Black Saturday: Blame the Usual Suspects

I was mortified by Premier Brumby's as he blamed "Global Warming" for the tragedy on Black Saturday, the greatest fire disaster in Victoria's history.

Over 180 people perished in the inferno. Families were caught in their homes, cars and were burnt alive. This I find truly horrifying.

I don't know how Brumby can put the blame on global warming when its common knowledge that

1. Southern Australia has suffered from bushfires for thousands of years before the supposed advent of Global Warming. There was a bushfire in the 19th century that burnt out over 30% of the State. 12 people died in that blaze.

2. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the typical Summer weather conditions - stretches of extreme heat, low humidity, low rainfall, high winds, and the flammable nature of the Australian bush - create a highly combustible environment.

The disaster on Saturday is now suspected to be man-made. No, not the arsonists - but the bureaucrats and idiotic politicians who adopted stupid pseudoscientific policies. David Packham, a veteran fire scientist, points out that perverse public policy was adopted to help win the green vote. Sensible and pragmatic fire reductions plans were eliminated despite the warnings from experienced rangers.

"The ...controllable factor in this deadly triangle is fuel: the dead leaves, pieces of bark and grass that become the gas that feeds the 50m high flames that roar through the bush with the sound of jet engines.

Fuels build up year after year at an approximate rate of one tonne a hectare a year, up to a maximum of about 30 tonnes a hectare. If the fuels exceed about eight tonnes a hectare, disastrous fires can and will occur. Every objective analysis of the dynamics of fuel and fire concludes that unless the fuels are maintained at near the levels that our indigenous stewards of the land achieved, then we will have unhealthy and unsafe forests that from time to time will generate disasters such as the one that erupted on saturday.

It has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation's capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed.

The decision to ignore the threat has been encouraged by some shocking pseudo-science from a few academics who use arguments that may have a place in political discourse but should have no place in managing our environment and protecting it and us from the bushfire threat.

The conclusion of these academics is that high intensity fires are good for the environment and that the resulting mudslides after rains are merely localised and serve to redistribute nutrients. The purpose of this failed policy is to secure uninformed city votes.

Read his criticisms here. Click here.

Stephen Pyne, author of a Fire History of Australia, points out that problem needs to be addressed in a logical manner and not left to amateurs like Council workers or ignorant politicians. A rigorous Back burning regime setup by trained scientists using well tested strategies - the plan to burn off forest tinder and refuse - needs to be implemented. But there's always some reason to put it off.. ie. like the Bunyip mating season.

Update:
A meeting by the Nillumbik council ended in uproar when the locals residents vented their anger at their stupid council for not allowing them to cut down trees or to clear forest debris.

One resident said, "We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down," he said.

"We wanted trees cut down on the side of the road … and you can't even cut the grass for God's sake."

Another resident complained that she had asked the council four times to tend to out-of-control growth on public land near her home, but her pleas had been ignored.