New technology and a better understanding of fire behaviour has changed bushfire management practices over the last two decades. As Australia comes out of the latest wet period, experts say more can be done to decrease the likelihood of a tragedy on the scale of the 2003 Canberra bushfires.
Simon Butt came off nightshift on the morning of January 18 after having spent the evening in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve trying to protect wildlife and in Corin Forest trying to save the resort.
"I remember saying to the crew that if they managed to hold the fires today it'd be a miracle," he said.
The newly-minted deputy captain of Gungahlin Rural Fire Brigade wasn't home long before it was all hands on deck. The fire burning in the hills to the west and south-west of Canberra was approaching the suburbs.
As that firefront arrived, Mr Butt spent the night with his crew working their way through the Weston Creek area.
He said at about 12.30am the communication centre paused all radio traffic and went through every brigade asking what vehicles were out and who was on them.
"Obviously, they'd lost situational awareness and didn't know where people were or who was on trucks or what was happening," Mr Butt said.
"It was clear that it had been a major emergency and a major disaster that night."
Now the captain, Mr Butt is one of six volunteers at Gungahlin who were part of its small brigade in 2003. He has also worked for the ACT Parks and Conservation service in the fire management unit for almost 20 years.
He says a lot has changed since the 2003 Canberra bushfires tore through, taking four lives and more than 500 properties with it.
"People might underestimate the impact that it had on the community and it still has on the first-responder community," he said.
Developments in technology have allowed for the tracking of all vehicles to ensure they and everyone on them are accounted for. Aircrafts have increasingly been made available and personal-protective equipment has improved.
Mr Butt said the provision of real-time viewing from crews to incident-control centres now allows for a level of informed decision-making that wasn't available in 2003.
"The two eras aren't the same, so to compare them, I don't think is fair to the people that were operating in 2003," he said.
A seismic shift in attitudes in Australia in 20 years had meant there were no climate skeptics on the end of the hose anymore, Mr Butt said. The ACT Rural Fire Service was also better resources and better trained.
"We've sent people to every state in Australia on deployments since 2003," he said.
"Sadly, the opportunity to practice our skills is becoming a year-round thing."
Australia's fire danger rating system has recently been simplified and rolled out to emergency service agencies nationally. It now comes with clear instructions for what to do when each rating is applied.
Professor Philip Gibbons, from the Australian National University, has worked as a firefighter and ranger, in addition to studying bushfire behaviour and management.
Professor Gibbons said the new rating system was very welcome, however, more work was required to improve communication to the public and between agencies.
He said while early-warning systems had also improved, anyone who travelled during the Black Summer bushfires would remember the frustration of different states and territories using different fire mapping systems.
Professor Gibbons said the Orroral Valley fire had demonstrated that communication between agencies continued to be constrained.
Evidence given during the ongoing inquest had indicated the helicopter that sparked the fire in Namadgi couldn't make direct contact with emergency services in the ACT, he said.
Professor Gibbons said the 2003 decision to let fires at McIntyre's Hut burn was in some ways repeated in 2020, when a communication failure meant a delayed response in Namadgi.
The ANU is working on technology to improve rapid response to bushfires. A team has developed a prototype for an unmanned vehicle that could be deployed quickly once a fire risk was detected.
Professor Gibbins said ANU research had also indicated the most effective fuel management was burning off very close to houses.
"We still don't do enough to focus our fuel management close to the assets we're trying to protect," he said.
"You can't just rely on public land management agencies to protect built assets, that's a shared responsibility. It's a responsibility of landholders."
John Brummell's home was one of around 10 on his street in Duffy that didn't survive the 2003 fires.
At around 3pm on January 18, Mr Brummell took a short drive west to get a better gauge of why the afternoon sky was turning dark.
By the time he drove through Chapman and reached Namitjira Drive the wind had picked up and the road had suddenly filled with cars.
He turned back to Duffy and within minutes a 70 kilometre-per-hour "hailstorm of burning cinders" had hit.
Police attempted to block the road but he drove past to get back to his home where his wife was sleeping.
"The garden trees and bushes all around the house were catching alight, the glass in the windows was breaking and the curtains inside were catching fire," he said.
"We grabbed our wallets and purses, jumped into our second vehicle in the open carport and sped off.
"The time then was about 3.25pm. By 3.45pm, when we got to our friends' place in Deakin, our house would have burnt to the ground."
Despite the devastation of losing their home, Mr Brummell said their recovery was easier than it was for many.
The house and contents were insured. They were put up in a rental straight away. One of their bridesmaids even managed to replace their wedding photos.
Mr Brummell said he remembers the period as one where members of the community, businesses and the ACT government were all on his side.
The Brummells didn't hesitate to rebuild and were in their new house on the same block by Christmas.
Today, Mr Brummell said he's less at ease in Duffy than he was when all that forestry was burnt right back.
A report from the ACT Multi-Hazard Advisory Council, released to coincide with the 20 year anniversary of the Canberra bushfires, has cautioned that Canberra is now underprepared to deal with an increasing bushfire risk.
Mr Brummell said the overgrown suburbs on Canberra's fringes didn't appear to be on the agenda of "pollies on either side", despite the impact climate change was having.
"Now 20 years on, this could happen again," he said.
"I don't think you can rule anything out with climate change from now on."
Mr Brummell said the pine trees along Eucumbene Drive have grown back tall in two decades and little seems to be being done to control them.
"Just imagine what would happen if there was a bushfire that got out of control," he said.
"I am genuinely concerned about that."
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