Bushfires 2019/2020!

[tgh]

OF course burning vast tranches of the bush under control is all about trying to make the whole countryside safer for ( relatively sparse) human habitation.

No humans = no need for burning,

Is anyone suggesting we should hazard burn the whole country ?

Why not limit small bush populations to more manageable population centres and control burn there.

Seems a fair question to me

 

[Pushka]

Not so.Look at the graph the fall off was from 1980 in HRBs.
In NSW the target of HZBs is ridiculously low-less than 2% of National Parks area.So 50 years of fuel build up.
And real; life in East Gippsland in 2018-
View attachment 202042.

That used to be up on the ABC website until a week or so ago.And these are the people who should have a long look at themselves.
View attachment 202043.

View attachment 202044.

View attachment 202045.

My Brother was talking about this yesterday, particularly the ABC reporting of it initially, then as you say they took it down. When people asked ABC what they thought about that issue recently they said they were simply focussed on the current issue and getting people to safety (as if they have any role in that!) and then someone pointed out they did have time to take that picture down when it became an inconvenient truth.

In SA we do have controlled burn off which maybe has been why we really haven’t had a major fire since the ‘80s, but an issue here as I’m sure elsewhere, is where people are living now. The current generation has no memory of the fires of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Each year we have an out of control bushfire on KI because it is rugged and wild bush land and it’s usually lightening that sets it off. These days these are reported whereas before we knew they happened and eventually burnt out but it didn’t seem to get much traction in the media. Now of course, it is almost another trophy to add to the bushfire story. Which of course takes away from the tragedy of the other fires where livestock and people are harmed.

 

[RooFlyer]

Situation in Tas the same-same, except we have had Greens in govt, so you can imagine what that did for hazard reduction burns. About 1/3 of Tas is locked up as wilderness (National Park). It gets 'dry lightning' strikes every year that start fires, inaccessible from the ground, so takes a lot of air-borne resources to put out. Why, I don't know. Dry lightning didn't begin yesterday. Last year there was an extensive fire in the south-west and Greens actually demanded that resources be devoted to it rather than fires in populated areas.

Fern Tree, a suburb of Hobart on the slopes of Mt Wellington was utterly devastated by the 1967 bush fires, because it is built within the eucalyptus forest. Today, exact same situation. If a fire gets there, it will be carnage again. See ABC retrospective pics here:

Loss and lessons from Tasmania's Black Tuesday bushfires

Tasmania's 1967 Black Tuesday bushfires claimed the lives of 64 people. Half a century later, what have we learned from that tragic day?

www.abc.net.au

Under the 'What has changed' section, does anyone recognise what's missing?

The eucalypt forest grows to within 2km of downtown Hobart. The 1967 fires also burned down the Cascade Brewery, and got into South Hobart - see map and ABC story.

 

[cove]

No one likes the smoke from prescribed burn offs but in WA we remember losing most of Dwellingup in 1961 if we were old enough at the time. Having eucalyptus canopies hanging over homes is just too dangerous and it will take insurance companies to create changes by raising premiums.
Stay safe everyone and know we are thinking about how we can help.

 

[amaroo]

QLD gov and its water authorities just lost a class action due to their mismanagement of water / dam levels.

One wonders if similar court action will be instigated against other states and authorities due to their total incompetence of land management.

Queensland flood victims win class action against state, Seqwater and Sunwater over dam negligence - ABC News

www.google.com.au

 

[Flying mermaid]

It's completely pragmatic. Roger and his group are all extremely experienced and rational people. And we've lived with aerial prescribed burning in WA since before the naysayers got activated. It's a part of life here.

Nothing is ecologically perfect, but cool burns that reduce the fuel load are arguably a better option than the sorts of conflagrations we're currently seeing with the associated deaths and immense property destruction.

But I think your hope is futile. The horse has long bolted on rational responses in the east.

I am not as pessimistic as you. This fire season has been so horrific that I think all options are going to be looked at. John Barilaro has been pushing for more prescribed burns, although his government had been responsible for cutting the rangers responsible by a third.

 

[I love to travel]

Maybe we need a Royal Commission into these bushfires. Recent ones have had some positive outcomes

 

[Flying mermaid]

Maybe we need a Royal Commission into these bushfires. Recent ones have had some positive outcomes

What we need is for people to start working together rationally. I am sick of both sides of the climate change argument - give them half a chance and they would be blowing each other up.

why can’t we agree on some middle ground and work to change that instead of this “I am so much more intelligent than you and I know I am right”

plastics are causing huge pollution of the ocean
Landfill is overflowing
Big cities are choking on emissions

is there anyone who disagrees with that and doesn’t think it would be a good thing to work to change?

 

[amaroo]

Lots of clips emerging of Scomo approaching people and they're refusing to shake his hand. One Firey refused, stood up and walked away.

It's human nature to show all sorts of emotion after an awful event.

No doubt sitting front and centre of mind is the "how am I going to get going again" question.

A quick scan on the net tells a horror of a story.....

# 50% of household don't have house insurance

# The 80% that do are underinsured

Reading articles like this would only add to the misery and emotion.

Under-insurance leaves householders exposed this bushfire season

Consumers are being left to guess how much their houses are worth, as insurers' calculators show wide-ranging estimates.

www.smh.com.au

 

[VPS]

I don't mean this to be inflammatory but I honestly can not believe the number of people that live in high risk areas that do not even have a simple bushfire plan and think it will happen to them. I had dinner last week with friends and one of their friends said What is this watch and act business - why don't they just put the fires out. FFS people just have no idea what it's like out there.

