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00:00Righto. The fire front's passed now. Everything's gone. I'm over at Kylie's house, which is next door.
00:09Every house around us has burnt down. There's our house. Gone. I've burnt all me face trying to fight the
00:16fires.
00:18I remember when Black Saturday was taking off and I can remember hearing that 14 people had died and I
00:24said,
00:24that can't be true. It was true. And then as the hours went by, the news just kept getting so
00:32much
00:32worse. We'd never seen a fire like this before. Not on its scale, but particularly its intensity.
00:39The flames were unstoppable. This is what's left of the local service station after it went up in a
00:45fireball. Back of warnings on that particular day, the anger was white hot. There was no warning and
00:54then the fire is on their doorstep. Standing here, you just really can't bear to even think
00:58about it. Walls of flame approached. It was like half a dozen F-18s just coming up the mountain
01:04at once. People thought, well, I'll stay and defend. That turned out to be incredibly dangerous
01:09advice. Dad, get back! The climate is changing and threatening our very existence. Friends are
01:17dead with their children because you can't fight that. I don't want to ruin your day, but home after
01:24home after home on fire. The LA fires, if we don't get our skates on for Australian cities,
01:32that's what's going to happen.
01:37This was the biggest peacetime loss of life in Australia.
01:41And for Australia to be told that 173 people had lost their lives in the Black Saturday bushfires,
01:49talking about it now, I still find it hard to believe.
01:56It'll probably happen again.
02:04So,
02:13so,
02:28This is what six years of below average rainfall has done to Victoria's rural reservoirs.
02:36Lake Eildon, north of Melbourne, is at just 24% of capacity.
02:41Well this is a drought like I'd never seen before.
02:43The ground was rock-hard, the grass was tinder-dry, it was brown.
02:48It was like our part of the earth had been cooked, literally, by the sun.
03:01The way to think about intense droughts and the millennium drought is a really good case in point.
03:08A lot of the rivers and the creeks in Victoria were drying up.
03:12The whole landscape was just going into this terminal dryness.
03:18You're taking landscapes and you're turning them into powder kegs, basically.
03:26Storages across country Victoria are at just 41% of capacity.
03:31And some, like Lake Lonsdale in the States West, are virtually empty.
03:36It does strange things to people's heads because it's sort of the polar opposite of a flood.
03:44Flood's a very intense thing.
03:45Whereas a drought is, you know, it really is this drying, relentless drying and this relentless frustration that there's just
03:54no rain, no rain on the horizon.
03:57But I know, and all of the other scientists know, that there's so much of that fine fuel has been
04:02produced.
04:03And because of this relentless background drying trend, the air is ready to go up.
04:14We knew that the weather forecast was terrible and we had just had so many preceding years of drought.
04:21And knowing that it was if and when a fire started, the result of that could be catastrophic.
04:36Tomorrow, the Bureau says the state will bake in mid-40s temperatures.
04:40In fact, the forecast top of 43 degrees for Melbourne could well be exceeded.
04:44And the Premier's warning is for everyone.
04:47If you don't need to go out, you know, don't go out.
04:51You know, this is a seriously bad day.
04:582009, I mean, I was the junior burger of the newsroom at Channel 9 and getting sent out to cover,
05:04you know, cut up a tree and anything of that ilk.
05:07And, you know, being a young, keen journo, you want to get sent anywhere.
05:11So I was the person that, you know, what's that?
05:13There's something on at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday.
05:14Yep, I'll go.
05:16So, you know, you're young and keen and want to do anything you can.
05:19Tom Steinford, National 9 News.
05:23To be honest, I had the weekend off.
05:25On a Friday night, young lad, decided to go out on the town and had a few drinks, whatever.
05:29I woke up a bit hungover Saturday morning and wasn't working.
05:32And I think I went out to go get something to eat.
05:34And as soon as you open the door, bang.
05:37It just hit you.
05:40The air was just so thick and hot.
05:44It was like you'd open the door to a sauna.
05:48Winds blowing between 60 and 80 kilometres per hour.
05:52The mercury soared to 46.4, making it Melbourne's hottest day since records began.
05:58I straight away just thought, I know I'm going to get called into work sooner or later.
