BBQ party tonight

Bollocks.

I went to one yesterday for 30 people. They used a gas bbq on a patio, pulled further away from the fence than normal, watered the grass next to the patio and had the hosepipe nearby. Not a spark to be seen, and if there had been one of the cooks would’ve noticed as it was never left unmanned as per government guidance.

Common sense.

That's that south-centric thing again!

Where I am, it's rained three times in just over 24 hours. The grass is all fine. It's a bit chilly.

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears..."

I think by definition anyone deciding to have a bbq right now, can’t therefore be sensible and intelligent.

they’re mutually exclusive

Sure, but I also don't think that intelligent, sensible people who decide to (safely) have a barbecue are necessarily dense, selfish, brain-dead, or any of the other things that have been said on this thread.

So reminding careless people not to have barbecues when the risk is even higher than usual is a good idea, isn't it? It's not as if barbecues are essential.

That wasn't the point I was making in answer to another poster.

The allowing of gas barbecues is not unconditional.

Which is exactly what people said during COVID, when folk wanted a hand to hold at their husband's funeral or during the birth of their first child. I wondered whether we had learnt anything from all that; perhaps not.

Starting from the charitable premise that not all the 'pro-BBQ' people on this thread are idiots, and allowing for the fact that a number of them will be bots/deliberately trolling, I think these posts sum up everything that is wrong with humanity.

"I want..." they scream like uncontrolled toddlers. What the selfish and self-centred want trumps everything else in their narrow minds. Who cares how it might impact others - provided that they and theirs are okay, nothing else matters. They are the people who take parking spaces for the disabled because "I'm in a hurry". They are the people who listen to their phones on loudspeaker in the train because... well, just because they can, the little darlings. They are the people who shout at each other across the street, rather than crossing over to have a conversation at a civilised level, because they do not give a flying fig for anyone else's discomfort.

Oh happy days.

Well of course they can, but many people also have common sense and can assess a situation for themselves and their own circumstances. It may be the "right thing to do" in places where there actually is a drought and dried up grass etc, but that's actually not the case everywhere. Up in the north we're well used to everyone believing the SW is the centre of the universe, but given that it's rained three times in the last 24 hours in my area, I don't see the situation much differently than any other time I might have lit a barbecue. If everyone just did all the standard fire safety stuff that you're supposed to do even when there aren't any wildfires, I wonder if there would be no problem. But unfortunately governments often have to legislate for the careless.

As someone in the risk industry you should well know that risk reduction starts by eliminating a hazard if it is not required. The hazard of BBQ is not required so eliminate it. Then no risk mitigation is required because there is no hazard. That's the situation here. There's no need to create the hazard in the first place which is the strongest risk mitigation you can implement.

Nobody is saying that. There is some risk in everything we do but we accept that to carryout everyday activities, like cooking our food in an oven. But some things we just don't need to do when we are in this situation and one is cooking food outside on a self contained fire.

Guns don't kill pepple, and all that nonsense ....

Why can people just cook inside in a cooker during the current situation instead of having to rationalise what might or might not happen. It's probably a very small risk, but why take it at all. It makes no discernible difference to anybody's life just to do this but could make a huge difference to many lives by not doing it. You can still eat outside. You can still have the get together or party, still have cool beers on your patio, chilled wine by your pool, cocktails in your pagoda. Just cook the burgers and chicken drumsticks in your oven.
You don't need government or neighbours to tell you. Just do it because it's the right thing to do in the current situation.
It's far safer from a food safety point of view too.

Gas BBQs are still allowed at home during total fire bans in Victoria and NSW.

I wouldn’t use any sort of BBQ at the moment. It only takes one spark and it’s like a tinderbox over the country at the moment.

'will warn people not to light anything that could spark a fire' this means anything in my understanding.

As previously stated, I didn't say anything about houses burning down. No lies from me.

Using Total Fire Bans in Australia as an example, then no, nothing inside the house is included.

If you were to line up all the most common sources of fires starting in order of risk (and then exclude things that are actually essential like cooking), then it would actually make perfect sense for us collectively to do the things that are at the top of the risk list a bit less often right now, since the people who put out fires for us are overstretched. Or at the very least to do them much more carefully than usual.

Of course if all you're focused on is the specific risk posed by your one individual barbecue or candle-lit bath, then deciding to skip it this week is going to look like overkill. It's the collective effect of all those individual decisions that matters though.

I feel like people don't seem to believe that the fire brigade might actually not reach them as quickly as usual right now because of the wildfires. You'd think that alone would make people want to be cautious, regardless of the wording of the alert.

On our local news it was reported that fire brigade asked people to not light barbecues (not stipulating what types of BBQs). Obviously it’s not legally enforceable but I guess with courtesy to the fire brigade maybe people should refrain from lighting them for awhile even if you think it is safe to do so

Are we not to light candles or turn on hobs or ovens, washing machines, dryers, curlers, straighteners etc in case they cause a fire, no matter how remote a possibility?

The point is not that every barbecue is dangerous, of course it's not. No idea what the stats are, but imagine it's something like only 1 in 10,000 home barbecues (non-disposable) that causes any kind of fire in normal times (including small ones).

The point is that right now the fire service shouldn't have to deal with even that 1, because barbecues are completely non-essential and the fire service are already over stretched, and also because that 1 fire could right now be way more dangerous than normal because of the drought. If a fire does start then it's not going to be much comfort knowing that 9,999 other barbecues that day were fine. Better right now for it not to start at all.

That is extremely unusual but sounds completely unrelated to weather conditions given it didn’t spread.

There’s no need to lie for posters to lie about a home barbecue burning down a house though, is there?

A barbecue in a garden on a proper barbecue with bricks, concrete or gas is very low risk.

Barbecues do not burn down houses. Careless people who don't use barbecues sensibly burn down houses.

A house in a residential street where i live.