Deer in the Headlights

[PaulP]

Perhaps fuel loads AND climate change were factors?

There's that and a few other factors as well IMO, some of which may be unfortunate coincidence, and others, like savage cuts to funding, which are completely within our control.  Hopefully this will be a massive wake up call.

[kruddler]

I'm confused.

All these people saying climate change has nothing to do with the fires.....are you saying there is no such thing as climate change?

Cimate change didn't start the fires, but it certainly helps create an environment which allows them to flourish.
As does minimising the preventative burning off measures required.
As does minimising the spending on being able to prevent and fight them.

[Lods]

Of course it's a multifactor issue.
Perhaps a Royal Commission isn't such a bad idea.
They usually result in recommendations that carry a bit of weight for change.

[PaulP]

Of course it's a multifactor issue.
Perhaps a Royal Commission isn't such a bad idea.
They usually result in recommendations that carry a bit of weight for change.

Agree Lods.

[Thryleon]

I suspect much of the vitriol aimed at Morrison is because he has been such a vocal climate change denier and has actively thwarted and prevented actions to increase fire fighting abilities. He's also the boss and represents a number of archaic ideologies.

A piece from this morning's The Age. Some good perspectives:

“…Associate Professor Philip Zylstra, from Wollongong University's Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Solutions, said fuel loads in forests, and state government management, were not responsible for the catastrophic fire season.

"I think that for the federal government to say there needs to be a focus on hazard-reduction burning at this stage appears to be passing the buck to the states," he said.

"The reality is we are at a peak of prescribed burning by state agencies. More has been done in the past decade than in many, many decades."

NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean said there were 960,000 hectares burnt for hazard reduction last year, while the previous highest yearly total since 2000 was 260,000.

Professor Zylstra said a vast increase to the current hazard reduction effort would blanket cities and towns with smoke over winter and create "huge risks" of accidental property damage and even death.

Philip Gibbons, an associate professor at the Fenner School for Environment and Society at the Australian National University, said recent fires in several regions across the country were not halted by cleared farm paddocks, which showed broadscale land clearing was not an effective management technique.

"Fires have burned through rural land which has a much lower fuel load than a hazard-burn area, but that didn't stop fires."
Professor Gibbons said studies showed hazard-reduction burns weren't effective at halting fires and policy that focused on them could push states to set minimum-hectare-burned targets.

Victoria's fire managers have already shifted from an annual hectare target, which was set after the Black Saturday royal commission, to a more strategic approach.

A 2010 study from Wollongong University, The Effect of Fuel Age on the Spread of Fire in Sclerophyll Forest in the Sydney Region, found there was only a 10 per cent chance a fire would be stopped by a hazard-reduction burn. It said road barriers were most effective at halting fires.

"This summer's fires have burnt though many areas that had hazard-reduction burning. They can help control fires in moderate weather conditions, but in severe conditions it might just help reduce the severity," he said.

Cleared buffer zones in the bush within 40 metres of houses reduced house losses by an average of 43 per cent on Black Saturday, Professor Gibbons' study found. But he said no one technique was a solution.

"If there was a silver bullet on bushfires we'd have found it by now, after the 51 inquiries since 1939."

Associate Professor Trent Penman, from the University of Melbourne bushfire behaviour and management group, said "broader thinking" was needed and "blindly putting money into prescribed burning won't stop the problem".

He said states hadn't "dropped the ball at all" on hazard-reduction burning, and they were "working harder and smarter than they have in the past", particularly since the royal commission into Black Saturday…”

Again, being a climate change denier has little to do with policy regarding fighting bushfires.

Lets let this sink in.  Scott Morrison has been prime minister of Australia since August of 2018.  What that suggests to me is that the issues we are seeing today, are the result as much of PREVIOUS government, as they are today.

We have not had stable leadership since John Howard (whom I was no real fan of by the way).  We (Australians) have pontificated about various different issues at state and federal level, and now we are reaping the benefit by having a real problem to worry about and are simply reaping what we sow.  How much did it cost us not to build a road?  Everyone along the way has this on their hands. 

[capcom]

Of course it's a multifactor issue.
Perhaps a Royal Commission isn't such a bad idea.
They usually result in recommendations that carry a bit of weight for change.

Trouble is they don't ... had one after black Saturday with recommendations to cut back undergrowth.

What happened?  Nothing

[madbluboy]

[madbluboy]

https://twitter.com/Lauratobin1/status/1...8567061506

[madbluboy]

Trouble is they don't ... had one after black Saturday with recommendations to cut back undergrowth.

What happened?  Nothing

Undergrowth deniers are worse than climate change deniers.

[PaulP]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...e-rainfall

What Kelly states may be correct, but his focus solely on rainfall in that tweet is both disturbing and a tell.  And the fact that Australia is spending big in the last 2 years is pleasing, but in no way compensates for head-in-the-sand policies and for doing stuff all before those 2 years.