Use of Stoves in a Total Fire Ban

[stepbystep]

No worries Soulfree! Speaking of extreme weather it has just reached 38 degrees in Hobart with 30-40 km/h winds. I would not be enjoying it if I was walking today!!

Let's just hope no idiots start playing with matches

[Taurë-rana]

Hmm... at the moment I have all "add boiling water and eat" meals for my trip next week. I think I will be very hungry if I can't use the stove. A question - if it's hot enough for a total fire ban, how do you keep food you don't have to cook fresh? Maybe it's time to look at powergels?

[Nuts]

Hmmm... at the risk of sounding like a 'non-conformist, trouble maker'

Iv'e been looking about trying to find more on this relevant to Tassie... perhaps someone in a position where they 'should know' could make this easier but before going further...

The average walker can now (hopefully) stumble across this site and learn that in times of total fire bans there are restrictions on the use of (even) bushwalking type stoves, have been for a number of years... (obviously not many knew this (doh!!))... So searching back they may find the link to the service site
( http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/mysite/Show? ... alFireBans ) and see that there is a total fire ban (24hrs) in the state's south... from other links they will find the statement that days of total fire bans are predictable up to four days ahead... (maybe someone can make it easy here to find the 'four day' Forecast?)

Without more links, seaching and phone calls and so on.... doesnt there seem something missing here.

As with those who have mentioned that they dont really see the importance of such tight regulation (laws an *&%$#!, classic overreaction in an era of them...) I also come back to questioning how anyone thinks that it is possible to remain truly 'law-abiding', taking into account many of the walks that people are attempting in Tassie and especially at this time of the year? Has anyone (with experience) really thought out the inconvenience of doing so (given that some are thinking that they will only do so to be 'law abiding' rather than logical) I can almost guarantee that there would be more people sitting over a stove in the south (during the period) than aren't... Can you blame some of the comments questioning the policing of this or whether they even will bother to personally take such legislation into account?

What about a bit of consultation, co-ordination with parks, that sort of thing... some practical solutions...?
To me, regulation without practical outcomes and only serving to deter or criminalise good practical people (aside from the few that bother with the inconvenient realities) is an *&%$#!...

[Ent]

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[MJD]

Walked up to Stuarts Saddle the other day in 40C heat. Could have been a total fire ban or not. Who knows. Happily boiled some water on a gas stove on the tent platforms. If doing this is breaking the law then in my opinion the law is flawed and poorly thought out.

And Nuts - sometimes non-conformist trouble makers are needed so that laws can be amended to take into account circumstances not thought of when originally drafted.

[ILUVSWTAS]

yeh it didnt even come into my mind in the slightest up there MJD!! All I could think about was making some food and a cup of tea!! Even if I'd known we were breaking the law after a couple of 12hr days in 40 degrees I wouldnt have given a flying F

[Macca81]

from other links they will find the statement that days of total fire bans are predictable up to four days ahead...

so hypothetically speaking, im going on a 10 day walk, i check my forcast the morning i leave and find that there are no fire bans predicted for the next 4 days, and as such i go on a walk and make my meals as usual over my stove. its a 10 day hike so having cold food for that length of time is not pleasant for a start, but no fire bans predicted so im using my stove. day 8 is a fire ban day, i cant know this because the info wasnt avail when i left, i get caught....

so 1) how am i to know (reasonably) that it is a fire ban day?
2) i have no food with me that can be eaten without adding water, and its tastes pretty average while cold
3) i would like to think that those in a position to issue fines, will take the side of common sense and assess whether the hiker is being safe
4) i dont want to go without eating

[BarryJ]

On the matter of proclaiming innocence because you didn't know it was a fire ban day, try telling a traffic cop you are innocent because you didn't see the speed sign. Ignorance is no excuse, I'm afraid.

[ronin]

On the matter of proclaiming innocence because you didn't know it was a fire ban day, try telling a traffic cop you are innocent because you didn't see the speed sign. Ignorance is no excuse, I'm afraid.

