Following the deaths of nine people in the 2005 bushfire, communities on the Lower Eyre Peninsula are now receiving early warning telephone alerts, saving valuable time at the early stage of the fire.
Lower Eyre Peninsula Forms Early Warning Telephone Alerting Network
When nine people lost their lives in a devastating bushfire on the Lower Eyre Peninsula region of
South Australia on January 11th, 2005, the local community asked why and how such a catastrophe
could occur in their own back yard and more importantly how they can better prepare themselves
against future emergencies.
While the coronary inquest is still yet to conclude, the state owned fire authority, Country Fire Service (CFS) commissioned an investigation called Project Phoenix which reported that a mass telephone calling system could be benficial to broadcast warning messages to the general public on their telephones.
Residents of the Lower Eyre Peninsula have taken this on board and formed a network of telephone alerting communities using the National bushfire Alert service.
The Bushfire Alert system operates on a community basis where the communities initiate the alerts themselves providing the important early warnings by telephone, email and SMS alerts to all registered properties associated with that community. Each property contributes $25 per property per year to help cover the cost of the phone call alerts.
The Port Lincoln and North Shields communities were first to go live, quickly followed by Charlton Gully, Greenpatch, Koppio and Wanilla districts. The system has since spread covering regions from Port Lincoln in the South to North of Cummins.
The CFS recommends community based phone tree systems and the National Bushfire Alert services does this but in a much improved manner in that it broadcasts the message to large numbers of telephones very quickly, thereby saving valuable time at the early stage of the fire.
Bushfire Alert has now become a regular feature on the Lower Eyre Peninsula. 33 live emergency alerts were sent out in this region alone during the bushfire season of 2006-2007.
Bushfire Alert is also available for government owned authorities to operate themselves on a regional, statewide or whole of country basis.
Also see the Emergency Alerting System
Lower Eyre Peninsula Case Study (~73Kb)
Emergency Alerting Booklet (~349Kb)