, the fire that got out on the Saturday wasn't the firethat had started on the Monday"? Did someone tell youthat?---Nobody told me that and I recall being told at- well, I'm pretty certain that at the warning meetingsthe day before we were told that the fires had started bylightning strike.

Yes. There were some 14 fires that actually started in thepark and they were all put out, except the one thatstarted on the Wednesday?---(Witness nods.)

Can I ask you to have a look at paragraph 14 of your statement.That will come up in a second. That's on page 4. Youtalk there of Brett telling you of some observations hemade on the 4th, Wednesday the 4th, about a semi and alarge bulldozer?---Yes.

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This might be a bit of a memory test for you, but at the timeon the 2nd to 4th February did you or Brett have a vehicleTVX231?---I don't think that's any of our registrationnumbers.

RWS115, does that ring a bell, a white Rodeo? That's not yourcar?---I know Brett's got a white car. I don't think it'sa Rodeo. It's a Mazda.

There will be a DSE witness, Mr Robert Patrick, who is going togive evidence this afternoon and he will give evidencethat not on the Wednesday the 4th, but on Monday the 2ndthere was a float carrying a dozer in the Tea-tree Trackarea went over the edge of the road at about 5.15 in theafternoon and that by 8.30 that float and bulldozer hadbeen towed out by another bulldozer and they then wentabout their business putting in containment lines around -- -?---On the Monday?

On the Monday?---That's obviously a separate incident. Thisincident definitely occurred on the Wednesday.

Or you could be mistaken and - ?---I'm not mistaken.And the incident you are describing could have occurred on the

Monday?---I don't believe I'm mistaken. On the WednesdayI had seen the truck carrying the machinery go past ourhouse, on the Wednesday. I'd actually seen it with my owneyes. Brett went up to check the fire out later on andcame back and told me that a truck had come off theembankment with machinery on the back. Whether it was thesame one that went past at 4 pm, I don't know, becauseI didn't see it, but I know machinery definitely went pastat 4 pm and I'm pretty certain it was the same one thatcame past at midday on Friday.

You say in your statement at paragraph 14 that Brett told you

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that the DSE man told him that, "The fire will be right,mate, we have it under control." What I want to suggest toyou is that that statement on Monday the 2nd wasabsolutely true because they did get the dozer - --?---That statement was made to Brett on Wednesday, notMonday. That statement was made to Brett on Wednesdaywhen Brett and Nick were together.

The evidence will be given, supported by a log, that theincident involving the float near Tea-tree Track occurredon Monday the 2nd?---Whether it was - whether it occurredon Monday or Wednesday, it was Wednesday that Brett hadseen it sitting like that and it was Wednesday that he wasgiven the information about the fire will be right and itwill be under control.

If you have a look at paragraph 16 of your statement, you saythere that, "The status of the fire did not change on theDSE website until Thursday evening when it was reported tohave moved beyond containment lines and to be 12 hectaresin size. On Friday morning when we checked the DSEwebsite at 6 am it was 160 hectares. The fire had grownover 100 hectares overnight with no wind." When you weremaking your statement, did the solicitors for theCommission tell you that actually at 10 o'clock on theThursday night the DSE website recorded the fire as being108 hectares in size?---No.

Were you told that when you made your statement?---No, and whenwe checked the website on Thursday evening I don't knowwhether - I can't remember whether it was checked at 8.30pm or 11 pm. I just know we checked it Thursday night andthen we checked it very early Friday morning.

Thank you.

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MR ROZEN: There is no re-examination. Could Ms Buntine pleasebe excused?

CHAIRMAN: Yes, indeed. Thank you, you are excused.<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)MS DOYLE: I call now Mr Ivan Smith.<IVAN PETER SMITH, affirmed and examined:MS DOYLE: Thank you, Mr Smith. Your full name is Ivan Peter

Smith?---That's correct.You are presently a volunteer with the CFA but you have a

history of some 42 years as an employee and volunteer withthe brigade?---That's correct.

Have you with the assistance of Victorian Government Solicitorsprepared a statement for the Royal Commission?---I have.

Your statement draws on and attaches a number of documentsincluding logs and other reports that you have receivedfrom others who worked in the field fighting the Bunyipfire?---Correct.

With those attachments, are the contents of your statement trueand correct?---Yes, they are.

I tender that statement.#EXHIBIT 587 - Witness statement of Ivan Peter Smith

(WIT.3004.030.0001).MS DOYLE: Just turning to your experience first, Mr Smith,

your time with the CFA has straddled both the career armof the CFA and the volunteer arm. You commenced as avolunteer and then, as I understand it, were theoperations officer for region 8 in an employed rolebetween 1997 and 2004?---That's correct.

You have held many positions and had a great deal of experiencewhich is listed in paragraph 7 onwards of your statement,commencing as a volunteer in 1967 with Narre Warren North

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brigade. During your time in the CFA your experienceincludes a role in the Ash Wednesday fires. You say inparagraph 17 that you undertook several roles during thosefires, including as an incident controller, operationsofficer and division commander for the duration of thosefires in Cockatoo and Upper Beaconsfield?---That'scorrect.

Can you just tell us a little bit about your involvement in theAsh Wednesday fire and if you held any roles in relationto suppression, the type of experience you had and, at thetimes during which you were holding management roles, theexperience you had?---Yes. The Ash Wednesday firesstarted in Belgrave South and moved across into the magicline between region 13 and region 8 into UpperBeaconsfield. I became the incident controller, what theequivalent of an incident controller was - it is arelatively new term - at about 4 o'clock on that day. AtUpper Beaconsfield we had a very, very small groupheadquarters which was the equivalent of an incidentcontrol centre in today's world, but it was a very smallfibro cement sheet shack and we had four radios in thereand room for several people to operate from that place.

Are you able to say now, having dealt with aspects of theCockatoo and Upper Beaconsfield fires, how the run ofthose fires and how your experience of managing themdiffers from or has similarities with what you saw on7 February this year?---It's a vast difference between AshWednesday and what's now known as Black Saturday. In theAsh Wednesday event there was really - there was no AIIMSsystem, there was no designed fire management system. Itwas very much an ad hoc system. Although we still had the

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equivalent of division commanders and sector commanders,the incident controller, which I became, basically did theroles of incident control, planning and operations, so itwas a lot bigger job I guess on one person in that respectin management terms. Of course, we had no systems likeyou have in today's world, computer systems or anythinglike that. It was all done manually by telephone, by VHFradio and handwritten logs.

Did you have any occasion to be engaged directly in thesuppression effort during Ash Wednesday? Could you seethe fire behaviour during those fires?---I'm laughingbecause it was all around us. The support that I had inthe control centre at Upper Beaconsfield on Ash Wednesdaywere two ladies of mature age and at the height of thewind change they were both outside with wet towels puttingthe walls out, so a bit different.

I'll go through the detail of your statement in terms of theplanning with which you were engaged prior to 7 February.But can I ask you, before we go to that detail, has inpart your experience of many years and the experience ofAsh Wednesday informed some of the way that you approachedthings for the 7th?---Yes. Look, I heard on the radiorecently a famous horse trainer, Bart Cummings, and theyasked him why he was winning the big races and he said,"You've got to earn experience; you can't buy it." I'veearned my experience.

We will go to some of the detail of that. The story of you andthese fires really commences on 5 February when you werecontacted by Mr Owen, who is the operations manager inregion 8. Mr Owen, I can tell you, says in his statementhe rang you because of your experience, your vast

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experience. When he rang you on the 5th, what did he askyou to do?---He told me something I already knew that,there was a fire that was going pretty good in the BunyipState Park and he asked me if I could work on the Fridayto build an operational contingency plan, which I agreedto do.

The operational plan was detailed and took some time toprepare. The version attached to your statement may notbe complete. I think we have managed to find the fulldocument and I will ask that that be shown to you. It isbehind tab 2 in the tender bundle. That will come up onthe screen for you, Mr Smith. It starts part way throughtab 2 with a map at (DSE.HDD.0012.1644). While that'scoming up, I will just ask you to confirm the notion ofthis contingency plan. Was the task, as you understoodit, to prepare for a fire that was presently in the parkbut may well escape on 6 or 7 February?---Yes, on the 7th,yes.

The idea was, as I understand it, that the CFA under yourleadership would put together a team with the title"contingency", but a team that would be devoted to thestrategic planning, focused on protecting communities andassets should the fire come out of the park?---Yes, that'scorrect.

This map, as I understand it, was part of the planning documentyou prepared. It is quite small on that screen, but doyou recognise that map?---I do.

It has some notations on it. It obviously depicts the park anda number of communities and is then divided into sectors.It has in orange blocks "Risk to civilians" as part of thelegend and then it says that red is "No go zone". We are

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going to have to get the map blown up a fair bit more tobe able to read that. The boxes on the right-hand column,the legend says orange is "Risk to civilians", red is "Nogo" and just above those on the map, red stars are "No",green stars are "Yes" in relation to defendablestructures?---(Witness nods.)

What does that legend mean? What were you depicting in themap?---They were notations that had been made by theground observer team on the Thursday, working out on theground trying to assess against the fuel loads in thoseareas where we would have trouble defending properties orwhere properties may be defendable and in fact what areaswe wouldn't go into due to the risk to our firefightingforces and the risk to the civilians.

Now, the map, the shaded area up the top shows where the firehad travelled to at that stage. As I understand this map,the black lines that run out from that are, what,depicting a worst case scenario of the run of thefire?---That's correct, yes.

Then, within that, the green and red notations which areoctagons or stars, do they depict particular houses orstructures in the path of the fire?---They showstructures, structures that are occupied, as I understoodthat.

So you had ground observers make an assessment about whetherthe particular houses were defendable or not?---TrevorOwen did that work on the Thursday. He got that startedahead of me being there on the Friday.

The shapes throughout the middle of the area that might beaffected by the fire, it seems to be divided intodivisions and then sectors, but what do the orange lines

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around the grey lines represent? Is that where you weregoing to locate particular resources?---Yes, that's right.One of the things we did was we had the local brigadecaptain and one of his officers tell us what the mainthreats were in terms of residents or communities and interms of critical infrastructure, so we then based ourstrike teams around those. You understand what a striketeam is?

Yes?---Good. Then we grouped those strike teams into sectors.There is a bit of an error in that map that you've got.If you can just scroll down the screen a bit, the blueline that goes to the east of Z sector in fact went to theother side of Z sector, up in there. That's really wherethe line went. It was an error that was put in very lateat night by the GIS people.

What does the blue line depict?---The blue line is the divisionbetween what I will call the Drouin division, which is theeastern division, and the Bunyip division, which was thewestern division.

So that change just affects the management of the divisions,but otherwise this is the plan and as the plan indicates,2200 hours on the 6th, this was the plan going into the7th for where you were going to locate strike teams in themanner best directed towards protecting assets andcommunities?---That's correct. The strike team numberthat's there was the order in which they would bedeployed.

Working with this map was a written document that assisted bythe setting of trigger points for various things tohappen. Can we go to the next page behind that tab(CFA.001.024.0273), where the narrative of the plan

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starts. Is this part of the plan that you were involvedin developing over the 6th?---That's the one.

It explains in the outset that it is a contingency plan writtenagainst the extreme conditions for the 7th and consideringthe present location of the fire. It indicates, "Theinitial area to be impacted will be residences to thesouth and south-east," and you have noted there that theyare small to medium farmlets. "There are many small areasof private remnant forest and regrowth" et cetera, so youhad obviously made some observations, includingobservations about the rate of curing of the grasslandsand some observations about the type of country where youwould be fighting the fire?---That's correct.

The map then sets out a number of trigger points. This systemof having trigger points at which certain things willhappen, is that something that's special to the way yourun fires or is it something that you have been trained todo and experienced in doing over the years?---I actuallyinvented it for this fire.

I thought I hadn't seen it before. Is there any particularreason why you adopted the trigger point approach? Wasthere something about the fire or something about the wayin which you approached it that meant triggers wereappropriate?---One of the real difficulties in a big firelike this, and this was always going to be a big fire whenit came out, we have a thing we talk about in the fireservices called time and space. I don't know if that'sbeen raised as an issue here, but it is about getting theresources to the right spot at the right time. We failedin previous fires that I have been involved in withgetting the resources to the critical areas in time to do

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the critical work. I guess a flash of inspiration on theThursday, we needed to do something about eliminating timeand space, so I thought a trigger line was a good idea.

The next page, if we can go to that, which is 0274, also has ahandy list of the key risk areas and you have noted therea treatment plant, caravan park, the Longwarry townshipitself, Drouin sawmill, Drouin West Primary School. Isthat your pick of the list, if you like, of the topcommunity assets that would need to have an eye to them ifthe fire broke out?---Yes, it is, particularly the caravanpark. If you look back at the previous map when you hadthat up, strike team number 1 was always going there firstbecause it was the highest life risk exposure we had.

Is that a caravan park where there are people in permanentresidence as well as holiday makers?---No holiday makers.As I understand it, it is the equivalent of people whodon't have houses so they live in a caravan park.

You had made a special note to be sure that that could bedefended?---Correct.

The next page, if we can go to it, 0275, and just have youexplain the way your trigger points worked. Trigger 1would invite consideration of preparing the agency controlchange. That's a reference to formal handover from DSE toCFA?---Correct.

And you would then deploy your div comms to the preplannedsites and inform the RECC. What was trigger point 1? Wasthat the fire crossing a particular point in the park orcrossing out of the park?---No, that was the transmissionpowerlines which are still inside the park.

At trigger point 2 CFA would be the control agency and yourplan then comes into play. The deployment then really

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starts to roll out with the pumpers in the right-handcolumn moving along with support pumpers going toLongwarry and Drouin et cetera?---That's correct.

So if we follow this plan through, the way that you had devisedit, each time a trigger was reached a certain thing mightoccur in the management structure, but in additiondeployment would roll out as per your plan?---Correct, andthe idea was, when we called for that deployment, it wasdeployment against effect further down the stream toovercome the time and space I outlined a few minutes ago.

So was it part of your plan then to have your resources aheadof the fire rather than chasing the fire?---Correct.

You then also descended to the detail of protecting particulartowns. Can I take Jindivick as an example. A couple ofpages on in the plan, 0278, this part of the documentdeals with Jindivick. You orientate yourself by referringto the map reference and the trigger point and theobjective you note there is contain or extinguish the firein the open pasture north of North Jindivick Road. Thereference to road closures, again, when these triggerswere reached, was it your intention that those were theroads that you would look to close?---Yes, they would betraffic management points, not road closures.

You would obviously need the assistance of Victoria Police interms of implementing that?---That's correct.

You then say in terms of alerts that what will happen is youwill notify Jindivick North and Jindivick residents toactivate their plans?---Yes.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, built into your plan is thepoint at which each community will receive its alert andits urgent threat warnings?---That's correct.

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You had a fallback strategy which you have written, if we canjust move further down that page. A fallback strategy wasto contain or extinguish at another point. Is thatessentially an acknowledgment that if plan one fails wehave plan B in place?---Yes.

And then you work through the other trigger points for thattown. We won't go to the rest of the detail, but youundertook the same sort of approach and planning forLabertouche, the Nayook sector and the Neerim South sectoras well?---That's correct.

And this is all work that you did on the 5th through to theevening of the 6th?---Yes, it was all done. It probablylooks a bit better than the scrappy stuff I left behindfor people to tidy up, that's all.

The way in which the team worked, we have had evidence in theseproceedings of other approaches to other fires where therewere on occasions a fully integrated CFA/DSE team, someholding some roles in the team, some holding others. Youhave probably experienced fires being run by a singleagency. This approach appears unique in that the CFA teamworked separately but in liaison with the DSE teamthroughout the 6th. Is that a strategy that in your viewworked well and stood you in good stead for the7th?---Yes, it worked extremely well. I listened to theevidence this morning and it did sound like we were twodifferent teams, but I would have to say that right fromthe start Mark Reilly, who was the DSE planning officer,he was kept right across what we were doing right from thestart and so was Dave Nugent as the day controller. Wetried to keep them up to date with what we were planningon doing, to the point where every couple of hours we

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would say to Dave, "Look, this is where we've reached,this is what we're intending to do," and on the day whenwe went forward from there and we changed agencies, MarkReilly continued to be the planning officer, so he hadcontinuity not only of the DSE job as a planning officerbut also of the contingency plan.

I should have asked you, there was another style of map thatyour ground observers prepared for you on the 6th which isat annexure 1 in your statement. Can we look at oneexample (WIT.3004.030.0060). As that's coming up, I willjust ask you to confirm what you also got your groundobservers to do on the 6th was go out and check particularareas such that they would be able to note on a map wherethe water points were to be used during the firefightitself on the 7th?---That's correct. There were twonotations I was looking for on water points. That'sstatic, static being dams, and hydrant-type water,reticulated water, and I also wanted to know for thereticulated water what the flow rate was so that we knowwhat sort of firefighting appliance could hook to thatcapacity of mains.

So, looking at this map, just as an example, wherever we seethe circle with the W there was mains water, but if thecircle is over a blue section, say near where IronsideCreek appears, that's an indication there is a staticsource of water like a dam or creek available to beused?---That's correct.

So you had your ground observers sort out that information forvarious locations across Labertouche and other areas thatmight be affected by the fire?---That's correct.

In terms of the resources that might be available to you on the

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7th, can I take you to paragraph 36 of your statementwhere you give an explanation in relation to what you knewgoing into the day about the region's resources. Atparagraph 36, this is a meeting at the Pakenham ICC at8.30 on the morning of the 6th?---Yes.

And you are explaining that during the meeting, which wasattended by people including Mr Owen, "we discussed thelikelihood the fire would spread from region 8 to region9" and you and Mr Sherry agreed that if this happenedregion 8 would take control, largely because region 9resources were fatigued from fighting the Delburn complex.Is it the case then, Mr Smith, that going into the 7th youwere restricted to resources in region 8 or could you drawon any other resources?---No, that's not correct. Wecould get resources from anywhere. The question I askedDave Sherry was did he have people that were qualified asdivisional commanders or IMT people that should beinvolved in this and they were the people that werefatigued, his key commanders.

I see. Throughout the day on the 6th were you primarily basedat the Pakenham ICC yourself?---On the 6th I was, yes.

Did you have the opportunity during the day on the 6th to meetwith members of the IMT including Mr Nugent?---Yes, wemet. As I said, at least two hourly we were talking toDave about what we were doing.

So that ties in with what you said a moment ago. Youroperational contingency planning team was a stand-aloneteam?---Yes.

But you were on site and did in fact meet with Mr Nugentregularly?---Yes, and Mark Reilly, the planning officer.

Did you make available to Mr Nugent's team the operational plan

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and the maps that you had prepared?---Yes, certainly did.If you go forward you will see at 1500 hours we had ageneral briefing in which they were involved.

This is the reference at paragraph 66 in your statement. Yousay at paragraph 66 at 1500 there was a general briefingwhere you delivered essentially a presentation of yourplan?---That's correct.

Was that presentation attended both by your team and the DSEincident management team?---Yes. There was a large numberof people at that meeting, all of what you would call theEMT members plus a lot of police from other surroundingareas and other agencies that had a vested interest in theoutcome of the fire.

During the 6th did you form a view about who would compriseyour incident management team when you took on thefire?---For a code red day, and in the old lingo code redfor us was anything with an FDI greater than 35, and itwas a lay down misere this was going to be a code red day.In our region we have a standing order that mans up ourlevel 3 incident control centres for such a day. That'snothing uncommon. Probably, I'm guessing, but probably 17to 20 times last fire season we were manned up as a level3 ready to go, so it is just normal routine for us. Afull incident management team, given the day that it was,would have been manned up ready to go for that day. Now,given the dire forecast for that day, and I don't think itis unreasonable to describe it that way, I did make thepoint to the group officer, Phil Craig, that we needed ourA team. We needed the best people we could get.

You refer to it being a standing order for your region. Is itsomething that is derived from the local management area

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plan?---It would be, yes, and that would be something thatother people within the region would be able to commenton. I can't really comment on that. I've been out toolong.

