We know that climate change, which causes increased heat and extended drought, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in Australia for more than two decades, and that climate change fuelled Australia’s devastating black summer fires.
We also know that if we are to have a hope of avoiding dangerous or catastrophic climate change, the world needs to transition away from its current reliance on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. In this sense, the rapid development of renewables is one of the main actions we need to be taking now.
Sadly, we have a federal opposition that seems determined to turn the need for a shift to renewables and storage into another front in the climate war. The conservative press cheers it on. With a campaign pushing false solutions such as nuclear power and platforming anti-renewables sentiment, we face the prospect of losing more years that we can’t afford if they are successful in derailing the necessary energy transition.
There is growing opposition in some regional areas to renewable energy projects and the transmission lines that will be needed to deliver electricity to consumers, who are largely based in regional centres and big cities. In Victoria, this has reopened the “wind wars” that raged through the state’s west in the early 2010s. Opposition to transmission lines in particular has been strong in the central and western parts of Victoria – so much so that “piss off AusNet” remains mowed into a Blampied hill.
This week, a strange front opened up in the climate war. Some volunteer brigades from the Country Fire Authority (CFA) – as many as 24, according to the Weekly Times, though only five have signed an open letter to the minister – have said they are taking strike action and will refuse to fight fires on land hosting high-voltage transmission lines, solar or windfarms, over what they call the Victorian government’s “reckless renewables expansion”.
I am proud to serve as a volunteer firefighter. As volunteers in the CFA, we are expected to remain non-political. While we all hold views, we are careful not to voice them as brigades. That is why the Australian Firefighters Climate Alliance (AFCA) was set up. It allows members like me to voice opinions on climate change without politicising the brigades that we belong to.
As volunteers we are proud to serve our communities. Whether it is a car or house fire, a gas leak or a wildfire, our job is to get on scene quickly and work with our colleagues to make the fireground safe for the community and put the fire out as quickly as possible. This commitment to the greater good means that firefighters are deeply trusted by the community. One of the great things about volunteering is that it brings together people from all walks of life and political persuasions. We are all on the same team when we jump on the tanker and head to the call. It places community safety and group cohesion above day-to-day politics.
The AFCA deeply disagrees with the brigades who are taking action over a politically weaponised topic like the energy transition. While we support the calls for greater clarity around policy and safety, we do not believe this has to come at the expense of the energy transition away from fossil fuels.
We remember the fire in the Hazelwood coalmine that burned for 45 days and needed many hundreds of firefighters to put it out. While we oppose the continued use of fossil fuels such as coal and gas, we would never consider limiting our response to fires involving facilities such as coalmines and coal and gas power stations, and we regularly attend events involving leaks of fossil gas. We attend these events not because we support fossil fuels, but because that is our commitment to community.
The brigades who have gone on renewables strike say one of their concerns is for firefighter safety, particularly if a fire were to burn under transmission lines, and they say the CFA standard operating procedures are unclear.
We at the AFCA consider ourselves to be pro-union, and will always support workers and volunteers advocating for their safety, and better working conditions.
Sadly there is misinformation being presented about renewables in some news reports about this strike action, for instance the claim that renewables increase the risk of fire in regional communities. Modern windfarms have to ensure a bushfire risk assessment is carried out before construction and that they meet relevant guidelines from fire authorities.
It could even be argued that the construction of windfarms assists in firefighting because they require good road access to all turbines and other infrastructure. It must be noted that fire in renewable facilities is rare and generally very localised.
With the rise of storage batteries, electric vehicles and grid and household scale renewables, we acknowledge that firefighters are facing new challenges. But we are also facing the fact that climate change is turbocharging fire conditions – meaning longer and more intense seasons, with growing demands on existing career and volunteer firefighting capacity.
It also is important to note that wind turbines and transmission lines are generally located on privately owned farmland. If a fire takes off on one property it can spread quickly and become a blaze that can have enormous impacts across the community. Victoria puts a lot of effort into stopping small fires before they become uncontrollable. We have specific responses on days of bad fire conditions to ensure rapid deployment of ground and air resources. The volunteer firefighters who have written to Victoria’s emergency services minister, Jaclyn Symes, and the CFA’s chief officer, Jason Heffernan, stating they would “restrict turn-out commitments to incidents at electricity generation and transmission infrastructure sites to ‘property perimeter defence’” risk this rapid response approach to firefighting.
As noted recently by the author John Vaillant, the 21st century will be shaped by destructive “fire weather”. Excessive use of fossil fuels is one of the drivers. Firefighting is, and always has been, adaptive and responsive to changes in the external environment. Threatening to withdraw our labour because we don’t like windfarms or solar panels would be an extraordinary betrayal of the trust that the community places in us because it puts politics above community safety.
Cam Walker is a volunteer firefighter based in central Victoria. He is campaigns coordinator with Friends of the Earth
