EWTP on ABCR 1st March 2013

Please refer to my previous 2 posts (EWTP on ABCR) and my other post about the Country Fire Service and combatting fires in Wind Turbines, in which I made the claim that their (CFS) official 'strategy' was to stand back and watch it burn out, but according to Mr David Pearce of the CFS Aviation Section the CFS does not have a specific policy, rather they leave decisions to individual "incident controllers"; well...I got it half right.

On Friday 1st March 2013 Mr Pearce was a guest on Annette Marner's ABC Local Radio program, and although he began with the usual deceits, by the end of the interview he had made several extraordinary admissions; even when trying to minimise or deny the very real problems with fires in and/or around Wind Turbines, he ended up explaining and/or confirming in detail what those problems are.

In the course of the interview he stated outright that the CFS does not have an official policy for fighting fires in Wind Turbine Industrial Estates, and that Incident Controllers at the scene will decide how to deal with a fire.

If this is true, this lack of an official protocol or strategy exposes Incident Controllers to litigation because they are allegedly responsible for making the decision at the time.

This is totally un-acceptable; absolute responsibility must lie with the State government and CFS Management.

Also, I understand that Turbine host landholders can be held responsible for fires that begin on their property even if the fire originates in the Turbine.

I still believe that the CFSs 'unofficial' strategy is to stand-off at a "safe distance".

Mr Pearce offered as an example a nacelle fire (in the turbine at the top of a tower) at the Starfish Turbine Estate, Cape Jervois, where the incident controller told CFS crews to fall back from 500m to a safe distance of 1km; this is the distance from your house that Turbines can be legally built on some-one elses property with out you having any opportunity to oppose them. 

He greatly downplayed the role of aircraft in fighting all fires and said that there was no issue with aircraft fighting any fires in WTIE  because ground crews were the primary tool, and that Turbines would be treated like any other 'static structure', eg, power lines, phone towers,etc.

All of this became irrelevent when he acknowledged that pilots make the decision about where they will and will not fly, and it has been established that pilots will not go anywhere near a Turbine because of the turbulence, and burning Turbines can throw debris for over a kilometre.

Mr Pearce dismissed these concerns, stating that it was about conditions on the day, and that he "assumed" that the turbines would be switched off, particularly on Catastrophic days, so therefore no turbulence.

Any remaining relevance was extinguished when Mr Pearce stated that 'the CFS cannot fight a fire in a Turbine because even the small ones are too tall' (paraphrase) and therefore 'the CFS leaves those fires to Turbine operators to deal with' (paraphrase).

He stated outright that 'Turbines have internal sprinkler systems that deal with nacelle fires' (p), but I am not aware of this technology. (I'll check)

The interview only confirmed all the things that Mr Pearce was trying to ignore, minimise, or deny;
1)  the CFS has no policy and regardless cannot fight Turbine nacelle fires because they are too tall,
     instead staying at a minimum safe distance of 1km and letting the operators deal with it;
2)  this distance is necessary because Turbines do disintegrate and throw debris;
3)  pilots decide where they will fly, not the CFS, and therefore;
4)  aicraft cannot fight fires in WTIEs (minimum altitude, debris, turbulence, etc).

Ultimately Mr Pearce could offer no specific outline as to how the CFS planned to fight any sort of fire in the 180 square kilometres CERES project, other than to throw it back to developer REpower with the statements about 'too tall' and 'leave it to WTIE operators'.

In my previous blog re the CFS and Turbines, I called for Mr Pearce and his boss Mr Greg Nettleton to resign from their positions, because their un-ambiguous support for Turbine development, very much 'toeing' the state government line, compromised the safety of volunteers and communities.

These two are clearly unable to apply the ruthless objectivity that is needed in such senior and important positions, with direct and definable consequences for regional communities; they are not making decisions and statements that are focussed on crew safety, etc, rather a political agenda - Turbines everywhere, at whatever cost, including the truth.

I'm still checking the CFS's statements in the parliamentary Inquiry on Turbines, but again they appear to confirm those specific points the CFS constantly tries to deny on public radio.

I'll stop here and ask again that you read my previous posts on these issues, cheers. Also a post soon re REpower and parent 'company' Suzon, who are in massive financial trouble and are clearly very keen to get CERES on their portfolio because of the immediate financial benefits.

Tomorrow: The Second Time I Met- Liberal MLC Rob Lucas