In addition to that standing order, did you receive anyinformation on the 5th or 6th about a directive that hadcome from your chief fire officer, Mr Rees, that people beready for a hot start on the 7th?---I was well aware ofthat, yes.

And you have described it as requiring you to put together theA team. When you talk about the A team, does that entailputting together an incident management team with peoplequalified to fight level 3 fires?---I don't go so much forthe qualification or tick in the box. I go for the peoplewith the experience and the track record.

In that context, somewhere in your statement you note the factthat you made a special request in at least one instance.For example, you wanted a particular person to be astrategic planner. Mr Keating, I think it was?---That'scorrect.

Is that an assessment you made based on your familiarity withhis skills?---That's correct. He's got a background forsome time as a DSE person, understands the forest verywell. He is a fire investigator and he is very, very wellqualified to do that sort of role.

You also made a decision to slightly modify the AIIMSstructure. You made a decision that operations should bedivided between two people, a strategic operations roleand a tactical operations role. You acknowledge in yourstatement that's novel, a bit like the plan. Whatinspired you to go with that split approach to

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operations?---I said earlier on that this was always goingto be a big fire when it came out and the workload is justtoo great for one person as an operations person, when thefire comes out fully developed into settled land. I guessthe difference is from the forested area to the opencountry in that respect, that the amount of resourcemoves, the amount of resource demands, the amount ofinteraction between the sector commanders, div commandersand the operations guy makes it almost impossible for oneperson to be both strategic and tactical in that response,so that's why I split them.

There is a chart attached to your statement showing thestructure for the day at annexure 7 (WIT.3004.030.0220)and that will come up on the screen. It sets out yourteam, and I just want to ask you a couple of questionsabout that. Obviously it has you in the incidentcontroller role?---Yes.

There is an indication of people from other agencies likeMr Teer, who is from VicPol, as the emergency responsecoordinator, but there is also an indication of yourplanning officer, your situation unit, the two aspects tooperations we have just spoken of?---Yes.

So you had Mr Hicks in strategic operations?---Yes.And Mr Ruys in tactical operations?---Correct.A safety adviser. Initially it looks like you weren't sure who

it would be, but ultimately one was appointed?---Yes.And then obviously your logistics, supply and other

people?---Yes.Did you get your wish, Mr Smith? Did you put together your A

team?---I did.By what time were they all aware that they were needed on the

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7th?---Well, we were notified at home about 4 o'clock inthe morning that the fire had got outside its line and wehad better get over to the ICC. It's about a 40 minutedrive for me. I guess most of my team were notifiedprobably within half an hour of me being notified becausewe all ended up arriving at the ICC between 5 and 5.30 inthe morning.

What prior notice did they have? What I'm getting at is hadyou told them on the 5th or 6th they would need to work onthe 7th?---Sorry. It is also part of our planning for aman-up day that a pager message goes out the night beforeto tell people within that group of people who is on duty,for want of a better term, the next day, so they knew theywere going to be part of the team. Also, all the striketeam information goes out telling brigades which striketeam they are in and who the strike team leaders will be,who the sector commanders will be and who the divcommanders will be.

So all of those who were part of your plan, from managementdown to the commanders on the ground, were aware as at the6th that they were likely to be needed on the7th?---Correct.

Going into the 7th you had also turned your mind tocommunications strategies and you say in paragraph 64 thatas part of your planning you made a deliberate plan for noradio contact between the ICC and the fireground. Rather,you would communicate solely through one divisionalcommander. Can you just explain the rationale behindthat? As I read your statement, on the day you ended upprimarily relying on mobile phones. What was yourrationale behind having one point of contact and what was

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your rationale about using phones rather than theradio?---We were trying to force the chain of command,which is the only way we could do things. Given the waythis thing was going to - the stress that was going tocome out of this fire, we needed to make sure the chain ofcommand was followed through the operations officer andthat the only person who was authorised to speak to thedivision commanders was the operations officer. Thatbroke down a bit when people found their phone numbers,but that's inevitable. But I wanted to keep away fromchannel 28, which was the command channel radio, andreserve that for the div commanders onto the sectorcommanders and then onto the strike team leaders so thatwe stayed away from congestion and allowed them thefreedom to do their work and only be the people on thatradio network. There was really no need for the link fromthe ICC to the div commanders to be anything than fixedline or mobile phones because our div commanders werebasically in static locations.

So it sounds as though you are describing a desire to relieveor avoid congestion, but you mentioned also the chain ofcommand. Was part of your thinking that if you forcedcommunication to run from your operations officer to thedivision commander, it would ensure the division commanderreceived one source of information and was not bombardedby multiple sources?---That's correct.

What is it about your experience in firefighting that inspiredyou to adopt that approach?---I have seen operations breakdown where people become, as a division commander, almostbecome incident controllers in their own right. Itdoesn't work because you can't get the right flow of

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resource, resources become tied up at staging areas andthings like that. We had to build a system that broughtthe incoming resources onto the firefight quickly. One ofthe things that you will probably note within all of thesefindings in here is that there is always a demand for moreand more resource, and I'm guilty of the same thing, ofdemanding more and more resource. But it is really, asmuch about more resources, it is probably more aboutmanaging the resource you've got. By way of explanationof that, it's take the water to the strike team, don'ttake the strike team to the water, if you get what I'mdriving at. If you can arrange to get the water to thestrike team, then you've got a lot less dead time.

Before we move to the 7th, I just want to clarify somethingwith you about the 6th. You may have been in court whenMs Buntine explained that at 3 pm on the 6th policedoorknocked her home and sought information about wholived there and what their plans were. I know you were inthe contingency planning role as at the 6th, but did youhave any liaison with the police about undertakingdoorknocks?---Not at all.

Moving into the 7th, you've already explained that you wereinformed at home at about 4 am that the fire had breachedthe containment lines and you and your team were allassembled at Pakenham ICC by 5 or 5.30. Did you get abriefing from Mr Hardman when you arrived?---Yes.

What did you understand about the circumstances under which thefire had escaped?---There seemed to have been some sort ofa weather event in the forest, like a willy-willy orsomething that had occurred out there that was a localisedfire event. Members of my team, Steve Hicks is one of

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them, he lives in the hills and he said they had the sameweather event there for a short amount of time. We liveout on the flat country now and we didn't have any weatherevent at all, so I took it from that it was a localisedevent.

Can I take you to paragraph 78 of your statement. This is at aperiod of time after the 5.30 briefing that you hadreceived. You say in paragraph 78, "At this point in timethere had been no formal CFA involvement with the DSEIMT." You have explained in your evidence about theliaison that did go on?---Yes.

And the planning that you had undertaken. At paragraph 79 yousay, "At approximately 6.45, the region 8 operationsofficer and I participated in a telephone hook up withTrevor Owen" and you requested a pumper and a striketeam?---Yes.

The evidence so far, Mr Smith, is that by this time the DSEcrew were all out of the forest and had fallen back to thestaging area. Did you give any consideration in thoseearly hours of the morning of the 7th about whether theDSE crew should, as their incident controller haddirected, stay put, or whether it might be more advisableto send them back in to try to hold the fire in theforest?---No, look, the call had been made in terms ofsafety of firefighters for them to pull their guys out ofthe bush and I'd support that totally. We've got to befocused on the safety of our people first.

So your thinking I assume then and your focus then turned toimplementing your operational plan. You had your triggerpoints identified. Had you given special consideration towhether or not you might be able to pull this fire up at

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the M1 freeway?---Well, it wasn't until we actually sentSteve Hicks, who was our strategic guy, and an operationsofficer, who was out there to help us in any way he could,to have a bit of a look around and just see what theconditions were. I wasn't satisfied that the informationwe had been given about the amount of grass fuel loadaround the Drouin-Longwarry Road up to the freeway wasentirely correct.

Where had your initial information come from?---One of theofficers from Longwarry had told me that there was stillsome long grass in that area. Given the time of year andknowing that sort of country, it is usually pretty wellgrazed out by February.

So did you get your ground observers to go and confirmthat?---No, I actually used the strategic operationsofficer to go and have a look. I needed that to be100 per cent information and then it was from his visitout there and he rang me, I'm talking about Steve Hicks,and he said, "Look, we can have a crack at this along theM1 freeway," and I was pretty certain that we could. Sothat's where we said, "Okay, let's try and make a standalong that line." Up until then one of the two objectivesfor the day was the Drouin-Longwarry Road.

Paragraph 90 is where you touch on this. At 89 you explainwhat Mr Hicks told you about the actual fuel load near theM1 and at paragraph 90 you say, "At 9.30 I considered thatwe could make a good impact on the fire throughsuppression efforts. If the fire progressed over the M1freeway, then we had a good chance of halting it as itheaded towards the townships of Bunyip, Longwarry andDrouin." Did you change any aspect of your operational

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plan in light of that assessment of the fuel load at theM1?---No, not at all.

As the fire progressed throughout the morning there wasobviously a lead-up and a clear appreciation that you weregoing to become the incident controller by aboutlunchtime?---Yes.

And the formal handover time you describe in paragraph 95 ofyour statement. Paragraph 95 comes just after a referenceto 1.45 and you then say at 95, "David Nugent andI changed tabards." So you physically changed youruniform so it was clear you were now the incidentcontroller?---That's correct.

That effectively accords with the movement of the fire frompublic to private land?---Yes.

Again, is it your view that that approach of handing overeffectively where the tenure changes is an effective onein a fire like this?---Yes, I reckon it is, because thetraining and the type of firefighting appliance and theresources and the skill levels of the DSE boys are reallysuited to the forest environment, that's what they do, andthe reverse is true with CFA crews. All of theirresources, their training, is all aimed and this structureis all aimed at the open country firefighting andconditions change markedly as it moves from the forestedarea into the open land.

In the following paragraphs in your statement you deal withsome aspects of managing road and train line closures andthe communications plan. Those paragraphs speak forthemselves. I want to take you to the fire breachingtrigger point 2, so this is at paragraph 111. You say atparagraph 111, "Once the fire breached trigger point 2 it

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headed south towards the Old Princes Highway, directlysouth towards the Tonimbuk airfield" and of course DrouinWest. The spotting activity, you were getting feedbackI assume, "was very high and at long distances"?---Yes.

