02:55

Daniel Andrews talked about the evacuation of Harrietville in that press conference. Let me tell you about another fire in Harrietville, seven years ago.

It explains a lot about the risk assessment process that is currently used by firefighters in Victoria.

On 13 February 2013, firefighters Steven Kadar, 34, and Katie Peters, 19, were travelling in a convoy heading out of the Buckland Valley.

They had been working on a backburning operation at the Pheasant Creek Track, a 4WD track in a heavily forested mountainous region north of Omeo.

It was an alpine ash forest. Tree clearing crews were in there at the same time — unusual, as that’s usually done first. Thunderstorm activity was picking up. When the call came to get out, Kadar and Peters were the first ute in line when a “giant” alpine ash did what alpine ash is wont to do in hot weather and strong winds, and fell to the ground, crushing their vehicle.

They were the third and fourth firefighters to die that season.

Peters was on her gap year and had picked up a summer firefighting gig. A lot of Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) firefighters — they are the ones in green overalls — are in the same position. Kadar was a career firefighter with nine years experience. He had earlier expressed concern about the risk of falling trees.

An inquest in 2015 made ten recommendations around the need to improve communication between the fireground and incident control, two-way relaying of weather information, and improved safety provisions.

If you are wondering why the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and FFMV has appeared extremely cautious in pulling firefighters out of certain situations, this is partly why.

This inquest is built on findings from the Black Saturday royal commission. It’s also why, if you have ever done a fire briefing in Victoria, you would have heard a lot about “red flag warnings”.

A red flag warning is issued when there is “a significant change to any critical information that may adversely affect the safety of personnel located at an emergency”. It is given priority over any radio traffic except a mayday call.

This is from DELWP’s response to the coroner’s report: