00:00 Malcolm Hackett lost his home in Strathuwan on Black Saturday.
00:05 Fire was coming in all sorts of directions.
00:08 He has rebuilt, but the Black Saturday fires, which claimed 173 lives, still cast a shadow over his community.
00:15 Losing our home was pretty awful, but it pales into insignificance
00:20 when you think of the families that are just torn apart by death as a result of fire.
00:30 The Bushfires Royal Commission found the King Lake fire, which claimed Malcolm Hackett's home, was sparked by an ageing power line.
00:38 And numerous bushfires since 2009 have also been tracked back to failed poles and wires.
00:44 But a new device could help prevent future outbreaks.
00:47 One of the main goals of the project is detecting that a conductor broke
00:51 and taking the power out of the line before it touches the ground.
00:55 The device is still being tested, but the results are promising.
00:59 We actually simulated a real conductor breakage.
01:02 Our device could detect that conductor breakage in less than a second.
01:06 Power companies and the Victorian government are backing the technology
01:10 through a mix of direct funding and research and development grants,
01:13 with RMIT also developing a system to predict power line faults.
01:18 There's expected to be interest from around the world in the device,
01:21 but for Malcolm Hackett, it's an important development for regional Australian communities.
01:25 Anything you can do to reduce those fires caused by power lines
01:30 is going to result in a lot of families being an awful lot better off.
01:34 With more hot summers forecast, it's a technology that can't come soon enough.
01:39 See ya.
01:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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