Significant spotfires developed and you identify three of themajor spotfires in paragraph 113. One was in thenorth-west corner of Drouin. I want to pause there andask you about Drouin. There is evidence, including fromMr Murphy of the MFB, that an MFB strike team ultimatelyattended Drouin?---Yes.

Were you involved in any liaison with the MFB about thedecision to send them out to that fire?---Yes, we had aliaison officer come into the ICC and I was verykeen - I'm a firefighter, I'm not a politician. I don'tcare where they come from. So we got him onto the stagingarea at Nar Nar Goon pretty quick so they could get abriefing. They were sent on, as I understand, to the eastdivision commander or the Drouin division commander, whowas Phil Craig, and they were moved fairly quickly on tothe firefront. Now, in saying that, you have to give themwork that's suitable for their appliances. They are notexactly the same appliances as ours. I was a bitconcerned after the event that they had the correct sortof firefighting uniform. Some of the urban-style uniformsare a lot thicker for urban firefighting and I had heard areport that the MFB guys had done it pretty tough fromthe heat retention inside their uniforms, so that was aconsideration that I then put to people after I'd heardthat, that we needed to make sure that, okay, send theminto any hot fire, but make sure that they got a chance tohave a breather.

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I think you note this in paragraph 119. You refer to theliaison officer from the MFB coming into your ICC at 1.30and then the events that you have just recounted about theMFB strike team going out to Nar Nar Goon?---Yes.

And you note there the feedback you've received is the MFB teamworked very hard, they did a fantastic job protectinglives and property and you mentioned in particular theDrouin West sawmill and the primary school which theyassisted in defending?---Yes, that's correct.

You were obviously troubled during the day on the 7th by theselarge spotfires. Drouin was just the first of them.There was a large one at Warragul and another one atCrossover?---Yes.

Did they do any violence to your operational plan or were youable to still respond by just moving resources to wherethe fire was?---We were able to meet the need on those.When those large spots bob up, that's where the aircraftreally come into their own, particularly the air-cranes.The Drouin West one or the north corner of Drouin, we hadboth air-cranes on that and they were calling for striketeams to move in and support them on the ground because,with the aircraft, the aircraft are good to knock a bit ofthe intensity out and then you can get ground crews in todo the work. You will never put a fire out usingaircraft. You can quell it for some time, and the beautyof the air-cranes and the mediums we were using, the otherhelicopter, is their very quick turnaround time from allthe dams. That was one of the reasons that earlier mapthat we had showing the water points was so critical towhat we were doing, particularly the open dam areas, sothat we had identified water resources ahead of the day

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where the cranes and the mediums could pick up waterquickly.

Did you get all that you asked for in terms of aerial supporton the day or did there reach a point where it wasexhausted?---No, I inherited the air resources that DSEhad already been using and that was probably a bigger airforce than most small countries have. So, yes, I hadplenty.

Although you do note at paragraph 129 of your statement that at4.30 you were informed that one of your air-cranes hadbeen pulled off your fire and was sent to FerntreeGully?---Yes.

A couple of things arising out of that. You weren't asked; youfound out after the event, is that right?---Well, that'snearly correct. The way that that's handled is for therequest to go from SAU. I had an air operations managerthat was operating on that fire. The role of that personis to be like the operations officer in charge of all theaircraft. That person was Geoff Pike. He did anoperational analysis of what we had against the need inanother area. The recommendation that had come throughwas to let that aircraft go, so it went.

You note in paragraph 131 you don't criticise that. In fact,you support the reallocation of resources to areas ofgreater need. Do you now know that on its way to theFerntree Gully fire that aircraft was engaged in importantwater bombing of the Harkaway fire, as it turnsout?---I do know that, and as the former captain of thatarea I know the dangers and how close we would have cometo a really serious situation if the air-crane hadn't beenover flying that fire at the time. About a kilometre from

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where that air-crane was able to bomb that fire, that'swhere the Cardinia Creek valley starts. That's anidentified wildfire response zone for region 8 and isprobably the highest risk life area in terms of bushfirethat we have within region 8. That's the UpperBeaconsfield, Berwick, Officer and Beaconsfield area. Wewere in all sorts of trouble and I wouldn't have only lostan air-crane, I would have lost over half my groundresource. That would be a fire you could not possiblyignore.

So I take it, Mr Smith, you support as a matter of principlethe policy that the greatest need within the region oreven within the state must be met?---Yes.

And you support the decision as a matter of fact on this daybecause of the particular risk posed by the fires in theHarkaway area?---Correct.

Returning to the events of the 7th, I just want to ask you,about lunchtime on the 7th, did you have any involvementwith decisions made and steps taken to evacuate residentsfrom the Neerim Hospital and associated nursinghome?---Yes, I had some input into that. Trevor Teer, whowas the MERC for the day, one of his assistants was afellow named Stuart Halligan. Stuart is a police officerand he's the coordinator of the evacuation of thosecentres. He was somehow involved with that. I was askedabout the spotting into Bunyip. I recall - it is not inmy log - but I recall I said to Trevor and Stuart, "Let'serr on the side of caution, not only the spotting activityinto Bunyip's going to be a problem but so is smokecloud," because smoke clouds is as distressing as it isdebilitating for people who have got breathing

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difficulties. So, there you go.Having passed on that information, did you assume or take the

view that the police would handle the question of whetherthose medical facilities should be evacuated?---Well, thatwas the recommendation to the police, that they evacuateor have those people taken to the alternate points. Thereare preplanned alternate points and the Bunyip facility,their preplanned alternate was Koo Wee Rup, which was welloutside the line and I was told then that it wouldprobably take four or five hours to evacuate the NeerimSouth facility and my recommendation was, "Well, you'dbetter get on with that, too, because after the windchange Neerim South could well be impacted by fire, if notby smoke cloud," and they were to go to Traralgon, frommemory.

Indeed, as the afternoon progressed, the run of the fire wassuch that there was spotting down to the Drouin-LongwarryRoad and you recount in paragraphs 133 and 134 of yourstatement the path the fire took including running down toNeerim South and threatening Jindivick, Jindivick West andCrossover?---Yes.

You have provided in your statement logs and other material andfeedback that you got from divisional commanders andsector commanders. I won't go through all the detail ofthat, but is it the case that essentially the format youhave adopted in your statement at paragraph 143 onwards isto report all that you've heard from those who wereinvolved on the ground about their different experienceson the day?---That's correct.

For example, Mr Legione, who was the divisional commander atLongwarry, you set out some of the detail he provided you

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about his experiences?---Yes.He at paragraph 149 told you about his experience between noon

and 1 o'clock driving out to Labertouche to doreconnaissance and seeing the fire coming out of thepark?---Yes.

Can I take you to 163 of his account in effect to you. Atparagraph 163 you have him telling you that his experiencewas at about 11 o'clock that night two tankers from region13 working with him expressed a wish to go home to checktheir own areas. You note it was a difficult decision forhim as a divisional commander. He needed them, but heunderstood why they wanted to go. So essentially didMr Legione release those people from region 13 late in theevening?---He did. That was after I had changed over tothe nighttime controller. That was at, I think in the logthere, at 2300. I had actually had official handover at2000 hours and I probably hung around there for another40 minutes, so I wasn't there when that happened, but I dofeel sorry for the crews. They were from region 13 andthey'd had problems in their own area.

It does happen that divisional commanders are asked and they doagree to allow people to go back to their families andtheir area?---Yes.

Throughout the rest of that part of the statement you explainMr Lamble's experience. He was a sector commander insector A. He assisted residents in Jindivick, he deployedthe strike teams to Drouin West Primary School and engagedin all the other steps that you set out in yourstatement?---Yes.

Mr Craig you also had feedback from. He was the divisionalcommander in the eastern division. He was deploying

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strike teams when he heard word that there were people atLabertouche in danger and in difficulty, and he workedwith the MFB strike team as well during the day?---That'scorrect.

Mr Jones, the sector commander at Labertouche, has briefed youon some of his experiences. Can I take you to paragraph231 of your statement. This is the account of Mr Jones,sector commander, Labertouche. In paragraph 231 heexplains that, "The wind changed back to the north-west,the fire wicked down the Labertouche North Road towardsLabertouche Hall where there were people sheltering. Mikedeployed the Drouin South tanker, which had been part ofthe strike team, to stay and protect the hall. Fireimpacted upon the hall area but good work done by theDrouin South tanker and his driver saved the fire station,the hall and the automated telephone exchange"?---Yes.

Do you have any additional information from Mr Jones aboutthat? As I understand it, there were residents ofLabertouche and surrounding areas sheltering in thehall?---Yes. Look, I don't have definitive details of thenumber of people, but there was a considerable number ofpeople in the hall that had sought shelter there as apublic building. I guess they thought they would be allright in there. I note from the earlier witness about CFAcrews being there at the time of the fire and apparentlyher husband was there and that lady said two things; thatthey looked frightened - anyone who is not frightened inthose circumstances you'd worry about - and that they'dbeen sick. That's not unusual for firemen to be sick. Wewere shown the temperature somewhere in that statement.It was 47 degrees and the weather was deteriorating. If

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you do physical work under those conditions, it is quiteoften that you will become a bit ill. Fear can make youbecome ill as well, so I don't blame them for beingfrightened.

As it turns out, Mr Jones and the crew under his command, asI said, not only protected the hall and those shelteringin it, but saved the surrounding assets, including thestation and the local fire exchange?---That's thetelephone exchange, yes. Look, I don't think enoughcredit has gone to our crews in all of this. These guys,they're fighting for their own lives to protect thecommunity, to protect those assets. They just seemed tobe swept over in all of this. I'm really keen for thosepeople, particularly blokes like Mike Jones, who was givena pretty dirty job for the day.

I assume that's part of the reason why you have gone to greatlengths in your statement to not just recount your storysitting at the ICC, but recount the story of the men onthe ground who did that work?---That's correct.

Can I ask you also about warnings to the community on the day.We don't need to go to the detail as you have attached it,and Mr Nugent and Mr Hardman have explained some of thework that was done, but was it part of your approach tothis fire that, having made the plans you made and madeall the preparations you had, that you had yourinformation unit with some pre-drafted warnings mentioningsome of the towns that might come under attack so youwould be ready to release warnings on your watch asquickly as possible?---That's correct. That's why wetried to tag them to the trigger lines, so that we couldget the messages out, and some of the work done by the

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strategic planner for the wind change, to try and warn thecommunities that there was going to be a wind change andthat they would become the focus after the wind change.