06:02Let's just cut it off at the pass and head in there now.
06:05It was the kind of day that you knew something bad was going to happen, but everyone was sort
06:09of sitting around twiddling their thumbs thinking, maybe we'll get off scot-free.
06:13I don't know.
06:14But as the day went on, it just got hotter and hotter and hotter.
06:25I've been firefighting with the CFA for 35 years.
06:30The CFA is the Country Fire Authority.
06:33It's a volunteer-based organisation.
06:36It provides country firefighting in regional Victoria.
06:47The day started out as any other total fire ban day would.
06:53You head off up to the fire station.
06:57Liz and Dalton decided to stay at home.
06:58My wife Liz and my son Dalton.
07:02We'd always been told when it comes to bushfires, either leave early or stay and defend.
07:11This notion of staying and defending, it had come out of research and come out of fires
07:16and, you know, the idea was that you could stay and defend your house.
07:21We felt that things would have been defendable, that we had a lot of things in place.
07:26We thought we were fairly well protected, as we did with the whole town.
07:33And so, yeah, about midday, we'd got a couple of tip-offs that there was some sort of fire near
07:39Kilmore.
07:40And I just remember those pictures so vividly of this fire racing up a hill there towards a house.
07:49The Kilmore East Fire was a mega blaze, and that's what started the Black Saturday fires.
07:56The fire started when a power line came down and caught a light.
08:00And within minutes, that sparked a blaze that became a mega fire.
08:06Fire crews had to simply wait for the blaze to come to them.
08:09Water bombers their only weapon as it tore through Bunyip State Forest.
08:13And as what seemed like gale force winds arrived, so too did the embers.
08:17Spot fire sparked as far as 20 kilometres ahead of the main blaze.
08:24Black smoke filled the sky, showing the blaze was coming and coming fast.
08:29But there was also no immediate threat in a lot of communities.
08:33And particularly for, you know, for, say, Sharon and Terry Donovan in Marysville.
08:38There was the lack of warnings on that particular day.
08:42And so they kind of went about business as usual.
08:51It was a lovely day.
08:53Terry and I walked down to the cafe and had a nice salmon and salad lunch.
09:01Then we wandered back to our house and decided to watch a video.
09:06I remember going out the front of our place and I could see smoke.
09:12But it didn't look like it was close to us.
09:18The radio was starting to become quite busy.
09:24Those sorts of days aren't good for radio reception.
09:27Those atmospherics of a bad fire day.
09:30We did hear part messages and garb signals around Kilmore East fire.
09:43The fire moved with unprecedented speed.
09:46Fanned by those strong northerly winds.
09:49And that Kilmore East fire roared towards King Lake.
09:57These fires were travelling and then the wind came through.
10:02And it meant you had a fire that was a hundred k's wide.
10:10So it took out everything.
10:12It just, for a hundred k's wide, and then it just travelled.
10:16It just took out everything in its fire.
10:18And, you know, people had nowhere to go.
10:22And so these fires that were so hot, the flames were so tall,
10:29people just had no chance whatsoever.
10:36This is Nine News with Jo Hall.
10:39Homes destroyed as Victoria explodes into flames
10:43on the hottest day in our history.
10:47Come the six o'clock bulletin.
10:48We're trying to tell everyone what's going on.
10:51There were fires on the outskirts of Melbourne.
10:52There were fires in regional Victoria.
10:54There were fires just popping up everywhere.
10:56We were trying to tell everyone as much as we knew.
11:00We knew it was bad.
11:02We didn't know how bad is the long and the short of it.
11:04We begin our coverage with Alicia Gorey,
11:06who's been covering the blaze.
11:08Well, Jo, the CFA can't even estimate just how large this blaze is.
11:12So that gives you an indication of what they're dealing with.
11:15I let off the news at six o'clock and was doing a live cross,
11:18talking about this fire that was burning,
11:21not knowing what was happening on the other side of the city.
11:30Six homes in the one street have literally burnt to the ground.
11:34There are five homes in a row here
11:35and one a little bit further on down the street.
11:43Traditionally in the newsroom, the 6pm bulletin goes to air
11:46and by and large, most staff afterwards head home.
