Trees and powerlines can be a volatile mix, which proved to be the case on October 17, 2013 in Linksview Road, Springwood, and Mt York Road, Mt Victoria.
In hot, wild and windy conditions that afternoon, a tree (in Springwood) and a tree branch (in Mt Victoria) fell across power lines, causing electrical arcing which ignited vegetation on the ground.
Within minutes, the wind would whip the flames towards properties causing the greatest loss of houses – more than 200 – in any NSW bushfire.
In her official findings handed down yesterday, NSW coroner magistrate Fiona Toose concluded that both fires were caused by the contact with high voltage power conductors.
After hearing 15 days of evidence in the coronial inquiry from June, 2015, to November last year, Ms Toose made several recommendations which could help prevent a repeat of that devastating day.
She recommended that Endeavour Energy ensure its contractors who manage vegetation under power lines and do pre-summer checks receive appropriate training and equipment, including a sounding hammer or rubber mallet, which could have indicated that the tree in Linksview Road, Springwood, was rotten and hollow.
She noted that NSW police on the afternoon were called into action despite having no personal protective equipment, so recommended that officers in bushfire-prone areas be given that equipment and training in how to use it.
Ms Toose also recommended that Rural Fire Service personnel and volunteers be given more training in safe ways of fighting fires near electricity.
And she took up a suggestion from police that there should be a disaster victim registration system set up so people caught up in natural disasters, as in October 2013, don’t have to fill in multiple copies of forms lost in the fires.
Macquarie MP, Susan Templeman, who lost her Winmalee house in the fires, welcomed the findings of the inquiry.
“While we can’t change the events of those days, we can learn from them, and there are recommendations relating to the prevention of similar fires, the fighting of fires and the investigation,” she said.
“I look forward to Endeavour Energy’s response on ways to improve the maintenance of trees around power lines. An improved process may have been key to sparing hundreds of people from losing their homes.
“The various emergency services in the Blue Mountains already have an obviously strong working relationship, which we see during fires, storms and other disasters. But if there are steps, as recommended, that can be improved on, I have no doubt they will work collaboratively to implement them. Governments must be prepared to fund those improvements, whether it is training or equipment, to ensure the best possible response.”
Ms Templeman said the Mountains is likely to experience more days with conditions as they were in October 2013.
“More days where the combination of hot dry winds, high temperatures and high fuel loads have the potential, with one trigger, to be dangerous. We did not lose lives in the 2013 fires, but peoples’ lives were irrevocably changed.”