Not paying attention whilst driving opens up a whole host of potential problems above and beyond just a speeding fine so deserves to be punished.
I'd like to think that common sense would prevail and support point no-3 from Macca81 as to how to address the situation.

[Ent]

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[flyfisher]

The practical issue is how are you aware that it is a total fire ban? Website access is out along with mobile phones and is there a standard radio frequency with broadcast times or message service capable of covering the entire State? Again education is required on what a walker needs to know and where to find it. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is taking on as much credibility as "just following orders" or "it is the law" and should be consigned to the waste bin of history as a cop-out by government authorities that have been grossly incapable of getting the message out. What is needed is practical information on how a walker can comply with a law that in the space of one minute could turn them from a law abiding citizen into a person committing a criminal offence and if the authorities do not care about that then the people involved should be replaced.

It's so easy to make a blanket law to cover all bases without being thought out very well. Can't imagine a gas cooker used carefully and placed in sand or on a rock etc. being totally unsafe.

ff

[Son of a Beach]

Ignorance of the law is also a totally different thing to ignorance of whether or not any particular day has been declared as a fire ban, in my opinion.

[BarryJ]

The following is from the reply tastrax received from Tas Fire Service:

....................... Although communication in remote areas is difficult, ignorance of a total fire ban is not an excuse. ................................

[ILUVSWTAS]

Simple fact remains if your miles from contact theres no way of knowing.

[BarryJ]

Simple fact remains if your miles from contact theres no way of knowing.

I totally agree and I would also suggest you are highly unlikely to be detected using a stove, but in the unlikely event that you are detected, you have no excuse despite the fact that you had no way of knowing.

[ILUVSWTAS]

Yup I likewise agree! risk versus reward thing I guess!! I dont and on our recent trip DIDNT give it a second thought when I sparked my stove up on fire ban days though

That is taking it for granted it WAS a fireban day on Thursday???

[soulfree]

Oh come on people: you're bushwalkers, use your commons sense:

1.When you know you are going to be walking in bushfire prone areas at bushfire prone times of the year, go prepared with meals that can be eaten cold. If you don't know how to prepare such meals, may I suggest you are not as experienced as you make out and should perhaps ... reconsider your options? How hard can it be to eat a cold meal: dried fruit, tuna, salami and cheese anyone?

2. You're a bushwalker: use your common sense; don't wait to be told that fire conditions are bad; if the weather is sufficiently bad for a catastrophic bushfrie risk and TFB to be declared, it should be bleedinngly obvious without having to revert to the am radio to find out. If you don't know for sure, suspect it might be a TFB and can't find out, then do us a favour & assume it is a TFB.

3. Why do so many of you think you should be the exception to the law. Sure there's times when it's it's blatingly obvious (to me anyway) that I can speed safely but do you think I have a snowflake's chance in hell of convincing a magistrate with that argument? Why do you think you can convince anyone it's safe for you to light a fire? Is eating a cold meal that bad. God bushwalkers are getting soft these days!!

Accidents happen. As we have seen in Victoria this year the results are tragic, *&%$#! tragic. Do your bit and learn to eat the odd cold meal occasionally. If you don't know it's a TFB but suspect it might be ... chances are it is ... that's your common sense kicking in so learn to recognise it and listen to it. Will it kill you to eat the odd cold meal occasionally? I think not. Harden up walkers and learn to do your bit.

Ends rant . . .
Accept the law, support, and do your bit not to ravage the bush with yet more wildfire.

[ILUVSWTAS]

Why do you think you can convince anyone it's safe for you to light a fire?

I wouldnt light a fire, I never light fires whern im bushwalking, I walk in fuel stove only areas 99% of the time..... I just dont think gas stoves are likely to become a danger in TFB days

[flyfisher]

Perhaps TFS could have a fresh look at the small GAS stoves that walkers are using these days. Do they blow up or flare up like shellite ones are prone to do?

