General News
31 January, 2024
Opinion: VNI West claims of arrogance and bluff
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Sir, I refer to Page 12 of the Loddon Herald (January 18) and the advertisement placed by TCV - Transmission Company Victoria. It’s just another day for TCV who don’t hold the official accreditation to be a transmission...
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Sir, I refer to Page 12 of the Loddon Herald (January 18) and the advertisement placed by TCV - Transmission Company Victoria.
It’s just another day for TCV who don’t hold the official accreditation to be a transmission company, however remain to call itself one, using arrogance as their bluff.
Comments such as ‘as a rule, transmission lines don’t start bushfires’. The Royal Commission into The Black Saturday bushfires found transmission lines were responsible for igniting six of those blazes. The East Kilmore Blaze alone, 119 lives were lost, 1242 homes were destroyed. $500 million dollars was paid out in Australia’s largest class action lawsuit as result.
That comment alone is a pure example of TCV’s behaviour.
Advising they will simply ‘turn the transmission lines off’ to allow us volunteers to fight fires. Did they forget that the VNI West (Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector) is just that? Turn it off and Australia’s southeastern states have no power. At what point do the lives of country CFA volunteers fighting wildfire, protecting their communities outweigh the desire of millions of city folk who want their power?
What about the CFA and furthermore our Chief Officer Jason Heffernan being quoted that you can fight fires around transmission lines providing the incident controller advises it’s safe or the flames are less than two metres high.
Being a standard CFA volunteer, if you are first on scene, then you are the incident controller until further notice… that’s a big call for a volunteer!
I (CFA volunteer) am yet to receive any ‘training’ regarding control measures of fighting fires near transmission lines. The only advise I have received (call it training if you will?) is (this can also be seen on the CFA’s web page) that you must remain at least 25 metres from the transmission line easements.
Dense smoke versus not as dense … when was the last time you were on the fire ground Chief? No paddock is the same, no fuel load is the same, (generally speaking) when there is fire, there is wind, it is unpredictable. The height of the flames change as quick as the fire burns.
Maybe when we get out training the ‘other suppression methods’ will be advised?
But let me take a step back. When the fire is too dangerous due to the transmission lines and dense smoke to fight from the ground, you’re saying that aircraft will assist in the suppression? Surely as the Chief you understand that smoke is a fantastic conductor of electricity as is water, 540 KV of electricity looking to arc (naturally), you are advising that a steel aircraft will operate within that 25m buffer zone, dropping some 3000L of water through that dense smoke onto the flames that are lapping at the transmission lines?
Have the courage to protect your volunteer’s Chief and rise above TCV’s smoke.
Glendon Watts
Charlton