11:49That's it.
11:49No one went home that night.
11:51Everyone knew.
11:52There was all hands on deck.
11:54When fires move that quickly and there's a wind change,
11:58we know that ends badly.
12:01At around 6.30, that wind suddenly changed to a southerly
12:06and all of those deadly fire fronts joined up together
12:10and were targeted straight towards Marysville.
12:19These fires were just so fast moving
12:21and it was that late afternoon wind change
12:25that meant nothing was going to stop them
12:28and, you know, this fire front was coming towards their houses.
12:32But it's too late to leave.
12:35I feel in bushfires we've always had this idea
12:37that the safest place is in your home.
12:40That's what this fire took away from us.
12:43That sense of sanctuary in your home
12:45and you'll still be safe and you'll be OK
12:47because we all want to stay and we want to defend our home.
12:51And everyone who did that, look what happened.
12:58All hell broke loose.
13:00The wind change came.
13:04The fire station was shaking and rattling.
13:08We'd packed towels under the doors to keep the smoke out
13:12and keep ourselves safe.
13:13I went home to check on my family one more time.
13:19And as I drove up the driveway,
13:21Dalton came out and then we discussed
13:24what they were going to experience a little bit,
13:27that things were going to be fairly crooked.
13:29And I said, make good decisions, mate.
13:33That was the last, the last things I had to say to Dalton.
13:40Stay or go was responsible for people dying in Black Saturday
13:46because it gave people the option.
13:51So if people had been told, you have to get out,
13:56in this situation people would have lived.
14:04I think that we were, the news or what we were told at that stage
14:09was to leave early or stay and defend.
14:12And so in our minds we were, we had a choice.
14:16And I think there's no way you could have defended your property.
14:21The wind was just carrying it so fast.
14:24And I, the first time I saw flames was next door on the grass
14:29and it just ran down like water so fast.
14:32And thought that, and that's when I thought we're in a bit of trouble here.
14:36It was a very fierce fire.
14:41The house is starting to fill up with smoke.
14:44So, um, I thought it's probably crazy to stay here.
14:50One of our sons rang and it's the weirdest thing.
14:54It's like I just said very calmly, I don't think I'm going to make it.
14:59I love you. I've just had the best life.
15:02Um, and I said, I have to go.
15:19This was no ordinary fire.
15:21It just came from nowhere.
15:23It was so sudden.
15:26It moved so quickly that it was like a bomb going off.
15:33By this stage, our house is on fire.
15:38And I'm deciding which bathroom is going to be the safest to go into.
15:44Cause one's got a lead light windows and one was in the middle of the house.
15:47Stupid things that you think of cause you, you're in this fire.
15:57There were entire townships that got destroyed with little to no help.
16:00Uh, with, you know, no chance for emergency services to get there.
16:06And help people to save lives.
16:09And so for Marysville, yeah, there were a few people there on the day that tried to help.
16:14But this fire came so quickly and so without warning.
16:17That, by and large, a lot of people there stood no chance.
16:23There's Treb's house over there.
16:25There's the neighbors out in the back.
16:28Um, I've burned all me face.
16:32Trying to fight the fires.
16:34I did as much as I could.
16:35I saved me dog.
16:36That's all I was worried about.
16:37Yeah.
16:41One thing led to another.
16:43And, um, I thought it's probably crazy to stay here.
16:47The house is on fire.
16:49What else can we do?
16:52What an awful position to be in.
16:54Like, your home is normally your refuge.
16:56And looking at that and thinking, that ain't gonna save me.
17:01And thinking my best option is to drive off into the distance.
17:06That was kind of the scenario they were in.
17:09Drive off into the distance.
17:11And that may be a death trap.
17:13But the one certainty is staying here is an absolute guaranteed death trap.
17:20Well, when we left the house, Sharon had grabbed her towel over her head
17:25and we raced out to the ute and tried to drive out.
17:30We drove up, um, up the main street, uh, of Marysville.
17:34But in the morning, we had been gardening and the whole back of my ute was full of clippings
17:42and cuttings from the garden, all that stuff.
17:45And it actually caught fire.
17:46We realized the truck was on fire.
