COUNSEL assisting the 2009 Royal Commission recommended on Monday that the commission find the Remlaw fire would have been avoided if power poles were inspected every three years, instead of five years.
Horsham's Remlaw fire on Black Saturday was the subject of discussion by lawyers at the Royal Commission hearing in Melbourne this week.
Counsel assisting the commission Dr Stephen Donaghue outlined details of the Remlaw fire, saying the fire was started by a fallen conductor on Remlaw spur line.
"Powercor has accepted in its submissions that the conductor fell from pole 15 on the Remlaw spur line when the coach screws that secured the pole cap to pole 15 came loose as a result of vibrations caused by the wind," he said.
Dr Donaghue told the commission pole 15, constructed in 1962, had last been inspected in July 2004 and was next scheduled to be inspected in the next six months.
"Counsel assisting have contended that the commission should find that there is a real possibility that the failure of the pole cap on pole 15 would have been avoided if a three-year, rather than a five-year, inspection cycle had been in place," he said.
"Powercor has responded that such a finding should not be made because the absence of evidence as to the exact date when the first coach screw fell out means that the proposed finding involves speculation."
Dr Donaghue said the assisting counsel invited the commission to find that the risk of failures that caused the Remlaw fire would be greatly reduced by the replacement of centre phase pole top assemblies with a different and new model of pole top assembly.
He said Powercor had made submissions questioning whether updating the pole tops was warranted and how much such a program would cost.
In other issues discussed relating to the Remlaw fire, Dr Donaghue said the incident management of the fire was `generally very successful' with the first attack on the fire `very rapid'.
Dr Donaghue disagreed with the State Government's submissions to not make any findings on the basis of the evidence of fire sector commander Robert McGennisken.
He said Mr McGennisken's evidence of communication difficulties between the incident control centre and fire-fighters on the fire ground was consistent with incident controller Dale Russell's evidence and there was no adequate reason for doubting the evidence.
Dr Donaghue said the warning issued by the incident control centre was generally of a `very high quality'.
"The urgent threat messages that were issued by the IMT were broadcast regularly on the ABC Radio, although in some cases there were delays in the region of about 20 minutes between the times at which the urgent threat messages were issued and the times at which they were broadcast," he said. "The difficulties occurred related primarily to the uploading of the warning messages to the CFA website.
"In some cases, such as in relation to the second urgent threat message, the threat message appears to not have been uploaded to the CFA website at all, and other occasions, as in the case of the third threat message issued at 2.10pm the message wasn't uploaded until some 45 minutes after it had been issued."
Dr Donaghue said counsel assisting the commission submitted that while road blocks were in accordance with the guidelines, they did impede the capacity of private fire-fighting units to reach the fire ground.
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