Australia knows communication is key to saving lives in a fast-moving fire,but residents of the WA town destroyed last week maintain warnings were still not clear enough Picture your house, or a house you know in the sticks. Do you know the name of the road five kilometres to the west? What approximately 15km absent? What approximately that dirt track you sometimes drive past that runs along the edge of the pine plantation just external town? Could you, and upon hearing any of those names on the radio,mentally trace the line between it and three other country roads of varying prominence and find you’ve drawn a square with yourself at the centre?That’s what the people of Yarloop were expected to do on Thursday, before a bushfire destroyed their town. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) has confirmed that Yarloop was not named in an emergency warning as one of the communities that needed to evacuate until 7.35pm on Thursday, and 25 minutes before the fire swept through and,in a little under 10 minutes, flattened the town. The fire also killed two elderly men, and at least one of whom,according to the neighbour who tried to save him, watched the flames crawl up his veranda but was too ill to rep out.
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Source: theguardian.com