17:48So, um, we had to stop and start throwing that stuff off, um, at the top of the main street.
17:58And at one stage, I looked out through the motor room windows
18:02and I could see a sea of embers traveling down the street.
18:07And it looked as if it may have been even like a meter deep.
18:10It was just an absolute sea of embers.
18:13Very hard to describe.
18:16At some stage during the firestorm, I realized that I'd lost my phone.
18:23So I'd lost contact with Liz and Dalton.
18:25Um, and, uh, I found that quite distressing.
18:33When we were driving, one of the fears we had was the wind.
18:39Because I think the wind was about 130 kilometers an hour or something.
18:43Um, and it was blowing down trees.
18:45So Terry said, we need to find somewhere where we're clear of trees.
18:51Which was just at the roundabout near the crossways.
18:55So we literally parked in the middle of the roundabout.
19:00One of, uh, one of my good friends from, from the fire brigade and he and the local policeman.
19:06We went up to the house and, and had a bit of a walk through.
19:10And we, uh, we actually found Liz and Dalton in the, found the remains in the house.
19:26The victims include a firefighter's wife and children who became trapped while he tackled the blaze.
19:32Fires are still burning across the state.
19:34Seven are considered large blazes.
19:44Yeah, so the next day, I mean, I, I got before sunrise and, and packed a bag.
19:49It was kind of one of those days as a journo, you know, that you're not coming home for a
19:52while.
19:52And so I, I headed into the office.
19:55On that Sunday morning, we were reporting from the fire zone.
20:00I'm live from Victoria today where an absolute tragedy has unfolded overnight.
20:07There are dozens of fires burning throughout the state.
20:09Fourteen people had died and that was catastrophic.
20:14It wasn't until much, much later that we realized the extent of the tragedy.
20:20And I remember chatting to our chief of staff who said, look, we've got some information.
20:24There might have been a fire at Marysville, but I don't know, we haven't been able to shore it up.
20:28Tom, can you just go and have a look at Marysville?
20:30Maybe it's a bum steer, but go and check it out for us.
20:32You know, Marysville is probably about an hour and a half, two hours, depending on traffic,
20:36getting out to the northeast of Melbourne.
20:38And so we drive out there and it gets to a point where all of a sudden you're out of
20:42suburbia,
20:42start winding up these roads into a bit of sort of hilly countryside and just the landscape turned black.
20:54And I thought, oh, okay, this is bad.
21:00Trees are still across the road.
21:02Well, no one else has come through here.
21:05I mean, we're kind of the first people heading into this area.
21:11And all of a sudden, my camera and I stopped talking as we were driving in there, just like.
21:19Neither of us kind of wanted to say what we knew we were heading into.
21:26And all of a sudden, we've just discovered Armageddon.
21:32It looked like the end of the world.
21:36We started seeing burnt out cars on the side of the road.
21:40In one instance, cars had collided head on.
21:54And I don't know, driving past it, you don't really want to look in the car because
22:01you know what was going to be there.
22:08We get to Marysville.
22:10It's a grid layout.
22:11You'll drive down one street.
22:14Back the next.
22:17Up the next.
22:19Back the next.
22:21There's just nothing left.
22:29Burnt out cars.
22:31Burnt out homes.
22:33Put simply, Marysville resembles a war zone.
22:36There's no other way to describe this.
22:38There are houses levelled as far as the eye can see.
22:40If we just have a look around this small area that we're in at the moment.
22:43You start thinking, well hang on.
22:46Where are all the people?
22:48Where are all the people that lived in these houses?
22:51Did they get out?
22:52Did they get any warning that this fire was coming?
23:03And out of it we saw someone walk towards us with a blanket over their shoulders.
23:08We went to our home, which wasn't there.
23:12When we walked down the main street, Tom Steinford came over to us.
23:18Her face was just the face of someone who'd seen things that no one should ever see.
23:28We all had fire plants and the ones that were going to leave left.
23:33But then the trees went over the road and our fire plants, it was just too fast.
23:39How scary was it?
23:41Very scary.
23:42It was very scary.
23:43She literally just had a blanket on. That was it.
23:46They were her worldly possessions when we encountered her.