I'm not advocating breaking the law or being ignorant of TFB days, but I am asking if these stoves are or are not inherently safe as I haven't heard of any problems. Then if they are safe perhaps the regulation relating to them should be upgraded.

ff

[Son of a Beach]

The following is from the reply tastrax received from Tas Fire Service:

....................... Although communication in remote areas is difficult, ignorance of a total fire ban is not an excuse. ................................

True, and I certainly agree with the principle of this. However, I'm not sure that ignorance of which day is a total fire ban (when out of any reasonable contact in the wilderness for an extended period) has any legal implications in the way that ignorance of the law in general does.

Taking the speed limits example: If you were caught speeding on a road you'd never travelled before, and it turned out that vandals had removed the "60" speed limit sign, and that the last sign before that was a "100" speed limit sign, I think you'd be let off (just guessing - don't know for sure). This is nothing to do with ignorance of the law, but rather ignorance of what the speed limit is at a particular place, due to no fault of your own, without having had any reasonable opportunity to know what the real speed limit was.

NB: I'm not condoning using stoves during a total fire ban, or otherwise. I'm just curious as to the legal ramifications of 'ignorance' in this scenario.

[Michael_Kingston]

From a legal perspective you are quite right Nik, ignorance of the law is no defence but mistaken fact CAN be a defence.

A defendant who raises the defence of honest and reasonable mistake or belief, carries the evidentiary onus to prove it. This means, that the defendant needs to produce evidence to support the basis for the defence. The prosecution, are then required to prove that no such belief was held, and/or that it was held unreasonably.

An example of how this defence could be applied, is in the situation where a person is charged with driving whilst their authorisation to drive is suspended. If the person was driving because they were under the belief that their licence was valid, and that belief was based on a letter which had been sent to them from Transport Tasmania by mistake, or in error, which indicated that their licence was valid, then that person could be entitled to raise the defence of honest and reasonable mistake. The defendant must be able to show both aspects of this defence, that is, they must be able to show that their actions were both, honest and reasonable in the circumstances.

So, if you were ever prosecuted, you would not be able to use ignorance of the law as a defence. In other words you could not say that you did not know that it was illegal to light a naked flame on a TFB day. What you would have to do is argue that you honestly and reasonably believed that it was NOT a TFB that day. If it was 40 plus degrees with 60 km/h winds you would probably have difficulty convincing a court that you honestly and reasonably believed this. It would all come down to the specific circumstances.

And one last point .... what I have said above would only apply as long as the offence of lighting a fire / naked flame on a TFB day is NOT an absolute liability offence. If it is an absolute liability offence then you cannot raise honest and reasonable mistake as a defence. It is vey unlikely that it would be an absoulte liability offence, but I would would need to check the legislation to know for sure. Will try to do this in the next day or so and post back here.

[Michael_Kingston]

See the above post first ....


The Fire Service Act says the following at Section 71:

71. Prohibition on fires, &c., on days of total fire ban

Where a declaration is in force under section 70 declaring any day to be a day of total fire ban or any days to be days of total fire ban, a person shall not on that day or any of those days –

(a) light, or cause to be lit, or maintain or use, a fire in the open air on any land for any purpose, unless that fire is excluded from the ban; or

(b) use or cause to be used in the open air on any land any machine or apparatus contrary to any prohibition or restriction in the declaration.

As neither this section or any other section of the Act state that there is absolute liability, the defence of honest and reasonable mistake would apply.

[Nuts]

soulfree, nobody deserves to be labeled for criminal actions at the whim of incompetent lawmakers. I (and many others it seems) find it a far stretch to envisage the risk of a gas stove used as we would use it being anything other than a pedantic stretch of inclusions for the risk factors for starting a bushfire. Those situations you cite for huts being burn down are the very places the regulation (here at least) accepts as safe for stove use...