Indeed, a couple of the warnings that went out on your watch,if I can put it that way, indicated to residents, whenthis was the state of your information, the wind change iscoming at 7 and then when it came a little earlier thewarnings are adjusted and they explain the wind change hasoccurred?---Yes.

So is it part of your thinking that communities need to know asmuch about the wind change as do firefighters on theground?---Absolutely.

Can I ask you about the evidence that will be given by Mr Allenfrom Victoria Police. In his statement he says atparagraph 38 that he became aware of a request from yourICC to play the standard emergency warning signal. Wasthat something that you were involved in making a requestabout?---I don't specifically remember that, but I wassurprised that the SEWS warning wasn't used. But I don'treally recall any specific details, I'm sorry. I justdon't recall.

Why were you surprised it wasn't used?---Because at the stagethat fire came out and we started giving those warnings,particularly towards the middle of the afternoon,I thought that that was probably the time that a SEWSwarning would go out to try and gain maximum impact on thecommunity to make them listen to the radio.

Mr Allen says he thought at least that it had been requestedand as part of his job he started preparing the necessarypaperwork and then the request was withdrawn?---Yes.

Is it that you are not sure that you requested it or you don't

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know who requested it?---I think - I certainly didn'trequest it, but I think that it probably came from arequest within the info unit, the information unit, andperhaps someone there thought, "Oh, well, maybe the time'spassed." But I think the problem with the SEWS warningsystem up until recently, as I understand, it's been a bittoo bureaucratic in the way it's to be applied. Therewere too many steps in the chain.

Hindsight is always a wonderful thing, but would it be yourview now looking back that the SEWS signal would have hada useful role to play on the 7th in the Bunyipfire?---I think it would have, yes.

Can I ask you, just to complete what you have said aboutresourcing, the way in which you kept track of yourresources also seems a little different from some fires.I just ask you to explain the system that you describe inparagraph 141 of your statement. This is something thatyour resources officer maintained. You say in paragraph141 that Ms Nolan "recorded an up-to-date allocation ofresources onto a local resource list via a computerapplication" which was regularly updated and could beaccessed at the RECC, and you have an annexure which setsout the resources?---Yes.

So does that list enable anyone, including at the RECC, to loginto it during the afternoon of the 7th and see what'sbeen deployed on Bunyip and where they have been deployedto?---The master plan is for every half hour for that Xdrive that it is saved on at Pakenham to - sorry - forthat information to be uploaded to the X drive which isaccessible by the RECC and by headquarters to look at whatresources have actually been done. You need to understand

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that the Pakenham ICC is a purpose-built facility, it hasa lot of the latest gizmos in it and it's two years downthe track but we are still in the transition from a manualhandwritten system to an automated system. A heck of alot of work has gone into trying to get that up. Thatresource system probably is unique to us in region 8 atthe moment but certainly it seems to work pretty well.

I hear what you say about it working well, but can you confirmMr Owen's evidence that in fact at least part of the ITsystem did crash for a period of time on the 7th?---Yes,that's correct.

Did it trouble you or are you a person who sticks to thehandwritten record in any event?---I think you have tohave both at this stage and, yes, I'm a person that,although I'm interested in computers and they're goodjiggers, you need to have some handwritten stuff too.

Did it hamper you at all or was the process adopted of havingemailed material read out to you over the phoneadequate?---That was adequate. The only thing that reallyhampered us with respect to the IT system was the waythat, to do a warning, the incident controller has toauthorise those and sign them, as you can see, and toprint that out at the ICC, the way the architecture hadbeen put together on the IT system meant, to printanything in our ICC, like a signal went up the line to CFAheadquarters that said, "Okay, yes, you can print it." Soit sort of went up the line and came back and told theprinter to print where we are. As I understand, allthat's been changed for this year because that built a 17to 20 minute delay into what we were doing, which is a bittoo long.

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Just above paragraph 141 I just wanted to note and have youcomment, at paragraph 140 you say if you had a request foradditional resources you placed the request and then thosewere forwarded. You said these were being met early inthe firefight until about 3 pm, but from then on it wasmore difficult; other fires had commenced and allavailable resources were being utilised. So did you hitthe point at 3 pm where you were alone, so to speak? Youcould use the resources you had but no new resources wouldcome?---That's about it.

You authorised the sending of a red flag warning during the dayon the 7th. As I understand your evidence, and I'm justsummarising here, but you had some information about thewind change that was predicted early on the morning of the7th, but as the day went on you got newer and betterinformation, if I can put it that way. At 4.30 you gotinformation that the change would come at 6 rather than7?---Yes.

When you received that information at 4.30, why did you decideto send a red flag warning?---This was a big fire. Therewere resources spread out over a mighty long perimeter ofthe fire and I was a bit concerned that we got a messageacross to everyone on the fire line that conditions weregoing to change and be pretty severe on the change when itcame through. Whilst I don't believe that red flagwarnings should be used lightly at all, I thought this wasa classic case of "I reckon we need to get one out." I'maware that I was probably at cross-purposes there withDave Nugent, but in hindsight that's not such a bigproblem given that we had actually stripped the wholeforest division of its resources and had redeployed it to

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provide security to communities and the key assets. Sothose DSE guys would have got that warning as a red flaganyway through the div comms down through the sectorcommanders they were working for.

No doubt you heard Mr Nugent's evidence that, althoughhe didn't formally classify it as a red flag, he in anyevent ensured the same information was sent?---Yes,correct.

You set out in your statement in various places, includingwhere you have your report back from your sector anddivision commanders, essentially proof that each of themreceived the red flag?---Yes.

And there is no suggestion, is there, Mr Smith, that any ofyour crew out on the Bunyip fire were caught by surprisewhen the wind change hit that fireground?---That'scorrect. We sort of had a - with the red flag warning,that was pretty clear. We got a couple of updates onwhere the wind change was at coming through and that's inthere as well. We also had our strategic planning person,Steve Keating. He was actually looking at how we coulduse opportunities to move strike teams with the windchange so that they weren't in a dangerous situation butwe could get them to where they needed to be for the newrun of the fire when it took off in the north-easterlydirection.

Do you take the view similar to that expressed by Mr Hardmanthis morning at a different point in the fire, but samepoint, that firefighter safety is paramount and that's whyone if necessary issues a red flag warning prior to a windchange?---Yes, that's right.

There is a final matter I wanted to ask you about in terms of

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traffic management points. Mr Smith, the forwardcommander from VicPol, has expressed in his statement someconcerns about traffic management points. He says theplanning that was done by your team was good, the triggerpoints were useful, but on the day he was disturbed by -this is not his terminology, I'm summarising - by whatmight be ad hoc decisions about some people being letthrough traffic management points. He says that theincident controller, which I take to be a reference toyou, allowed some people through, including I thinkjournalists and delegates of a politician. Is that amatter that you discussed with Mr Smith on the day or isit a matter you have discussed with him since in terms ofthe way traffic management points were organised?---No,I've had no discussions with him.

Did you make any decisions on the 7th to lift trafficmanagement points for particular people? Was that referredthrough to you?---I don't recall doing that on the 7th.I recall that we did some work on that on the 8th, but noton the 7th.

It is not a matter that you have had any formal feedback fromVictoria Police about?---Not at all.

In terms of your liaison throughout this firefight, I want totake it in two parts. Your liaison with the DSE up to andincluding the 7th, did it work well, in your view?---Yes,I thought we had a terrific working arrangement. Theycouldn't do enough for us in respect of the reallocationof resources. When it was clear there was no productivework to do in the forest, they immediately made all ofthose slip-ons available to us. You have to be a bitcareful with slip-ons where you actually put them. They

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are firefighting appliances that don't have any crewprotection, unlike tankers. You can put them in a lotdifferent situations. But certainly the amount and skilllevels that those guys have got certainly are appropriateto a lot of asset protection.

Do you feel that your liaison with the MFB worked well on theday?---In as much, as I said before, I'm not a politician,I'm a firefighter, and if a firefighter turns up with afirefighting appliance, they'll get used and, yes, we areall part of the one brotherhood.

The final matter I wanted to suggest to you, Mr Smith, is thatit appears your considerable experience, both as anemployee and a volunteer, but in particular thereflections you have made about your experience in AshWednesday stood you in good stead in terms of the approachyou took to the Bunyip fire?---Yes, I think so. Yes.

Any questions for Mr Smith?CHAIRMAN: Could I take up a matter that arises from paragraph

114 of your statement in which you say that you have neverwitnessed fire behaviour like that on 7 February. In thecourse of your statement you have not used any adjectiveor noun to describe something that in your testimony yourefer to as a "big fire". This was quite different frommost other fires?---Yes. I thought when I did mystatement that bad language probably wouldn't be a goodthing in here.

Do you have an expression? For a start - - -?---I've got oneall right.

You are not precluded from using whatever language you chooseto use here. Would it be helpful to have a differentexpression to distinguish this kind of fire from the

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normal fires?---Yes. I have probably only seen probablyfive fires in my career like this, anything like this, butthis was clearly the worst fire I've ever experienced. Itwas bloody awful.

We can call them "bloody awful fires".MS DOYLE: Or BAF.CHAIRMAN: There are other expressions that other people have

put, but none seem to be in any way popular. It justseems to be, amongst experienced people, that they are alluncomfortable with even things like this is an "extremelydangerous fire". That doesn't resonate?---No, not really.

"Firestorm" doesn't resonate?---No, not really. I think it isjust a big wildfire to me. The trouble with it isI thought when I experienced firsthand Ash Wednesday I hadseen the ultimate fire, and then I saw this one and itworries me that in my lifetime I'll see a worse one,so - - -

Big wildfire?---Big wildfire - - -Is the best you could think of?---Yes, in this forum. Yes.COMMISSIONER PASCOE: While we have you here, given your

experience in a range of areas, I note in paragraph 10that you make reference to the mentoring of volunteers andcareer staff at the CFA?---Yes.

