Leonard Colquhoun
LOTS of people from far and near have something to say about our recent bushfire tragedies.
From afar, and in her usual robust style, ex-pat feminist and controversialist GERMAINE GREER recalled holidaying when she was younger in the now devastated Victorian town of Marysville, saying that fire was part of the Australian bush life cycle and the more fuel, the greater the risk of a blaze.
Greer added that authorities should learn from how Aborigines used fire hundreds of years ago to remove the build-up of undergrowth and dead branches from bushland areas, and that Australians were paying the price for repeatedly ignoring the lessons of past bushfires – the need for burn-offs in cooler months to lessen the risk of blazes in the summer. In this claim, she is supported by how the early settlers described the bush as being “park-like”, with open grassed areas rather than undergrowth and debris.
~ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25048576-2702,00.html
Independent-minded historian GEOFFREY BLAINEY looked back at the history of fire in our nation since the start of white settlement, pointing out that there has been no bushfire as spectacular as February 1851 – on the very eve of the first gold rushes, people at the time calling it “Black Thursday”, with half of Victoria seeming to be on fire.
“A wild northerly was blowing, and it drove such a column of black smoke right across Bass Strait that one town near Devonport was so darkened in mid-afternoon that people actually thought the end of the world had come.”
Blainey puts recent fires into a historical context: the period after World War I was especially dry in Victoria, with five devastating years 1919, 1926, 1932, 1939 and 1944.
~ http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25025375-5000117,00.html
Noted demographer BERNARD SALT calls our attention to that other “Seachange”, that Victoria has more people in more tree-change communities which are growing more rapidly than anywhere else in Australia. Between 2001 and 2006, there developed 17 new towns in Victoria’s prime tree-change zone, and if anyone wonders why is this such an issue for Melbourne, the answer is evident from the appalling loss of life on Saturday7 February. Salt explains the (almost) unique combination of geography, demography and weather patterns which make large areas of the southern end of the Great Dividing Range so dangerous:
~ http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25031319-5000117,00.html
PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS are what matter when serious fire warnings are announced – this is not the time to be proselytising about, being skeptical over or in denial of global warming or climate change, or whatever. It is not even the time to debate the “Stay and fight (if prepared), or go, and go early” advice.
When bushfire threatens, there are three options: evacuate well in advance of the fire front; prepare self and property, and stay; or wait until the fire front arrives and leave at the last moment, and the historical evidence has shown that the last is the most dangerous option
“Going early or staying” must be decided at the start of a fire season. “Staying” includes people preparing themselves and their property beforehand, and defending it as the fire front passes. “Going” means leaving the area well before the fire front arrives, not when a fire is approaching.
Forced evacuations create two major hazards, according to those experienced in fire-fighting: (i) a build-up of vehicles in nearby roads, and (ii) police and fireys getting caught up in putting ‘forced’ into practice, when they can be more usefully deployed elsewhere. It is case of treating people as adults. Moreover, in Australia we do not have the equivalent of the US National Guard, which often carries out these sorts of orders.
“Go early or stay”, to put it in its shortened form, is strongly supported by long-term evidence, although it is appropriate that the policy be reviewed again in the light of new events and experiences.
~ http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/history-backs-stay-or-go-early-policy-20090212-85xt.html?page=-1
The PERENNIAL BALANCE between individual rights and community standards is, perhaps, nowhere more evident in that old saying about an Englishman’s home being his castle, and his, and our, right to build it more or less where and how we want. How much of a right do people have to build, and often very unsuitably, in fire-prone regions?
One report claims that a combination of increased fire risk and higher population density on the periphery of many urban areas (the peri-urban zone) is leading to situations far more dangerous than ever before.
Complacency, the short electoral cycle, out-sourcing of government decision-making, and ignorance about, and / or ignoring of history, all lead to governments being in denial about these developments.
“The most important task for the Government is to buy out people from fire-prone areas that cannot be defended and prevent further people from moving into those areas. Bushfires will always be with us. But we can dramatically reduce the number of fatalities by not allowing people to build their homes in harm’s way.”
~ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25037350-5015664,00.html
Another INDIVIDUAL V SOCIETY situation occurs when local authorities pass planning laws and building regulations which seem at odds with common sense, and there have been many media reports of people’s anger and outrage at what their local councils foisted on them; particularly galling were orders prohibiting the removal of trees near houses, and against clearing forest debris, giving an impression that cute little furry animals were ranked higher by those in safe and cosy council chambers than the lives of their local rate-payers. Moreover, it is not difficult for dedicated single-issue fanatics to gain control over such bodies. There have even been cases where home-owners have been prosecuted for refusing to plant eucalyptus trees, the most combustible trees on the planet, abutting their homes. (interesting that the only trees to survive in large numbers were European exotics.)