23:48And everything else around her was gone.
23:52I said to Tom, I think we've lost some people.
23:55And your brain's sort of adding up what we know so far.
24:00But he was very, he was very kind.
24:04I think they're, you know.
24:07And do you know who they were or what happened with them?
24:10Yeah, I do.
24:11But I don't think I want to talk about it.
24:13No, that's fine.
24:14It's too close.
24:15We're such a small community.
24:17And, um, yeah.
24:20No, that's fine.
24:24We lost 22 friends that we knew very well.
24:30That's all.
24:31We're all, we're all here, we're all here.
24:34Yep.
24:35She had just somehow survived the worst day of her life.
24:40That clearly she knew a lot of her community hadn't.
24:52It's only now that we're starting to grasp just how serious the situation is here.
24:57This would end up being the worst of all the fire zones from the disaster that ensued yesterday.
25:03And you can just get a grip now.
25:05Start to look around on how many properties there are here that have been lost.
25:08We have no idea how many people stayed to defend their homes.
25:12Call into the office.
25:14Hey, it's Tom.
25:15What's happened?
25:16We're okay, we're okay.
25:20Ah, Marysville's not.
25:25173 people died on Black Saturday.
25:28That's the worst death toll in any Australian bushfire.
25:32I remember when Black Saturday was taking off.
25:36And I can remember hearing that 14 people had died.
25:39And I said, that can't be true.
25:42It can't be true.
25:43Because we knew that they were burning.
25:44We knew that it was bad.
25:46And I went, look, just hold off on that.
25:48I don't think that'll be true.
25:4914 people, that won't be true.
25:51It was true.
25:53And then, as the hours went by, the news just kept getting so much worse.
26:02I remember as we flew towards King Lake.
26:08I remember looking down from the helicopter and seeing squares on the ground.
26:13And I thought, that's where houses used to be.
26:19I mean, I've seen wars and disasters overseas.
26:22But I remember thinking, this is literally in my backyard.
26:25Well, welcome to the main street of King Lake, or at least what's left of King Lake.
26:29This is where many people fled last night as their home started to burn.
26:33I walked up to a petrol station.
26:36This is what's left of a local service station after it went up in a fireball.
26:40The Bowser was still on fire.
26:43And I thought, this is not normal.
26:45This is not safe.
26:46The fire just came straight through.
26:47It went through like a bullet.
26:49It was like a tornado.
26:51And I've never been so terrified in all my life.
26:57The list of people who had died grew.
27:02And among those lives lost, there was one who was closer to us than we ever could have imagined.
27:20On the Sunday, so about 24 hours later, we were watching this fire disaster play out from Sydney in the
27:28newsroom.
27:28And all of a sudden, it's pack your bags, get down there.
27:34Everyone in the nine newsroom was talking about the fact that no one could reach Brian Naylor and his wife,
27:39Moirie, who lived in King Lake.
27:44For more than 30 years, Brian Naylor was the face of news in Victoria.
27:48To many, he's now become the face of this disaster.
27:51And I think it was early evening on the Sunday, so about 24 hours later, that we got word of
28:01what had happened.
28:03Victorians from all walks of life have been remembering our friend and colleague, Brian Naylor today, who along with his
28:09much-loved wife, Moirie, perished at King Lake on Saturday.
28:15And that, that broke everyone.
28:20That broke everyone.
28:24Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was tough.
28:28It hit all of us really, really hard.
28:33So, for the last time, may your news be good news.
28:36Good night and farewell.
28:48No one knew it was going to be the worst fires we'd ever seen in Australia.
28:51So a lot of people chose to stay and defend.
28:54The bushfire revealed that turned out to be incredibly dangerous advice.
29:11Daniel Goodbridge is 17.
29:13This fire is about 30 metres from me.
29:16Our sheds burned down.
29:18Our house, the ones are going around our house.
29:22It's just crazy.
29:24We spent the last two, three hours just fighting it off.
29:28Dad, get back!
29:33Dad, get out of there!
29:35This is insane.
29:39The last this woman heard, her mum had vowed to stay.
29:42Last I spoke to her, she just said, it's just like a Holocaust.
29:48Friends are dead with their children.