It is an area that has interested the Commission in terms ofthe ongoing training and of course it seems to be quite acritical element of the movement of people from level 2 tolevel 3 in the AIIMS structure, particularly for theincident controller. Can you comment on what you see asthe strengths of that system, and I am particularlyinterested in whether you think there is adequateassessment, formal assessment, made in that mentoring

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process?---Yes, that's a tricky question. I've heard fromhere and I've read a bit of the transcripts as it's gonethrough. I think you get the wrong idea if you think youcan train an incident controller. You can train seals anddogs, but I don't think you can train an incidentcontroller. They have to be developed. You develop themthrough incident controllers moving through, doingoperations and doing planning roles and getting experienceas division commanders. Then you certainly do need someformal training to support that sort of stuff, but I thinkit is a much more holistic thing for the development ofincident controllers than simply sending them off to do atraining course.

In the role of a mentor is there guidance for you in terms ofthe kind of feedback that's going to assist in thatdevelopment process?---No, not really. I think that comesdown to your experience. One of the things that reallyworries me at the moment, I guess, with where the CFA isat, is of course as an employer they have a formalenterprise bargaining agreement with their union and partof that is that volunteers are not in any way permitted toprovide operational training to career staff. That reallymeans, and in recent times I had an opportunity to go anddo some wildfire training for career staff, but I couldn'tdo that because I'm a volunteer and I'm not a unionmember. So I think that EBA is a blockage to using theknowledge that we have in our own organisation for thebetterment of our organisation. I think that thementoring comes back to that as well. I've done amentoring course within CFA when I was an operationsofficer and we tried to develop a mentoring course for

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people. I think it is vitally important going forward inthe development of incident controllers that we do put inthe people that need to be mentored on days like that lastday and we actually have people experience incidentcontrol without necessarily being the incident controller,because I guess it wouldn't be for everyone. Once they'veseen it, they might say there's a better occupation.

Indeed. Just one other question. In all of the planning thatyou did on the 5th and 6th of February, or certainly inyour statement, you don't make reference to the municipalemergency response plan. Was that a resource that youmight have used?---Yes, but we had close ties with theMERC and the MERO and they were involved with a lot ofwhat we were doing right from the start on the Friday. Ifwe had have needed anything out of the MEMP, we would havebeen right, I'd say. But, no, we didn't really go there.

It is a document you are familiar with, is it?---It certainlyis, yes.

And one that you could see perhaps could have merit in anoperational planning exercise again?---Yes, I think thatit would. There was a lot of time pressures on what wewere doing, unfortunately. But I do support totallystrategic planning for all of these things that we aredoing. I think it made a huge difference to what we didon the Saturday.

MS DOYLE: Can I just ask a question by way of clarificationarising out of that. In terms of your links with the MERCand the MERO, when you were at Pakenham ICC where werethey physically located compared with your team?---Thiswould make a really good ICC. It's big enough. We hadtwo large rooms and they were in the adjoining room. The

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EMT was basically set up around a set of tables there withthe MERC, the MERO and the recovery manager all sittingtogether right from the start. The recovery manager wasinvolved at the start. I tend to run my IMTs a little bitdifferent to most other people as well in that I havealways had the key members of the EMT involved in the IMTmeetings anyway.

MS DOYLE: I understand there is one matter for Mr Smith.<CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR LIVERMORE:Mr Smith, I know you were keen in your evidence to give

recognition to the value of the work done by thosefirefighters in the field and I think you have done thatmost eloquently. I think you are also keen to explain tothe Commission the value of the air support that held thefront of the fire for about two hours longer than whatmight otherwise have been the case and the effect thatthat had on the run of the fire on the 7th?---Yes.I directly credit those air resources. I really thoughtthat that fire would be out by about 10, 10.30, I reckonit was coming out, and they held her up until nearly12.30. 12.17 I think we said she's out of the forest andon her way. That two hours was absolutely critical interms of the fatigue that our crews would haveexperienced. They were already running around chasingspots and given that it's 47 degrees, that's not much funon the back of a fire truck. That two hours is criticalbecause, if you look at that, we were about five hoursdownstream from the wind change. They were getting prettytired by the wind change and you do get a lift when thewind change is coming; you know that, yes, we're going tobe in for the first half, three-quarters of an hour of a

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flurry of fire, but the humidity is going up, thetemperature is going down, the intensity of the fire isdropping off, so we know the fire is going to slow down,we'll be able to get hold of it. So they get sort of likea new burst of life out of that. I'm not sure we couldhave made as good a job out of holding it at the OldPrinces Highway that we did hold it out if they had havehad to have another two hours of that. They were gettingpretty knocked around.

Just finally, if the fire had have got out that two hoursearlier and run an extra two hours before the wind change,were there any communities that would have been at perilhad that happened?---I think the western side of Drouinwould have been in for a fair sort of a pelting andI reckon the small communities that sit between Drouin andWarragul on the old highway. Around Lardners Track thereare a few small communities that sit in there. I thinkthey might have a different look about them today.

Thank you, Mr Smith.MS DOYLE: There is nothing by way of re-examination. I would

ask that Mr Smith be excused.CHAIRMAN: Yes, indeed. I do excuse you. Thank you, Mr Smith.<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)MS DOYLE: The final witness today is Mr Patrick. His evidence

requires only 20 to 25 minutes and we are keen to concludehis evidence today if we can. The best management oftime, though, may be to have a five minute break now.

(Short adjournment.)MS DOYLE: I call Mr Robert Patrick.<ROBERT JAMES PATRICK, sworn and examined:MS DOYLE: Your full name is Robert James Patrick?---That's

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correct.You are an employee of DSE and you have, with the assistance of

Victorian Government Solicitors, prepared a statement forthe Royal Commission?---That's correct.

Are its contents true and correct?---Yes, they are.I tender that statement.#EXHIBIT 588 - Witness statement of Robert James Patrick dated

17 November 2009 (WIT.3024.004.0355) to(WIT.3024.004.0386).

MS DOYLE: Mr Patrick, your statement explains you have beenemployed by the DSE for over 20 years and you are a forestand fire officer with fire management responsibilities.Have you spent the majority of your time working for theDSE on fire suppression activities and fuel reductionactivities?---That's correct.

You have worked on a number of major fires. You set out someof them in paragraph 9 of your statement, if we can have aquick look at that. You explain in paragraph 9 that youhave worked on major fires, including the most recentfires, but also the Great Divide fire, the Alpine fires of2003 and you have had deployments interstate?---That'scorrect.

In terms of the way in which your experience has unfolded,would you say that you are experienced in fighting forestfires or have you had any particular specialty or anyparticular area where you have focused yourexperience?---No, I'd say forest firefighting.

I assume then that you are experienced both in techniques ofsuppression and containment, as well as the things that goalong with that, like backburns and burn-outs?---Yes,that's right.

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In your role as a firefighter for the DSE have you been giventraining in relation to interpreting weather and windpatterns and dealing with fire behaviour?---Yes.

This Bunyip fire, which I will get you to explain yourinvolvement in in a moment, we heard this morning involvedburning in an area which is characterised by a peat-likesurface, floor fuels as well as canopy fuels. Are youexperienced in fighting fires in those sorts ofcircumstances?---Yes, although I haven't had a great dealof experience of fighting fires in peat.

What is it about peat that throws up any different experiencein terms of ordinary suppression activities?---One of thecharacteristics is those fires or that heat can remainundetected for long periods and then flare up again at alater stage.

So is it a situation where fuels that can't really be seen bythe naked eye might smoulder and then, as you say, flareup?---That's correct.

Was that your experience during your fighting of the Bunyipfire? Has it been your experience in that particularfirefight that there were those smouldering fuels?---No,not during the shifts that I was involved in. The firehad moved out of - well, the areas where we were focusingour containment control efforts weren't in the area wherethe peat was. It had moved out of that area.

You commenced working on the night shift of 5 February and youexplain in your statement at paragraph 15 you got a callin the afternoon and you were asked to attend at6 o'clock. Just to understand the way that your workstructure operates, if you hadn't got that call - were youworking on day shift when you got it?---No, I wasn't.

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I was on normal duties in the office.So had you been expecting to work night shift at all or was

this something that would mean you would now work a longblock?---No, I wasn't expecting it. It meant that I'd beworking a long shift, or a long period of time, yes.

So you did office duties during the day on the 5th and thenfought the fire on the night of the 5th?---That's correct.

In circumstances like that, for someone employed by the DSE,when you are asked to stay on and indeed then go out intothe field and fight a fire at night, does it change yourrate of pay? Is there any allowance or overtime rate thatapplies?---Yes, there is. After, I think it's seven and ahalf hours of normal duties, it goes into overtime.

Did your shift pattern then essentially change on the spot inthe sense that, having worked overnight on the 5th, it wasunderstood you would rest on the 6th and work again on thenight of the 6th?---That's correct.

So you didn't have to maintain the office duties during thenext day shift?---No.

You were contacted, as this notes, on the 5th and you wereasked to work as a taskforce leader for a Gippslandtaskforce. That position of taskforce leader, is it onethat you have held prior to these fires?---Yes, it is.

You in paragraph 17 set out the taskforce crew that you weregiven, effectively, the crew and the deputy taskforceleader. Were they crew that you had worked withbefore?---Not all of them.

Paragraph 21 indicates you got out to the Bunyip Ridge Trackfire at about 7 pm while it was still light and when youarrived the fire was still going and the containment linewas not complete. So what did you see as your task for

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the night of the 5th?---To continue constructingcontainment lines and to black out as much area as wecould.

That wasn't an entirely simple operation over the night, wasit. You had difficulties with machinery getting boggedand also the fire itself was creating difficulties withcontainment in the northern end of each of the east andwest sector?---That's correct.

You also report in paragraph 30, this is again still duringthis night shift, that, "The head of the fire whichextended from the creek in the west to the Bunyip RidgeTrack in the east was difficult to contain because therewere stringybark trees and understorey fuels that flaredup every five or 10 minutes and there was a light breezeblowing." Was this something that forced you and yourcrew to pull back regularly?---Yes, it was.

