On a day of high fire activity and adverse fire weather conditions in and around the Sydney metropolitan area, an initial grass fire in a public open-air car park at Homebush, in the centre of the metropolitan area, resulted in the damage or destruction of over 90 vehicles.

Contributing factors to the rapid development of this fire included high temperature, strong hot westerly winds, a full car park due to high aquatic centre patronage, and small or no separation between parked cars, grass plants and large quantities of garden mulch. Foam as an extinguishing medium was not used, in consideration of environmental damage to surrounding wetlands in the Homebush Olympic Precinct.

While weather and fire conditions on this day were highly unusual, the loss of so many vehicles in such a short period of time has provided many lessons for fire services, as well as providing lessons to stakeholders, such as town planners and landscape designers. This paper draws on the case study to argue for increased separation of vehicles from garden mulch, reduced depth of garden mulch to reduce fuel load, and improved ring-main installations around large open air car parks.

This paper will discuss what worked well during the investigation / research phase, why it worked well and what this means for the future role of emergency services in utilising fire research to argue for policy change.