29:51And nobody can stay to fight anything.
29:54Because you can't fight that.
30:00And so people need to stay off the roads.
30:03They need to keep out of these areas.
30:06And if they're going to stay, stay.
30:08And as long as you can protect yourself or otherwise,
30:10if in any way you're concerned, go early.
30:14The speed with which it went through and the level of total devastation.
30:18It's hard to get your head around.
30:20It was like half a dozen F-18s just coming up the mountain at once
30:23and it gave you about, you know, three to five minutes to get inside.
30:332009, you couldn't say that you should try to stay and defend your property
30:38because you were likely to die.
30:42You had to actually get a move along and get the hell out of dangerous places earlier
30:48or you could die.
30:50The policy of prepare, stay and defend is based on sound judgement and evidence.
30:56It is the application of that policy and the lack of an alternative that we need to work on.
31:13I really didn't have any sense of the devastation.
31:17And first thing the next morning, they said they've lifted the airspace over Marysville has opened.
31:25and choppering in and seeing just black all around.
31:34It was so eerie.
31:36Ali, what were your expectations as you headed into Marysville?
31:40Well, you know, Pete, I don't think I really knew what to expect when we arrived.
31:43Geoff, the cameraman and I, we sort of just stopped in our tracks.
31:47It was so eerily quiet.
31:48It was almost spooky.
31:52Such a grim job for these forensic officers.
31:56Six teams are painstakingly sifting through the mangled remains of the town.
32:02And it was this weird thing where there'd be like 10 houses next to each other, brick burnt to the
32:10ground.
32:11And then the Brumley's house, the generators still running.
32:17The wooden balcony unscathed and all around it rubble.
32:22That didn't make any sense.
32:27There'd be a playground set, a plastic playground set that was untouched.
32:32All around me here is complete devastation.
32:35Yet this swing set, there's not a burn mark on it.
32:38So some fires, you know, a lot of just luck playing out where the fire is, what's going to happen
32:45and so on.
32:47It's those mental scars that stay with you, those families and the elderly and how they would have felt.
32:59519 people lived in this town.
33:02It's staggering to think that only 12 houses are still standing.
33:06No wonder authorities don't want to speculate on the number of dead.
33:10Standing here, you just really can't bear to even think about it.
33:15Ninety percent, I think it was, of the buildings, houses, shops, businesses, schools, police station, gone.
33:24Ninety percent of an entire town.
33:28For Australia to be told that 173 people had lost their lives in the Black Saturday bushfires.
33:35Talking about it now, I still find it hard to believe.
33:51There was just a real sense of disbelief because we all felt like, how could this happen in this day
33:58and age?
33:59And so there was just this sense of, how could not more have been done to protect those people?
34:11After that initial period of shock, then grief, came the anger.
34:15We had been warned the day before by the Premier that this was a day, perhaps the worst day in
34:20Victoria's history.
34:21But even then, a lot of people didn't believe how bad it turned out until it happened.
34:26There was anger that there wasn't better resourcing, there weren't more water trucks put in place, that there weren't better
34:32communications to the CFA and other fire crews to battle these flames.
34:36Radios went down, phones weren't working, phone lines went down, literally went down because they caught fire.
34:45And because there was no warning, and that was a big problem with this fire, that the communication wasn't there,
34:52they weren't getting a warning and then the fire is on their doorstep.
35:03It's 16 weeks now since the catastrophic bushfires in Victoria killed 173 people, but already the place is regenerating and
35:13the survivors are slowly reclaiming their lives.
35:16To do that, they must face every day with memories you and I can't begin to imagine.
35:21Such a man is Darren Gibson.
35:24Blake Saturday claimed everything in his world, his home, his wife and his children.
35:32And then Leslie was screaming, it's burning, it's burning.
35:35And so I noticed her sitting there on the ground with Keona like this, nursing her.
35:46And I just couldn't understand why Leslie was sitting on the ground over there.
35:49And I've yelled to her, get to the dam, go to the dam.
35:52The dam was about another 20 metres.
35:55I get goosebumps now just thinking about it because it was just this horrible disaster that we had been warned
36:03of.
36:04And yet on the day, the direct warning to those communities just never came.