You say in paragraph 31 the stage that you'd reached in termsof the containment line. It looks like you have confirmedthis since the event, but that approximately 1.5kilometres of trafficable containment line had beenconstructed prior to your shift starting and then anotherkilometre during the night. Those difficulties seemed tobe reflected in reasonably slow progress in building thelines during the night?---Yes, that's correct.

How many crew did you have available to you to work that nightshift on the 5th?---Thirty-eight.

Is that the usual sort of complement for this type ofwork?---It varies. It depends on the availability ofresources and the type of incident that you are combating.

When you finished up on the morning of the 6th, and you notethis in paragraph 38. You say, "When we left the

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fireground at 6 am on the 6th the containment lines on thenorth-west corner and the north-east corner wereincomplete," you had not been able to get a complete andsecure containment line for a number of reasons. We havetouched on some of them; time lost when the D6 dozer wasbogged, the large boulders, the side cutting, the lack ofvisibility. All those problems combined to mean that whenyou went home on the 6th you still had not secured thosecorners?---That's correct.

And no doubt that was something that you reported back in toyour IMT perhaps through the operations officer?---Thatwould be normal practice.

You returned for a night shift on the 6th and on the 6th youhad available to you the incident shift plan for the nightshift. This is something you report in paragraph 44.What did you understand to be your task for the evening ofthe 6th?---To construct further containment lines,continue blacking out, push out or remove elevated burningmaterial.

You went into the 6th night shift with the benefit of aspotfire weather forecast?---That's correct.

Was it physically provided to you or did someone read out theinformation in it?---My recollection is it was physicallyprovided to me.

You have ultimately attached it to your statement at attachment9. I will just ask you to look at that,(DSE.0006.0024.0015). This was issued at 5.30 pm on the6th. Looking at this forecast, which obviously operatesfrom the evening of the 6th through to the early hours ofthe 7th, what message did it deliver to you about thesuppression efforts that might unfold over the night and

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any issues about firefighter safety that mightarise?---The issues for me were that it seemed inevitablethat the fire was going to get out under that forecast, wehad very little chance of holding it, and the other thingwas I had a heightened sense of need to protectfirefighter safety.

What features of the forecast brought that to mind? If we justlook at the weather overview, it says "Winds will easetonight and then tend north to north-westerly overnight,increasing during the morning ahead of a change expectedafter the end of this forecast. Mixing depth increasing"and details are provided. It then says, "Timing of thenortherly increase tomorrow could differ by a couple ofhours and may be quite dramatic when the low levelinversion breaks down. Northerly wind gusts could reach90 to 100 kilometres." When you read that text incombination with the chart, and perhaps if it could bebrought up so you can see the chart, what is this charttelling you about when any change might occur and when anyrisk time might arise for firefighters?---Yes. I wasconcerned that the change may arrive earlier or later than0400. In effect, we could be experiencing a deteriorationin weather at 0200. So, as part of that, I developed aplan in consultation with the operations officer in theoffice, Craig Bray, and developed a plan to evacuateresources from the line when the deterioration in weatherdid occur, being mindful that it might be a couple ofhours earlier or later than 0400.

So the way you interpreted this was it is a saying at 0400winds on the fireground will become variable, 10kilometres an hour gusting to 20 kilometres an

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hour?---Yes, I think that's right.But you were also taking into account the warning in this

forecast that that might occur a couple of hours eitherside of 4 am?---That's correct.

What is it about the variable winds that concerned you?There's been a lot of evidence in the Royal Commission inrelation to various fires about the traditionalsouth-westerly change. What is it about the variablewinds and this indication here that raised alarm bells foryou?---What it means is the fire could be pushed indirections that you may not necessarily be expecting itfrom. I guess in the normal course of events we're verycautious of northerly or north-westerly winds, but whenthe winds become variable, obviously it could come fromany direction. So, if you've got resources in a locationunder the weather that you are currently experiencing,they might be quite safe there. However, if the windschange from a direction that you are not expecting, thatcan suddenly change and that can be a dangerous position.

So you went into this night shift of the opinion that 4 o'clockmay herald a difficult time, but in fact you should be onyour guard from at least 2 am?---Yes, that's right.

In paragraph 45 of your statement you give the candidassessment that, having read this, you thought this wasthe "forecast from hell" and that you gave particularattention to the timing of the northerly increase but alsothe matter you have referred to, that it could occurearlier than predicted. So that was a matter thatoccupied your mind from the beginning of the shift?---Yes,that's right.

In paragraph 46 you refer to the steps that you then took to be

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ready for that. In paragraph 46 you say, "After reviewingthe material provided I knew a lot of work would need tobe done in the time we had to have a realistic chance ofcontaining the fire. I also thought that to ensure thesafety of the resources I could not afford to lose anytime in withdrawing." As I understand your evidence, youspoke to Mr Bray about doing suppression work during theevening in a way that would leave your crew in the bestposition to leave quickly when the need arose?---Yes,that's right.

So where did you position them during the evening of the6th?---The majority of the resources were on the eastsector. During the course of the shift I moved resourceson to the east sector. That was where we were mostvulnerable and where we were experiencing most of theproblems. I guess there was probably about three-quartersor two-thirds of the resources deployed on the eastsector.

You say that's where you were experiencing the most problems.Are you referring there to the fire itself; namely, that'swhere it posed the greatest risk of breaking out?---That'scorrect.

As it turns out, in your view was it also the best place to putyour crew for a rapid exit?---Either there or on thewestern sector. It was much of a muchness. They both hadcontainment lines to follow out to the south.

You recount in paragraph 49 onwards what you call theevacuation plan and I think it is really just as you haveexplained, that your intention was to move all crew outearly once you became aware of the deterioration of theweather. So what steps did you take to be in a position

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where you could see any deterioration in theweather?---Some time just before 0200 I moved onto BunyipRidge Track to a high point. I can't recall whether I wasexactly in the fireground or just above it, but I was veryclose to it. I thought that if I was in a higher positionas in elevation I would be in a better position to detectany change in any weather that was coming through, whichdid happen.

I have asked you about where the crew were, but can I justconfirm with you for the night shift of the 6th how manycrew did you have?---I had 58 people and six bulldozers.

There is a situation report for 6.49 on the evening of6 February which recounts the fire size as being152 hectares, but in terms of the list of personnel itsays 37 DSE and six others, 15 slip-ons, two first attackdozers, two large dozers, fixed wing aircraft, twohelicopters. It sounds a bit out of date because, forexample, you wouldn't have been using aerial resources atnight?---That's correct.

So your recollection is?---Fifty-eight.The situation report I have just referred to also has an

indication that 104 DSE personnel were resting. Does thatsound right to you?---I would have no idea how many wereresting.

But your recollection is you had available to you about58?---Yes, that's going back through my records. That'swhat I believe I had on the fireground.

Was that an adequate number for you for the work required onthe evening of the 6th?---Yes, it was.

We are back at the point in time where about 2.30 in themorning you positioned yourself on the ridge. What could

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you see from there? Was there anything about the weatherobservations that you were able to make fromthere?---There wasn't a great deal that I could actuallysee, apart from red things glowing in the night. Theweather conditions when I initially got to that point werefairly calm, as in not much wind, but I do recall afterbeing there for a short period of time, it may have beenhalf an hour or 15 minutes, something of that nature, thatthe wind did pick up from the north-west, the temperaturerose and the relative humidity fell.

In paragraph 81 you refer to some of these matters. You say inparagraph 81, "Between 200 and 300 hours I travelled tothe ridge above the fireground to monitor the weather.Whilst on the ridge the wind sprung up from the north"and, as you have just recounted, temperature up, relativehumidity down. What did that indicate to you? Was that aprecursor to a change or was it the change itself?---Itwas difficult for me to ascertain that being where I was.The other bit of information that influenced my decisionwas that I had some information coming through from theIMT from Craig Bray that there had been a report of 55kilometre hour winds on Westernport Bay.

So prior to this time when you were observing the fire between2 and 3 o'clock?---Yes, it was around about the same time.

So the information you received about wind picking up in PortPhilip Bay, did that suggest to you that the pickup instrength of wind might be on its way to yourfireground?---Exactly.

While you were standing up on the ridge, were you able to get agood visual on the fire itself or at least the part of thefire that you were facing?---Only in part. Being at

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night, obviously, and being in steep country you can onlysee so far down the hill. There was also a lot of smokearound so visibility is really restricted.

At paragraph 83 you say, "At this time crews were situated onthe containment lines either strengthening the lines orblacking out. I may have told Craig at this time that thefire may have crossed the containment line." I take thatto be a reference to Mr Bray. He is the operationsofficer?---(Witness nods.)

What is meant by the curious reference to the fact that you mayhave told Craig that the fire may have crossed thecontainment line?---I think that may have been a referenceto - I may have been drawing from Craig's log in that.I think also I had a record of my own log that there was aspot-over or something of that nature going on. I can'tremember in detail what I told Craig about it, but I mayhave told him that.

In paragraph 84 you then say, "Around this time I recall seeingthe heads of the trees being blown from side to side dueto the wind." Was that an indicator to you that thevariable winds may have arrived?---That's correct.

In paragraph 85 you say you called the sector commanders andinstructed them to direct the crews to pack up and moveout. I just want to clarify with you, Mr Patrick, thesequence of events. Did you see a wind change event, thenthe fire broke containment lines and then direct the crewout or should those three events be placed in a differentorder?---My recollection of events is that the change inweather or the deterioration in the weather and somemultiple spotting and some flame heights of five to10 metres and - yes, the fire was out on the eastern side

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in numerous spots, all occurred pretty much at the sametime, in a very short space of time.

Those events, wind event and fire behaviour, can you nowcontrast them with your decision or direction to pull crewout? Which came first? Crew ordered out first and thenyou see the fire behaviour or the other way around?---No,the crews were ordered out as conditions deteriorated. Sothe weather happened first and then we started to pullout.

Pulling out is not an easy thing. It took your crew some timeto get out from the area?---It took approximately one hourfrom the time that I asked Chris to start packing up untilwe were all down at the designated safe point under thetransmission lines.

So it would seem that the crew started moving out at about3?---That would be about right.

And it took them an hour to get down to the designated safepoint?---That's correct.

