"Ignore the CFA (County Fire Authorities) spin doctors. You are in deep shit." A senior police officer addressing a public meeting on the Gippsland fires a week earlier.
It seems someone or some people royally screwed up.
Frank Campbell former editor of Wildfire Magazine provides a good report. Read it here. Click here
3 comments:
I hope these people did not die in vain... that their deaths would prompt the authority to reevaluate their policies and the people to be better-prepared.
It happened before (in 1939) and it will happen again (sadly). People tend to forgot that nature can be cruel and that bushfires are a natural part of the Australian bush.
Hopefully it won't repeat with better fire management.
I don't think Nature is cruel. It is simply doing its work. :)
The dead twigs, leaves and trees became fuel for forest fires. On a hot and dry day when Nature sets a fire to that forest, these fuel gets burnt off to become fertiliser and also to allow some tree seeds to germinate (some tree seeds need freezing and thawing or fire to break off the seed coat before it can geminate. One such tree is acacia which is also an Australian plant). The entire process is managed by Nature but human beings interfere in that process by putting out those small fires. As a result over the years, the fuels built up, and when Nature continues to do its work, the fire became uncontrollable... there was simply too much fuel. The tricky bit to fire management is the balance with the biodiversity and make a judgement on which fires to put out (the ones going near houses for example). So can I say that we are victim of our own device? :)
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