SES a cause for worry

The local SES set fire to tall grass in a field opposite our home in Tabulam. I was in bed recovering from a hefty medical operation and, still bearing stitches in my gut, had to struggle from the house to the garden [we are on acre in village] to get the bore primed. As it is an old bore it requires a fair bit of work to get it going. The flames were high and we faced a tall wall of fire as my wife and I battled to get the water flowing. After all, the SES did not warn us of this burnoff, and we have an old wooden house with old roof and loads of vegetation to ignite.
I split my stitches and set my recovery back at least a week.
The pictures I have taken of the fire afterward clearly show how close the fire came to igniting vegetation close to our neighbour's house.
I spent the next two hours hosing my garden as the cinders were caught in the swirling winds of Tabulam.
One gets the distinct impression of cowboys at play when one watches your blokes getting a backburn going. It is pathetic in the extreme.
With carbon trading the political buzzword of the day and with a simple tractor blade the ability to mow and mulch, I ask why this absurd practice of burning within the town [village] limits? The school's fence burned. They set fire to a garbage dump with tyres burning black. They set fire to the electrical equipment that fed, until recently, a workshop owned by local Kooris. These were big kids in SES uniform having fun and as my wife and I struggled to get the bore working, we wondered how much effort would it have cost, were these firies to have warned us, so that we could have, at leisure, or at least with ten minutes warning, primed our bore and have been ready when they set the flames upon the grass.
If your blokes assert that they had the situation under control, then my photos will illustrate the way the fire jumped and set alight grass quite close to property.
We have seen a few of these fires and not once have we had the benefit of a warning. My recollection of the law tells me that such a warning is necessary at times of planned burnback.
Tabulam is a village of some 100 people and we live smackbang in the middle of the village. It is not a big deal to warn us by simply shouting from the gate to give us ten mins warning. Is this too much to ask from intelligent people?