And even from there they then needed to travel back to thestaging area which itself then fell back to a furtherdistance?---Yes. When the resources got down to thetransmission lines they were down there for some time;I think, from memory, some of them probably for three orfour hours. The staging area at that stage - thetaskforce I had from Gippsland went back to the Gembrookfootball ground. The machinery went onto floats and wasdeployed to various locations from there, from that safepoint. But what we had been using as the staging area,the Dyers picnic ground, I don't think we were actuallyusing it at that stage.

The machinery you just referred to deployed to various

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locations was the machinery deployed to places where, inaccordance with the CFA's operational plan, it could thenbe used to assist in suppression efforts?---Yes, I'm notsure of the detail, but I think broadly speaking thatwould be right.

Paragraph 87 of your statement records your discussion withMr Bray and indeed perhaps is the log reference that youwere recalling earlier. You are aware that his logindicates you called him at 3.30 and said, "Extremebehaviour, multiple spotting, all crews on the eastsector, task crews to observe if safe to do so" et ceteraand the entry continues. You then express your view atparagraph 88, "I felt the fireground had become unsafe, wehad lost control of the fire and it didn't seem plausiblethat we could bring it under control. It seemed certainthe area was about to become an extremely dangerousplace." So was it your judgment at 3 or 3.30 am in themorning all of your crew in order to maintain safetyneeded to leave?---That's correct.

Equally at the same time it was your view that, having lost thefire, it was not going to be possible to keep it containedthat night?---No, I didn't think so.

As the morning went on, as I understand it, you and perhaps asmall group of others stayed in the vicinity and continuedto make some observations of the fireground?---That'scorrect.

At paragraph 90 you refer to a situation report you gave at4 am. At 4 am you provided the report the currenttemperature was 22 degrees, relative humidity 47 per cent,wind less than two kilometres. Does that tend toindicate, Mr Patrick, that the wind event you had

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witnessed was of short duration because by 4 o'clock thewind is at two kilometres an hour?---That's correct.

At paragraph 93, after having recounted the fact that the crewwere moving out, you say that you called Craig again andpassed on the information that you had been given aboutcrew moving out. "I also told Craig the weather hadcalmed down and, apart from the impending weather change,I thought that the fireground would be safe enough toattend. I discussed with Craig whether we could go backinto the fireground and assess the option of continuingwork. He gave approval to go back in," so long as it wasonly the three of you. So was his initial approval justto go back in and see if it was safe to moveforward?---Yes. It was basically to go back in and do aquick assessment on the feasibility of more resources, asin bulldozers and whatever, going back in to do additionalwork to try and round up the fire that had got out.

At paragraph 94 it seems that when you made contact withthe IMT again at 4.30, given that the winds were less thanfive kilometres an hour, it looked as though it may havebeen safe to be on the fireground at 4.30?---That'scorrect.

You remained uncertain about what to do in the circumstances,didn't you? You say at paragraph 99, "I was uncertainwhether to instruct the crews to redeploy to theiroriginal location and resume work or to keep them at thetransmission line." Were you starting to form the view,this is by 6.40, that you may not have needed to orderthem out?---No, I was very comfortable with my decision tohave moved them out given the deterioration in the weatherand what was forecast. Under the circumstances, I wasn't

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completely comfortable asking crews to go back in, andthat was purely based on the weather forecast.

In paragraph 97, this is just before the paragraph I took youto, you describe yourself and Mike and Grant walking alongthe track and having another look. The three of youdiscussed the weather conditions and you expressed theview that you thought it was the calm before the storm."By this I meant that the predicted weather change couldbe imminent." Are you suggesting there, Mr Patrick, that,although you couldn't see anything that indicated variablewinds were prevailing, you had a feeling as such that itmay just be the calm before the storm?---That's correct.

You say you felt comfortable with your decision to send thecrew out. Did you start to feel over the early hours ofthe morning of the 7th that it may have been tooconservative a decision?---No, I was completelycomfortable with it.

You checked with Mr Bray a number of times, and obviously youneeded to be guided by him as well. At paragraph 100 youcalled him again, it indicates there, and Mr Brayconfirmed, "We should not send any dozers back and weshould go to the transmission lines." He also said hewould discuss it with the IMT and call you back. When hecalled you back 20 minutes later he said, "Under nocircumstances are you to go onto the fireground"?---That'scorrect.

And that was really the last word, wasn't it, at 6.25?---Yes.And you had received your instruction, "Whatever the situation

was now, don't send them back in"?---That's right.In any event, you had also formed the view, hadn't you, even if

it were literally safe to go back onto the ground you

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wouldn't have enough time to do any useful containmentworks before any change then hit the ground?---Yes, that'sright.

I have suggested to you that you might have taken a view thedecision was conservative, but I take it from what you saybearing in mind firefighter safety you felt it was theright decision and the decision you had to make?---That'sright.

By the time Mr Bray gives you that confirmation at 6.25,"No-one is to go back in," do you know where your crewwere? It is some three hours since you gave them the orderto leave. Do you know how far away they had made it awayfrom the fireground?---Yes, they had gone down to thedesignated safe point, which was under the transmissionlines to the south-west of the fireground. They allremained there.

Would it be fair to say, Mr Patrick, now that that's happened,all your crew are off the fireground by 6.30, yourattention and that of the IMT turned to the alternative,which for your purposes was only going to be aerialbombing when daylight made that possible?---That's right,and coupled with that it was coming towards the end of ourshift. So it was more in terms of what to do with thedozers. The people were going to be rested.

In paragraph 107 you say that you recall trying to get in touchwith your air attack supervisor, Mr Lex Wade, for the dayto advise him that you wouldn't have resources on theground. Was that essentially to let him know, "There is aclear run. You can start dropping because there is nocrew there"?---That's right. I could hear Lex on theradio but he couldn't hear me. He was trying to establish

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whether it was safe to start dropping.You were unable to get through to him. Did you find some other

way of getting through to him the information that hecould start dropping?---No, I couldn't. I contacted CraigBray, I think it was, but someone in the IMT, and advisedthem of that, to let them know that someone needed to getin touch with Lex and let him know. Now I can't recallwhat happened with that, where that went from there.

Are there any questions for Mr Patrick?COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Just one general question, Mr Patrick.

Given the circumstances, how would you describe what youachieved in the time that you were able to be out on thefireground during the evening?---I thought as a group wedid really well on both of our shifts. The type ofcountry that we were working in, the steepness of theterrain, working at night in country that we are notfamiliar with, I thought that everyone performed reallywell. I wouldn't have any criticism of anyone or any ofthe contract dozer operators or anyone like that.I thought that everyone stuck to their task really well.

So there was some progress made in extending the containmentlines and doing what could be done in blacking out areasduring the evenings?---Yes. We constructed on the firstnight on the west sector approximately one kilometre offresh containment line. Also on that same shift weconstructed I think it was in the order of 600 metres ormaybe more, which may not sound like a lot sitting inhere, but in that country it was very difficult countryand those guys did particularly well to construct whatthey did under the circumstances and with what they had.

We did hear earlier from the previous witness some aspects of

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night fighting that are favourable in terms of betterhumidity and lighter winds and so on. Would you like tocomment on some of the hazards associated with working atnight in fires?---Sure. Falling trees and limbs are oftenpresent. Actually during that shift a tree came down onBunyip Ridge Track that almost hit a vehicle. That isrelatively common. Also working at night in steep country- working in really steep country, whether it is day ornight, has its own hazards, but particularly at night -lessens the degree of safety that you have got. Also, theother thing, working in areas where there is a lot of rockmakes it more dangerous for dozer operators because if thedozers actually start working on or walking over shelvesof rock or large boulders, particularly when they can'tsee them, it is very easy for them to lose control oftheir machine. So that makes it more difficult as well.The other thing that I in particular, and I know otherpeople do, find difficult working at night particularly onthe first shift is trying to get yourself orientated inthe dark with a lot of smoke in unfamiliar country, andquite often you are with people you haven't met before -sometimes you are, but often you are not - and trying toorganise everything at the same time and still maintain ahigh degree of safety is always a challenge.

<CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR LIVERMORE:Mr Patrick, were you in court this afternoon when Ms Buntine

gave evidence about the dozer coming off thetrailer?---Yes, I was.

That issue was drawn to your attention earlier in the week; isthat so?---That's correct.

You consulted your log for the Monday, 2 February, and in your

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log were you able to refresh your memory in relation to anissue involving a float going over the edge of the roadnear the Tea Tree Track?---Yes, it was on Tea Tree Roadnear Tea Tree Track.

Does your log and recollection indicate that that occurred atabout 1715 hours, that a second dozer was requisitioned totow out the float and the other dozer and that thathappened at about 2030, at about 8.30 the samenight?---That's correct. Chris Stafford's bulldozer wasbrought down from a logging operation north of where thedozer and the float had gone over the edge. Chris and hisdozer got on the bottom side of Tea tree Road and pushedthe float with the dozer still on it back onto the road.

That dozer was then used to put a track around a tree that hadbeen the subject of a lightning strike and had caughtfire?---That's correct.

That exercise on the Monday has nothing to do with thefirefight of the main fire that ended up getting out ofthe park?---No, no connection.

MS DOYLE: Nothing by way of re-examination. I would ask thatMr Patrick be excused.

CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Patrick, you are excused.<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)MS DOYLE: Just one final matter. There is just going to be

tender of a map with a before and after depiction of thefire-affected area that the councils have provided.

DR LYON: Mr Chairman, Commissioners, I have three copies oftwo maps of the Bunyip Ridge area. I have taken theliberty of marking the Bunyip Ridge Track with ahighlighter on the pre-fire maps. If I can tender that asa bundle.

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CHAIRMAN: Yes. Thank you, Dr Lyon.#EXHIBIT 589 - Bunyip Ridge Aerial Imagery Pre Fire

(EXH.589.0001) to (EXH.589.0002).MS DOYLE: That concludes the evidence for today. We

anticipate concluding the Bunyip evidence in the morningand then moving to a brief examination of Narre Warren inthe afternoon.

CHAIRMAN: Yes, all right. We will adjourn now until 9 o'clocktomorrow morning.

ADJOURNED UNTIL THURSDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2009

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