A Smoke Refuge Plan for the ACT

On the evening of January 1, 2020, the Monash Air Quality Station's index rating peaked at 5185. Anything above 200 is considered hazardous. Due to dense smoke haze from fires burning on the South Coast, the air quality in Tuggeranong was more than 25 times above hazardous. The recorded index rating was higher than the world's most polluted cities.

This was the nadir of the hazardous smoke pollution in Canberra that started in November 2019 and did not end until early February 2020. ACT Health recommended that residents keep all windows and doors closed and seal any gaps where smoke might enter. It also advised residents only to use an evaporative cooler if the system were filtered and to switch other air-conditioners to ‘recycle’ or ‘recirculate’ to reduce the amount of smoke entering premises.

Even with this advice many residents were unable to mitigate the smoke pollution in their own homes. Even fewer had an effective evaporative cooler or air-conditioner. Air purifiers had sold out. Through some of the hottest days of summer residents were trapped inside their homes by smoke pollution with no safe way of keeping cool.

An ACT Hazardous Smoke Refuge Plan should demonstrate what residents need to do in their homes to reduce the smoke and indicate which adequately protected and ventilated public facilities they could access - such as public libraries, community or school halls. Last summer this information was not easily available for many Tuggeranong residents.