Bush Fires

[flyboy77]

So much for not burning off, the gift that keeps on giving!

Run off into creeks from the rain is already killing fish by the thousands according to reports coming from East Gippsland this morning.

I must admit I'm very sceptical about the previous conditions preventing burn-off, so is my brother who is CFA and lives near a state forest. He' told me they have been begging the DSE to let them do control burns for three years and they keep getting refused permission with claims it was too dry. But he said the peaks of some areas near him had snow on them, while other peaks had been cleared of all trees for, wait for it, wind turbines!

So we suspect the real reason for missing targets and resorting to "strategic burns" comes courtesy of some bean-counter somewhere who now has a fat bonus for cutting/saving million$ from the spend on forestry management!

I think the correct term to describe the situation is "Cluster of Fork", or something like that!

Bet article I've seen on topic.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-p...fuscation/

"It is very obvious who the people are who should be held accountable for the current mess.

At the top of the list are the premiers and ministers responsible for land management, such as it is, and bushfire policy, and the public servants in their departments with jurisdiction over forests and national parks. State governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have palpably failed to do the most important job they were elected to do: protect the lives and livelihoods of their citizens and the health of their environment. And their public servants have failed to do the job they are being paid to do: serve the public.

Under the Australian Constitution land management, and therefore bushfire management, is the responsibility of the states. It is state governments which decide how crown land will be managed, and how the protection of communities and their assets from bushfire damage will be organised.

Local government authorities are also high on the list of those accountable — and here again state governments bear responsibility, as they should never have allowed them to get away with the nonsenses we have seen coming out of town halls over recent years with respect to vegetation clearing and building approvals. Some premier or minister should have cracked down hard on this foolishness, and cracked down hard.

Of all the things that perplex me about the current mess the most significant is this: the blatant ignoring  by premiers, ministers  and agency bureaucrats of the warnings of bushfire scientists  that a disaster was imminent and, on top of that, their failure to study bushfire history.  Our climate, even the ‘pre-climate-change climate’,  our vegetation and the abundant sources of ignition mean that we are inherently a bushfire-prone country. And even on top of all that,  our governments and bureaucrats have been provided, over and over and over again, with evidence that killer bushfires will occur in Australia unless pre-emptive action is taken.  Not just here, but in California, Canada, Greece and Portugal — anywhere in the world with hot dry summers, periodic droughts and flammable vegetation."