Comments on: Fuel reduction would not — did not — stop Black Saturday

By: Frank Campbell

Frank Campbell — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:44:33 +0000

p.s. Scott- re the culture of control and extraction in the bush- I speak from 30 years experience surrounded by it. It’s been in retreat for years but now the revival of redneck militancy is patent in my area.

By: Frank Campbell

Frank Campbell — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:41:25 +0000

Scott: “fuel reduction” sounds like common sense, but in any crown fire ground fuel is not very relevant. Repetitive burning of native forests dries them out. The best barrier to wildfire is old growth damp forest. By constantly burning (at temps that are very difficult to control- there are many escapes and fires which are too hot), we are in effect selecting for a different type of forest in future, one that is even more fire prone. We can’t beat severe bushfire, so we need evacuation, bunkers and engineering solutions close to “assets”, the three policies the CFA/DSE have rejected for 20 years. Burning the deep bush is pointless, yet they do it all the time. This just creates complacency. We’ve had enough of that.

The real question is, since the bad fires are the ones that kill, why spend huge amounts of time and effort trying to make the average fires “less intense”? Average fires can be coped with, which is why no one pays the slightest attention to the CFA for decades, until the embers hit the fan. All those resources would be better spent making safe zones and improving first strike capacity against fires.

By: scott

scott — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:17:48 +0000

I have always considered myself a greenie (as well as a pinko homo probably-not-very-practical-thinko) so I worry when I see the evident certainty and ‘moral clarity’ that pervades both sides of this debate: the traditional (but not indigenous) managers and utilisers of forests (now cast as ‘exploiters’) and the new managers and utilisers of forests (now cast as both ‘revolutionary’ and ‘conservationists’ at the same time!)

What I am trying to get through my caffeinated haze is the strange mis-match between the headline of this article and Lindsay’s own words that “Science-based prescribed burns are an important part of bushfire management…” I am perfectly happy to believe that fuel-reduction cannot stop the speed-of-advance of fire when other variables (wind-speed, humidity & temperature) reach certain levels. At the extremes of Black Friday I suspect a fire is self-perpetuating, able to lower humidity in fuel as it approaches and then ignite that fuel simply by radiant heat while creating its own wind.

I refuse to believe that the whole of the forests industry are thuggish, tree-hating, anti-intellectuals that exemplify the worst of irresponsible capitalism. At the same time I refuse to believe that the term conservationist is adopted solely by the educated, wise and disinterested champions of higher and long-term good.

Sticking a house in the forest is just as fruitless an exploitation of the environment as chopping it down. That we even care that forests burn proves how proprietary we feel about them. My father was a state forester and it is from him I get my love of trees, and my love of wilderness. When my father was a young man, forestry was one of the few ways you could get paid to work in wilderness. (In those days, state forests were also entrusted with the lands we now consider national parks).

Fuel reducing burns probably cannot slow fire-fronts under catastrophic condition. Mere thought-experiment suggests this to me. Mere thought-experiment also suggests to me that reduced fuel, regardless of how the fire-front gets there, might result in a fire that burns at 1000 degrees for less time. Soil and wood both being excellent insulators, perhaps this would be a benefit both to humans and to flora and fauna. One of the most depressing sights I know in a national park are those areas of the Kosciuszko National Park where fire has been so intense that even after 20 years, grasses were the only species to have re-colonised whole mountainsides. Presumable the fire was so fierce, and so prolonged, that no only living trees perished, but the soil was sterilised of all seeds.

By: Frank Campbell

Frank Campbell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:31:36 +0000

The ACF et al submission to the RC states the obvious: severe bushfire, let alone firestorm, makes so-called hazard reduction burns irrelevant. But so what? The political decisions have already been made, pre-empting the RC. Every contractor, logger and redneck (they aren’t one and the same) is salivating at the opportunity to re-impose their barbaric rule on the bush. In many areas of the state, even though these people are always a minority, they control by intimidation. They are pillars of the community, a smirking, cunning brotherhood of macho thuggery. Many are entrenched in low level positions in shires, DSE, DPI and the CFA. They have chafed against spreading bureaucratic influence from Melbourne for years. Now they see their chance. Already they are boasting of roadside poisoning, burning, tree removal, timber theft etc. It’s happening right now, informally, with the connivance of local government. Instead of standing firm, Brumby has capitulated to the Extractives.

This Wake In Fright culture has to be attacked head-on. No more wimpy-greeny waffle. It’s time to kick the shit out of them, and the first step is to strip their camouflage.

By: Simon Birrell

Simon Birrell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:41:09 +0000

Since Black Saturday there have been some in the community that have wanted to claim that a lack of fuel reduction contributed to the loss of life on Black Saturday. They have finger pointed “greenies” and national parks as the reason for a lack of fuel reduction burning.

As this report points out, it was the weather and dry conditions that are the primary driver of killer inferno fires.

Sadly, despite this excellent report written by Chris Taylor for the ACF and VNPA, some in the community will continue to engage in fire scaremongering and finger pointing for political gain.

By: John Bennetts

John Bennetts — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:55:12 +0000

Lindsay and Tom, you are right on the button. HR burns do not remove and cannot remove the type of fuels which are present in the crowns of regrowth forests and which rersult in spotting behaviour several kilometers ahead of the front, followed by ember storms as the fire approaches closer still.

One thing which emerges from the positions adopted by those with personal interest in forests and fires is that the primary decisions re forest management, including preparation for fires, is that those with vested interests must be removed from the decision making.

In other words, foresters (public and private) and CFA types should be free to comment, to propose, to argue, but never to determine these matters. Independence is essential, as are also knowledge, research and so forth, but independence is primary.

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:06:25 +0000

Dry schlerophyll regrowth in a landscape that used to be wet old growth 200 years ago.

Can’t be good. The loggers are determined to remove the very last evidence of this former landscape too, so the public will believe that 50 year rotations are normal forest.

Yesterday I saw an advert roadside for “Bushfire Bunkers”. It was coming in from Dural way, but by then it was in the main northern suburbs of Sydney, possibly Comenara Park way. I looked ahead on the road from the crest of the rise at the fringe of bush ahead deep into Sydney suburbia and thought - yep, wrong conditions and only a bunker would save you.

Couldn’t happen? Canberra.