Peter's BlogVictoria fires demonstrate lack of a national policyDate added: 19/05/2009 08:40 In February 2009 Australia passed another milestone in its long and burning romance with the Australian bush. Within the space of a few days bushfires on a titanic scale emerged from fuel rich forests and engulfed dozens of tiny communities, wiping some of them from the face of the Earth. The terror of facing such unstoppable fires and having little option but to stay or die is hard if not impossible to comprehend. Perhaps this reality can be engraved into our understanding by the deaths of two teenage brothers at Marysville, who died in each others arms in a spa bath and were found the next day horribly burned. Their tragedy is the tragedy of the Australian character, a flaw in the robust and dauntless nature of the bush men and women who carved this brown farming landscape out of a natural wonderland – which had hardly anything in common with their European homelands.
A refusal to acknowledge that difference has cost the nation a tragic price. Until February 11 2009, this obstinate denial played a part in the deaths of 642 Australians in bush fires. Now, in a week, 173 more names were etched into this Memorial of Ashes, an honour board of the men and women cut down and killed in bushfires.
But whose failure is it when families choose to stand and defend their property in the face of such overwhelming ferocity? Is it simply accidental that the familiar Australian landscape becomes so murderous through the hottest days of summer? What of the network of government agencies who have seen firestorms sweeping into townships for the best part of two centuries? Where is a national policy? What structures are in place to prepare and protect for the next summer onslaught?
Australia does not learn from these agonising lessons year after year and which are so much a part of Australia’s national legacy. Does the fault lie with arsonists; should we blame lightning strikes in high summer; is it because of power lines snaking through the landscape? I don’t think so.
The truth is that unburned woodlands in most parts of Australia are left untended to gather fallen tree litter for year after year. Within a given period of time – around 20 years – it is entirely predictable these areas will all become high risk fire zones and all that is needed is the right extreme weather conditions and a spark. It is irrelevant how this happens or where the spark comes from. Thus, some of the most appalling bushfires on record will happen again on a 20 to 25 year cycle unless some action is taken to prevent them.
The aftermath of bushfires follow a familiar pattern. Communities and volunteer fire-fighters are praised for their efforts. Communities are portrayed in the media rising from the ashes and then, before too long, they are left forgotten to tend to their upturned lives and to come to terms with their losses. Governments of all persuasions fulminate about seeking answers from appointed commissions of inquiry or from coroner’s courts, and they promise that it will never happen again. But this mood soon passes and all too soon the efforts of governments and their officials go into a cover-up mode to avoid the implications of reparations through the courts or from large insurance claims. Efforts go into misleading communities into believing that everything possible was done and that nothing could have withstood such natural disasters.
Yet analysis of conditions in most firegrounds reveals dangerous pre-existing fire conditions that have been ignored and philosophies of land use decided by conservation minded land managers that left these communities in the path of danger. Most bush fire organisations in Australia have been bureaucratised and in most cases government appointees make all the decisions. Experienced forestry workforces have been sacked in all states and territories, with the exception of Western Australia, and their positions replaced during fire seasons by raw volunteers, who operate as mobile task forces and can only operate from roads. Forestry equipment has been sold off and in the name of conservation state forests and national parks are allowed to propagate and grow into potentially disastrous fire zones.
At the centre of this debate about land management is whether forested bushlands should be managed by controlled or prescribed burning, or whether they should be preserved in their natural state to grow and to build up tree litter for decades. Beyond all of that, is the question of when we will ever learn. Or will Australia continue to rewrite its history From the Ashes. CommentsAdd a new comment |
