Why are there still fires burning three weeks after Black Saturday the 7th? Is it because these fires are entrenched in bush country which, despite the vast available fire fighting resources, simply cannot be put out? Or is it wholly or partly because those managing the fires are happy to leave them burning to achieve other objectives like “ecological” and fuel-reduction burning?
On Sunday CFA officers warned of 150 kph winds in tremulous voices on the regional ABC. East Gippslanders who have been subject to years of fires in 2003 and 2006/7 that followed fuel reduction, ecological and asset protection burns were again panicked. The 150kph northerly winds forecast by the ABC for today — but not by the Weather Bureau with the exception of 140kph gusts tipped for Falls Creek — would easily be enough to drag the still burning Dargo fires to Bairnsdale. People have been really scared — again.
The disaster of Black Saturday was in part due to the wrong advice — giving people options to stay and defend their homes and implement their “personal bushfire plan” when the nature of the fire made that all but impossible. They was not enough warning of approaching fire fronts on the day of those fires. There is no talk yet of what is required to give that warning. Is it keeping high altitude planes in the air with infrared detection capacity, using satellites with the same or is it just technologically impossible? And if we knew a fire front was coming, threatening a town — how do we tell the town?
Possibly due to the cost of insurance local councils seem to no longer provide fire refuges. Community based fire plans have been overlooked in favour of each individual being made responsible for their decisions — yet it was co-operative efforts that saved so many in the past and on Saturday the 7th.
Despite the loss of lives on Black Saturday, the message today from the fire services has remained the same — activate your ‘individual’ fire plan and make the decision as to whether you stay or go early. Today however every Victorian (and many Tasmanians) who owned a mobile phone that worked, could read English, had it switched on and had reception received a message warning them of extreme conditions and high winds. Even kids in the city.
In Melbourne today overhead signs on Freeways tell people to tune in to ABC Radio for their bushfire information service. People with rural properties have headed bush to defend them while other people in the bush have fled their homes with elderly folk, pets, stock and valuables.
If this happened even on Black Saturday would it have made a difference? The decision as to whether to stay or go is still and individual one. Is there extra provision for early warnings of specific fire threats? Warnings that would have given people of Churchill, Traralgon, Kinglake and Marysville, Stathewen and elsewhere enough time to save lives?
It is hard to see how his text message would have made a difference.
There is a coming front — a massive fire industry is growing. It is based on organising people to light and put out fires and managing the individual responses of people threatened by them. The spin doctors will be again readying themselves, calling for more and more fuel reduction burning in case there are serious fires today.
According to many of those advocating yet more fire to prevent fire we need to replicate what Aboriginal people used to do with fire. Somehow they survived for millennia without mobile phone text messaging. So did the vast areas of massive ancient forests of giant trees that greeted the first Europeans who arrived here – and made so much money out of felling them and selling them.
Lionel, I agree with Andrew. And in response to your final paragraph I can only quote what I heard the legendary Chicka Dickson say, when he was chair of the Aboriginal Arts Board addressing a group that wanted to wish the European invasion away, “Brothers, it’s my personal opinion that the 18 million gubbas are here to stay.”
Lionel, if you’d actually been anywhere near the four fires that originated on Black Saturday and were still burning this morning, you’d realise that “putting them out” is (a) near impossible given the terrain; and (b) a misallocation of resources given the need to protect lives and assets that remain under threat.
The text message sent yesterday was clearly a trial. Don’t criticise the authorities for doing something that may help lead to a long-term solution unless/until you’re ready to propose an alternative.
This guy cant be for real, he must be one of those greenies that caused this, what is his agenda, and I am dissappointd in Crikey for supporting him.
I hope the guy that got convicted for cutting his trees down to find that his was the only house standing sues the backside of of those who convicted him, including this “Lionel Elmore” these guys will only learn if they have to pay for the grief they cause.
I received the SMS yesterday and read all the freeway signs on Monday night – and noted the references to ABC’s 774. I tuned in today to 774 for an update but all I heard was a long report on fire – how it’s used in Indian families against female members they do not like. This went on and on for ages (turned out to be on “The World Today”). I tuned in a little later for the news – but it was the same Indian fires against females story – this time as a news item. I’m sure this Indian cultural practice is a dreadful thing but I felt the ABC had really loosened its hold on the emergency baton. I also wondered it the ABC plus the SMS messengers were “beating up” the issue as in the event the day was a “fizzer” apart from high winds (but nowhere near as high as all the alarmist reports). There seems to be a devlopment whereby various government agencies sing from the same sheet – to the public but not necessarily for the public, perhaps part of the “corporatist state” that’s been steadily developing in Victoria since the election of Bracks and his party.
What a mess of illogical nonsense.
No, we can’t burn our way out of danger nor can we extinguish these fires unless the weather gods send real rain (preferably soft, steady rain that goes on for days and days). There are no simple, single answers – and those who advocate for either the burn or don’t burn regimes are not grasping the complexity of the different ecosystems that comprise the ‘Australian bush’. We should howl down any talk of a ‘national fire plan’ – our approach to fire management in Australia has to be based on bio-regions. Different species growing in different landscapes will require different approaches. It is particularly difficult to develop an effective hazard reduction burning regime for the tall mountain ash forests of Victoria – most winters they are too damp and cool to burn effectively and when they are dry enough they burn too fiercely and the fuel reduction burns get away from the attending brigades.
The presence or absence of important and expensive infrastructure as well as different population densities will also require the development of different strategies… The prescribed burning operations require volunteer fire fighters and the pool of trained and fit volunteers is dwindling. These prescribed burns also meet with varying degrees of local opposition and cooperation. And this is just the sketchiest outline of some of the human variables that have to be taken into account.
And the weird fall-back position of replicating ‘what the Aboriginal people used to do with fire’ flies in the face of reality. Where to start? There isn’t and never was an Aboriginal people. There were many Aboriginal nations/language groups/tribes living in different environments and therefore developing different strategies.
And I haven’t even mentioned the consequences of climate change (hotter, drier, windier, a shrinking window of opportunity for safe prescribed burning)…
Fire management in Australia is a genuine example of a ‘wicked problem’.