Bunker safety fears

By Tania Martin
A YARRA Ranges man is calling for clearer standards on fire bunkers.
Although the fire season is nearly over, Mark Goodwin says more information was needed on the safety of bunkers.
He has a bunker at his home but said it was hard to know if it would be safe in the event of a bushfire.
Mr Goodwin’s Selby home already had an underground fire bunker when he bought the property in 2001.
He uses it as a storage room and wine cellar, but said it could be used in an emergency as a last resort.
Mr Goodwin said he was unsure if the bunker would be safe.
“It would depend on the nature of the fire…if it was a Marysville type of fire storm it (the bunker) would be safe in terms of being away from radiant heat,” he said.
But Mr Goodwin said he had been told big fires similar to Black Saturday could suck the oxygen out of the air.
“We don’t have an air supply other than what is in the bunker,” he said. “One thing we are looking at is getting an old scuba tank…they usually last half and hour, we would probably be fine but we don’t know for sure.”
Mr Goodwin’s bunker is a double brick lined cellar with a four-foot thick cement ceiling and is located six-feet under the back yard.
“It’s really a subterranean cave,” he said.
Mr Goodwin said his fire plan had always been to stay and defend but Black Saturday had changed that assumption.
“On Code Red days our plan is to leave the day before but if we do happen to get trapped this (bunker) is a last resort refuge.”
Mr Goodwin has called for the State Government to urgently look at applying national standards.
He said it was vital to have some sort of guide especially as so many people were looking at bunkers as a last resort.
Mr Goodwin said with more than 35,000 people living in the hills and only 2000 expected to get off the mountain an hour, there was no way everyone could evacuate.
“If a major fire comes through they have to have some sort of refuge,” he said.
In November the State Government released interim guidelines for how to apply to install a bunker, but there are still no national standards available.