Should someone be held accountable for Victoria's bushfire tragedy?

Personal Responsibility

Warnings can't come at all times, fire can start at anytime and from many sources and with luck, good management and efforts on many fronts...most of the 500 fires that day did not get as hot or out of control as they could have. Even with early warnings, most homes in the vacinity of an extreme fire lose power! Warnings can't be relied on. When a home is surrounded by foliage or trees, built from ineffective fire materials, built on top of a ridge and lacked preparedness, who is responsible?

where there is smoke-------?

The investigation should be completed and the results examined.(logic) Criminal negligence should be punished if encountered.(logic) Prevention systems need improvement. Communication structures need improvement. Too bad I can't blame Kevin.

Accountable?

Should someone be accountable? Yep the fire.

There's a say..

There's a say "when there's blood on the street, someone is going to jail"!!

Bigger Picture

The blame game is pointless...doesn't help the victims or fire fighters. Their skills and training is firstclass even if there has been a gamble of underfunding for years. Vic/SA has some of the worst conditions to contend with. Living in fire prone areas...even Warrandyte, Templestowe, Dandenongs, Mornington Peninsula or Surf Coast is like living in a bomb...it will explode one day irrespective of how much fuel reduction goes on. I just hope our fire fighters will still want to fight.

Societys whiping horse

Yes, and someone should be held accountable for our involvement in the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and for selling the W Papaun and East Timorese people down the drain, and for why so many unmarried teenage girls become pregnant, and for why so many teenagers fail to complete high school, and why there are so many homeless people, and who has caused global warming, and why so much of our modern food tastes like c*#p, and for causing the present financial crisis, and ....

be responsible

I live in a high fire risk zone. We in S.A. were all warned as were the people of Victoria on the day before the fire that the next day would be a day of extreme danger, far worse than anything experienced during the Ash Wednesday fires! What more do the public need to be told, it's basic common sense. However, unfortuanately a lot of the people living in these areas are urban/rural life style dwellers. Sometimes you have to take responsiblity for yourself. This is just a witch hunt!!

gestapo conservation

Firstly the person who lit the fire should be accountable, then the the shire councils who would not allow clearing around homes to the point of fining some people, where is thier accountablity? There where no firebreaks or fuel reduction burning, this is why towns burnt. We need to get rid of gestapo conservation. We need to prepare for the worst not blame after the event.

History repeats....the blame game

I'm wondering why we don't hear exemplary stories of what people did right on that FIRE DANGER day?! I know many who had prepared their properties, fire kits, fire hoses & generators ready. They heeded the warnings and understood the risks...the weather forecast was truly horrific and with some luck saved life and home, albeit with loss of property. That day, the heat outside for even 10mins felt 'unsurvivable'...but enough of the blame - it is irrational to expect someone else to save you.

yes

Definitely Find whoever was responsible and sack him/her. That will help immensely.