So...anyhow... say we are just 'law-abiding' no matter the cost...
As mentioned I havent (so far???) found a forecast more than 24hrs out???
If in hot weather, to be safe (as you advocate) we plan on not cooking... i dont see (still) how it can be a matter anything other than 'not planning to cook at all' ???? Otherwise, what particular set of conditions could you leave without pretty much all meals able to be eaten uncooked???

For many years open fires were in common use in remote areas. It probably wasn't a direct case of a bushwalker starting an uncontrolled fire in a remote area(??) but obviously most could see the sense in conforming to regulations when fuel stove only areas were declared. They accepted the price for someone elses foolish actions, could see the practical benefits.

You dismiss a bunch of experienced people as not using their common(s) sense. Your entitled to your opinion.
Personally i don't like having to(and wont) justify a love of the bush or empathy for tragedy by conforming to just any ill-conceived whim but whatever 'lights 'ones' fire'

[north-north-west]

Surely the use of some common sense is possible? For instance, during my Jagungal ramble, I cooked one afternoon with the gas-fired Trangia on a flat rock in the middle of Doubtful Creek. Technically illegal, but hHTH is a fire going to escape from there?
Then there was the evening at Holy Camp, with the entire Weddin Mtns Park until a TFB, despite the fact that it had been raining non-stop for the last three days and had only just stopped, after at least six inches had dumped on Grenfell in a half hour . . .

[north-north-west]

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools . . .

Yeah, Rudyard, I know, but sometimes some people's readiness to take offence really gets up my nose.

Its is wrong simplistic and a little self righteous to take the bushwalkers = good guys / 4wders = bad guys stance as has been taken in this thread by at least one person.

Just where did say that? Or is it, maybe, that you've decided that that's what I must have meant because . . . well, I don't really know why, but for whatever reason seemed good to you at the time.

For the record - for everyone who didn't like my reference to 4WDers - my current vehicle is a 4WD Hilux. With AT tyres. It goes off-road (where legal and safe and necessary).
And I've met plenty of walkers who don't care about making a mess, or about the implications/effects of their behaviour.

But, in my experience, particularly here on the mainland, campfires are more likely to be a problem than camp stoves, and are far more likely to be left unattended by 4WDers than walkers.

[jcr_au]

I don't know much about the Tasmania TFB system, so can I just clarify a couple of points.

Do you have different Fire Ban Zones, so that part of the state could be declared and other parts that aren't affected by the same weather patterns wouldn't be. Victoria (where I live has 5 zones and each are assessed and declared separately)

Is there much of a fire awareness education system run through the media - do the general public know much about the implications of TFB's

Again, in Victoria we have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the fire safe message during the past 40 or so years that we've had the TFB system, but whilst most know the broad outline it still astonishes me at the lack of knowledge of the details

John r

[Macca81]

I don't know much about the Tasmania TFB system, so can I just clarify a couple of points.

Do you have different Fire Ban Zones, so that part of the state could be declared and other parts that aren't affected by the same weather patterns wouldn't be. Victoria (where I live has 5 zones and each are assessed and declared separately)

yes, tas is separated into 3 such areas, south/north/north-west. each of these areas is assessed and declared independantly of each other.

Is there much of a fire awareness education system run through the media - do the general public know much about the implications of TFB's

every year a new campain comes out giving the same information through a number of media outlets. fire awareness is also taught in schools and a number of workplaces. being ignorant of any form of fire awareness/laws/risks/implications related to fire is no excuse for 99% of the population.

Again, in Victoria we have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the fire safe message during the past 40 or so years that we've had the TFB system, but whilst most know the broad outline it still astonishes me at the lack of knowledge of the details

John r

finer details may be missed by some, but id be very surprised if there was anyone that was not aware of the basics (read as 'important bits')

[Ent]

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[Macca81]

Err?
I suppose water does have hydrogen in it which can be highly combustible.

and oxygen... fire can not burn without oxygen...

[Ent]

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