Nilumbik council, NE of Melbourne, is one such LGA in/famous for the sorts of bans which can make a difference to being safe or being burnt. “We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down,” Warwick Spooner told Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen at a meeting on Tuesday night (10 February).
Here, from Reedy Creek, in Mitchell Shire, due N of Melbourne (If you’ve driven up the Hume Fwy to Albury and beyond, you’ve passed through this area), is one such story –
~ http://www.theage.com.au/national/fined-for-illegal-clearing-family-now-feel-vindicated-20090211-84sw.html?page=-1
Veteran Canberra watcher and commentator LAURIE OAKES reckons he’s seen it all and read it all several times over, pointing out that CoAG’s (Council of Australian Governments) 1983 survey of previous bushfire inquiries noted “consistent themes in the recommendations” in all the previous reports.
Oakes reckons there’s a very good reason for those “consistent themes”: each report makes the same recommendations, and each political response, aided by community complacency, is the same: a bit of spin, some photos or TV footage of new equipment plus political heavyweight, and then? Nothing. Apart from Elvis the highly photogenic skycrane, that is.
~ http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25050959-5000117,00.html
Last year, the WILDERNESS SOCIETY published a six-point action plan to “reduce bushfire risks and help to protect people, property, wildlife and their habitat:
* Improve aerial fire detection.
* Ramp-up hi-tech suppression forces, including more Helitak copters.
* Do more research into fire behaviour and the impacts of fire on wildlife.
* Around towns and urban areas, carry out fuel reduction burning and have fire breaks.
* Give priority to wildlife and its habitat in remote areas and national parks.
*Make forests resistant to mega-fires by protecting them from woodchipping and logging”.
This plan was assessed by several people experienced in fire management and control:
~ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25041834-5013480,00.html
Could it be that by creating the conditions of GREATER FUEL LOADS, reduced access and anti-management laws, environmental campaigners, and their political allies, have actually made things worse for Gaia and her animal and plant species? As is obvious, fires need oxygen, fuel and ignition: sometimes we supply the spark, but ought we not reduce the fuel?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25047322-5018722,00.html
As in road crashes, so in fires, the deaths, deservedly, catch the headlines, but the survivors, undeservedly, don’t. Those who know people severely and permanently injured by their own, or others’, careless or reckless driving, appreciate much more the need to drive safely.
Perhaps, this story of how Melbourne’s ALFRED HOSPITAL organised itself, together with fellow major hospitals, and triaged the influx of burns victims is instructive in what a huge commitment this kind of major tragedy entails:
~ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25046259-23289,00.html
Note what is probably a new word to most of us: debridement –
(medicine) the removal of dead, damaged, or infected tissue to improve the healing potential of the remaining healthy tissue. Often this removal is surgical, but other methods include: mechanical, chemical, autolytic, and even maggot therapy. (from Wiktionary)
Finally, this LETTER, in the Weekend Australian of 14-15 February 2009, is a reminder of how the media needs to keep a sense of perspective and proportion in handling these kinds of stories
“I WRITE on behalf of two young people whose parents died in the Kinglake bushfire on Saturday. The deceased were referred to by name in your article (‘Flames leave only trauma and torment in their path’, 11/2) which has added to the family’s trauma.
First, it purports to identify their parents by name, when the identification of the persons referred to was still to be established by the police. The identification was therefore speculative.
Second, it gives a grisly description of the location of the remains. No such description or equivalent information had been given by the authorities to the family of the couple you identify. I confirmed this with the investigating police. In fact, the police later told the family the description was inaccurate.
Third, it quotes a neighbour as saying that the people you name died because they were not prepared. This is wrong on the facts. The people named had a substantial fire-fighting system, installed with the assistance of a CFA officer who is also a family member. The people named had a well-rehearsed fire plan and made a deliberate decision to stay.
These are disgraceful lapses of professional standards and of professional ethics. Uncorroborated speculation is presented as fact. Voyeuristic detail, also speculative as to the persons named, is given without any conceivable public-interest justification. Ill-informed and hurtful opinion is presented without regard for the feelings of those bereaved.
Denis Muller
Melbourne, Vic
PS: Christopher Darwin, great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, and who has lived in our Blue Mountains since 1986, reckons that his famous ancestor’s “response to the new bushfire phenomenon would be to lay out all the available knowledge and then gradually advance to a theory by logical steps. Jumping to conclusions is contrary to the nature of intellectual enterprise” (‘An evolutionary line of inspired amateurs’, The Age, Sat 14 Feb 09).
Leonard Colquhoun 7248
For www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz
February 2009
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And, typingisnotactivism: Germaine gets it wrong