36:10And she yelled to me, I can't move.
36:13This was smoke inhalation, heat exhaustion.
36:17I think she was too burnt or something like that.
36:20You've got families.
36:22You've got little kids.
36:24How are you explaining to little kids what's happening when you yourself have no idea?
36:29I got back to the dam and we laid there on the edge, just on the edge with all of
36:36our body in the water and just our heads out.
36:39And I was talking to a sweetheart, we're getting lollies soon.
36:42We're going up to the shop and we're going to get lollies and we're going to go and see mum.
36:50But in the end, there was always issues when it came to communication and they couldn't get information in a
36:57way that was timely.
36:58People were finding themselves in the dark, literally as the smoke came over them.
37:04I think to myself, why weren't we informed when you're going to block a road off?
37:09You don't, that doesn't happen in five seconds.
37:11If you're going to decide to do this in your planning stages, why haven't you bloody told the people?
37:18We would have been straight down.
37:20I'm quite a bit upset because children burning is not good.
37:29There are too many tragic stories that came out of Black Saturday and so many people lost loved ones.
37:37But then for the people left behind, the trauma for them, even if they somehow managed to survive, what they
37:46saw and what they endured is just horrendous.
37:51And I think that struggle is ongoing for many people who survived that day.
38:03We've never had a day like this leading up to Black Saturday.
38:06We've never had a day like it.
38:09Then the fires.
38:10Have we been told the right things?
38:13But also that bigger question.
38:19Climate change.
38:40The takeaway from Black Saturday was, all right, what are we doing about this?
38:45I mean, there's been drought in Victoria for years leading up to these fires.
38:50And this sort of sense in the community that climate change was becoming a problem, but maybe it'll fix itself.
39:00And then Black Saturday happens.
39:04And people say, well, clearly this isn't just some anomaly.
39:08There is something happening with our climate that we need to address.
39:16The real historic significance of 09 is that it opened the door to thinking climate change driven fires may be
39:27a thing that we've underestimated.
39:31When I think about the Black Saturday bushfires, I was 10 years old.
39:36And I think the thing that stood out as a 10 year old was the way that climate change became
39:42part of the agenda in Australia.
39:43Young people, my generation, see climate change as an immediate, as an imminent threat to our livelihoods.
39:50We see it as something that means if we have children, they may not live their full lives because of
39:55the impacts on our planet that climate change will have.
39:57We want climate action! We want it now!
40:00Among their supporters, many parents.
40:03And what do you think they learn here?
40:04About standing up for what you believe in.
40:06Why do we want climate action?
40:08When do we want it?
40:09Now!
40:14When 173 people lose their lives, of course, Aussies are going to want to know why.
40:25The Royal Commission into the Victorian bushfires opened in Melbourne today with a minute's silence for the 173 people who
40:33died.
40:33A Royal Commission was held because we needed to know how the hell something like this happened.
40:41What went wrong and what can we do to ensure it never happens again?
40:48The report made 67 recommendations.
40:55One of the most far reaching is the overhaul of the stay or go policy.
40:59People should only stay and defend if they're fully prepared and understand and accept the risks, while warnings should be
41:07strengthened and vulnerable people evacuated.
41:10It also recommended creating a new position of Fire Commissioner to take the reins.
41:16DSE Chief Fire Officer Ewan Waller, ex-CFA Chief Russell Rees and former Police Commissioner Christine Nixon were found ultimately
41:24accountable for the myriad of failures on Black Saturday.
41:27The report revealing Ms Nixon was told at 5pm the fires had the potential to kill people in at least
41:33Strathuan.
41:34Yet she still left at 6pm and went out to dinner for more than two hours.
41:39It found she took a hands-off approach, which left much to be desired.
41:45I took a lot of time, you know, since to think about how things could have been done differently.
41:53When we heard that the police commissioner had gone to the pub that night, it was incomprehensible that somebody who
42:01is supposed to be in charge of an emergency response at a time like that is not there.
42:10And the anger that flowed through, particularly I remember listening to talk back radio, people were filthy, saying how could
42:17she have gone out?
42:19I think that in the benefit of hindsight, because of perspectives and people's views, then I let people down who
42:30believed that I should have been there, that I could have done something differently.
