The Burning of Tasmania

Garry Stannus

Mercury: Forestry smoke protest flares up. June 05, 2008 03:30pm: Yesterday (Thur 5 June 08) the Mercury online carried this virtually as-it-happened story about a man who released a flare in the office building on the corner of Paterson and St Johns Sts. The man wa protesting the smoke that I guess is now part of Life in Launceston: Forstry smoke protest flares up

What the Mercury didn’t know was that some ‘old man’ had been walking through the CBD of Launceston, in protest against the incessant smoke that we have been enduring for the last four months. He was carrying sandwich boards, protesting the smoke. We’ve all been protesting the smoke. We’ve got nowhere.

There was a HUGE burn happening at the same time as the protest with the flare – while the flare smoke was understandably modest in size, and dissipated fairly quickly, the HUGE burn didn’t: it dwarfed Mt Arthur.

Look at the attached photos and you’ll understand that this is just the latest of what we’ve been putting up with, these last months.

That little mountain in the first pic, is Mt Arthur. See how it is dwarfed by the smoke cloud. Would you want to be downwind? These burns have been going to the north, south, east and west of Launceston. There is no escaping them.

That ‘old man’ with sandwich boards, had had enough.
The man with the flare, had had enough.
So have I, come to think of it.

NOW FOR THE SAD TRUTH:
During the night, the wind direction changed. By midnight there was a long tongue of this smoke cloud which slid into the city from the north/east. You could see it nestle into the Tamar estuary and work its way over the CBD, channelled by the West Launceston hills and the High St spur. It seemed to spill up over Prospect, the way other air pollution events do.

By two in the morning it had expanded; the fine finger of its smoke trail was now a generalised dirty smog. It had filled the whole of the town basin. Only some of the stronger town lights could be seen. From the High St hill, whole sections of the town could not be seen.

In the morning daylight, we woke to a fog which this moment of writing, I suspect, is masking the burn smoke that is above us.

Oh, by the way, that first photo, the Panorama of Mt Arthur, is taken from John Gay’s house, yesterday, Thursday 5th of June. I’m going out with the camera now to try and take a picture of smoked pea soup.