Australia: US crew to investigate snapped power line

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Australia: US crew to investigate snapped power line

Improperly maintained power lines were responsible for some of America's most devastating wildfires in 2007, public investigators found last year, leading to class actions being launched against a US electricity company.

Smith River Firefighter Nick Miller, left, and the rest of his hand crew hike up a fire line on the Slide Fire near Arrowbear Lake, California in October 2007. Photo: REUTERS

Firefighters arriving from the US yesterday to help local fire crews said they were struck by the parallels between Victoria's bushfires and the wildfires that swept through southern California in October 2007.

''In San Diego, the power line companies have been in a lawsuit because of the fire starts there, so what we are going through [in Melbourne] is mirroring what is happening in southern California,'' Ron Woychak, from the Bureau of Land Management, said.

Victorian Premier John Brumby declined yesterday to comment on a class action launched against Singapore-owned electric company SP AusNet.

The Sunday Age revealed that the Phoenix bushfire taskforce was examining a 2km stretch of power line in Kilmore East that snapped during strong winds and record heat on February 7.

The fallen power line is believed to have sparked the blaze that tore through Kinglake, Steels Creek and St Andrews, killing more than 100 people and destroying 100 homes.

Mr Brumby declined to comment on the police investigation into the cause of the blaze, saying the Teague royal commission as well as coronial investigations would look at all of the factors involved with the fires.

''I'm not going to comment on any of those [class action] matters; they're matters which will be fully examined in the context of the royal commission,'' he said.

Mr Woychak said many of the difficult political issues emerging here had already played out in California after forest fires in recent years. ''We keep not learning the same lessons over and over again. The politics gets in the way.''

The US consul-general, Michael Thurston, said there were similarities between Melbourne's bushfires and recent US forest fires.

''Particularly in California ... where it is coming on to increasingly urbanised areas. The frontier between where the wilderness ends and the urban area begins is becoming less defined. People are living in areas they weren't living in 30 years ago.''

Source: canberratimes.com - Link

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Sunday, February 15, 2009