42:35I don't think anybody ever accused me, and neither did I, that I could have made a difference in that
42:40particular circumstance.
42:42I could have been there and done, you know, things a bit differently.
42:49But, you know, there's no going back.
42:53I think it was a terrible lapse of judgement, and I'm encouraged to know that Christine Nixon now acknowledges that
43:00herself.
43:01People in positions of power now know, through Christine Nixon's experience, that you've got to be there, you've got to
43:08front up.
43:29There were huge smiles and lots of national pride, as well as an occasional Black Saturday story to be told.
43:36This is a beautiful car.
43:38We rescued out of the burning shed.
43:40Yeah, done damage to it, getting it out.
43:42But yeah, hats are all up.
43:44She's good, isn't it?
43:45The biggest reception, though, was reserved for Marysville's CFA heroes.
43:51It's a really big day for us, and we've just got to keep everything going here.
43:55There was never a question as to whether we would rebuild.
44:00There's always something that has us thinking of or talking about what they would have done.
44:09That keeps Liz and Dalton alive to me.
44:13Remembering our family, we do it all the time.
44:16We do it every day.
44:24Black Saturday?
44:26This was the biggest peacetime loss of life in Australia.
44:33Ten years after the devastating Black Saturday bushfires ravaged Victoria, communities gathered at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne to
44:42commemorate the tragedy.
44:43So Black Saturday, as it turns out, was a precursor to Black Summer in 2019, 2020, those devastating fires, New
44:51South Wales and Victoria.
44:53The area that was burnt was actually 40 times bigger than on Black Saturday.
44:59We looked like we'd learned our lessons by the time of Black Summer from Black Saturday.
45:06Communications were better.
45:08People were able to get information in a more timely fashion and make more informed decisions, so a lot more
45:13people evacuated early.
45:20And that's one of the reasons that the death toll was nothing like what we saw on Black Saturday, thankfully.
45:32The thing about 2009, that particular event, things could have played out quite differently.
45:40And that's also haunting for fire scientists.
45:45I mean, it's a miracle that more people weren't killed and more houses weren't destroyed.
45:51Incredibly lucky.
45:52But the scale of those fires, and then we're seeing all over the world this consistent pattern of increasing intensity,
46:04increasing destructive capacity.
46:07In the city of angels, scenes from hell and inferno raging through the suburbs.
46:15Homes crumbling as they're devoured by flames.
46:21I think Black Saturday bushfires clearly scarred us as a nation.
46:26We then see what happened with the wildfires in California.
46:31And we all wonder, could that happen here?
46:37No, it's right, Brendan.
46:38Home after home after home on fire.
46:41More than 24 hours after this blaze first broke out.
46:45The strength of the wind shows you the danger of this fire.
46:48I don't want to ruin your day, but the LA fires are actually a pretty good peephole into the worst
46:57-case scenario future for Australian cities.
47:01Pacific Palisades fire has now burnt through more than 6,000 hectares, an area so big it would encompass the
47:08Sydney CBD, Melbourne's too.
47:11People in this area, they're still in...
47:16Get out, guys.
47:18Go, go, go, go, go, go.
47:19The thought of us having to go through something like we saw in LA chills me.
47:27I wouldn't want anybody to suffer the losses that we lost.
47:37It's one of those constant reminders whenever we see a fire, whether it's happening in another suburb, another state or
47:43another country, that we are in danger here in Australia.
47:46I mean, we're so lucky that we're surrounded by all of this bush.
47:51The reality is, when a fire takes hold, those trees become fuel, your house is right next to it, you're
48:00in the firing line.
48:02We've just got to be vigilant.
48:07I think the impact also of Black Saturday is that bushfires are not something that we're seeing once every couple
48:13of decades.
48:13It's something that we now expect each summer.
48:18And I think that's really scary for people.
48:22Lost the bloody sheds, house.
48:25And it's just now a part of life here in Australia.
48:29But everything else is gone. Everything's gone.
48:32If we want to solve these problems, humans are fantastic at solving problems.
48:37But it's going to require leadership.
48:41It's going to require changing the way we think about being Australians.
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