 

[drron]

Glad to see the conversation is at last heading in the right direction.
There is no need for another Royal Commission.The Senate had an inquiry into bushfires starting in 2009.They identified 18 previous Royal Commissions or major inquiries into severe bushfires that had occurred since 1939.

One of the recurring themes of those Inquiries was to increase the amount of Hazard reduction burns.Only WA took serious note of the findings.

One of the other factors it recommended was to look into the causes of arson and consider a 2 yearly COAG meeting on arson plus considering a public list of convicted arsonists.

As to the window for HRBs narrowing it has never been a constant window as it always changes due to the weather.For example the Mountain Ash forests of Victoria are hard to manage as the fuel is too high in moisture for a burn to be successful in winter or spring.The inquiry was told that even then in some years there was no window for HRBs there.

2 states stood out in fighting fires.Tasmania because the Emergency services had a coordinated response plan for the State.Western Australia as they had just passed legislation for the Fire and Emergency Services Authority to be in complete charge of fire mitigation and control.So if a local council is against HRBs FESA can take over and conduct them.
Western Australia also has a ":red book"
3.165 Forest Fire Victoria Inc advocated the national use of a publication called Forest Fire Behaviour Tables for Western Australia, otherwise referred to as the 'red book'. They stated:

Until Australia adopts the red book as the way to go about your prescribed burning, we will still be stuffing it up. We will still have fires that are too hot or fires that do not burn. The red book says how you should do it. What [author George Peet] said to me as we walked across the road at Manjimup was, ‘Look, all we’re doing is to gather this information because the people who know how to burn have made so many mistakes in learning how to burn that we can’t afford to make those mistakes anymore.’[158]

That's enough for now.

Chapter 1- Introduction

Chapter 1- Introduction Conduct of the inquiry 1.1 On 12 May 2009 the Senate referred the following matter to the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Related Industries for report by 26 November 2009. 1.2 &nbsp

www.aph.gov.au

 

[drron]

Another suggestion in the above report was to consider making some fire prone areas free from any construction.They gave the example of Warrimoo in the Blue Mountains where some homes had burnt down 5 times between 1957 and 2010.
We do make such restrictions for flood prone lands.

 

[get me outta here]

We found that in the 2003 fires. And the insurance companies urge people to get their claims in asap. Then people rush their claims and leave things off.

It's human nature to show all sorts of emotion after an awful event.

No doubt sitting front and centre of mind is the "how am I going to get going again" question.

A quick scan on the net tells a horror of a story.....

# 50% of household don't have house insurance

# The 80% that do are underinsured

Reading articles like this would only add to the misery and emotion.

Under-insurance leaves householders exposed this bushfire season

Consumers are being left to guess how much their houses are worth, as insurers' calculators show wide-ranging estimates.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Cossie]

I am not as pessimistic as you. This fire season has been so horrific that I think all options are going to be looked at. John Barilaro has been pushing for more prescribed burns, although his government had been responsible for cutting the rangers responsible by a third.

I agree with you, it's ironic that the government wants to cut budgets everywhere, yet expect everything to run along as normal.
Sure back burning is good, but who is going to pay for it? Most people want tax cuts, but expect first rate hospitals, schools and infrastructure, so how is all this going to be funded?Joe public doesn't want to pay for it, so who is going to?

With interest rates at such lows, surely this would be a good time for the government borrowing money and investing in decent rail networks and the like. It seems to me that if that tragic accident hadn't happened in 1989, the coast road between Sydney and Brisbane would still be as it was back then.

There were perfectly adequate stadiums in Sydney, did anyone really think there wouldn't be cost blowouts? 100 million already that should have gone to better causes, imo. Even "news" is reporting it, so it must be true, (t. i. c.)

Sydney stadium project blows out by $100m

The cost of the new Sydney Football Stadium – currently just a massive hole in the ground – will be at least $99 million higher than originally planned, the NSW Government has admitted.

www.news.com.au

Imagine how many trucks could be taken off the roads if there was a decent rail network between Melbourne and Sydney, it's not rocket science, but hey I've got a family trust and a really good accountant, I don't want to pay for it, as an extreme view.

We are just so shortsighted.

Had dinner with some friends last night, they have a house down at Malua Bay and they already know of two sets of friends that have lost everything.

There was a good article in the SMF the other day stating why the writer wouldn't be donating to the RFS. I'm in agreement, the RFS shouldn't have to go cap in hand asking the general public for donations, stuff like this should be totally funded by our tax base.

Why I didn't donate to the Rural Fire Service this time around

Where do you draw the line between what the government should cover and what can be left to the generosity – or otherwise – of private citizens?

www.smh.com.au

Anyway, I'm off to watch the cricket. Meanwhile normal service has been resumed, Burns is out.

 

[tgh]

GST of 15% with a conservative government would permit a lot of infrastructure spend as well more wildlife habitat "maintenance' to make it safer for humans ( The koalas , the roos, the wombats, the echidna's et all can all please themselves… )

 

[amaroo]

GST of 15% with a conservative government would permit a lot of infrastructure spend as well more wildlife habitat "maintenance' to make it safer for humans ( The koalas , the roos, the wombats, the echidna's et all can all please themselves… )

Also eliminating most, if not all GST exempt items .... GST-free-sales

 

[Denali]

GST of 15% with a conservative government would permit a lot of infrastructure spend as well more wildlife habitat "maintenance' to make it safer for humans ( The koalas , the roos, the wombats, the echidna's et all can all please themselves… )

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaahah. Excuse me while I go visit our new airport at Badgerys Creek... that theyve been talking about since I was a kid in school so approx 40yrs ago. Oh, and that fast Syd-Melb rail. (Sorry, not attacking you just made me laugh thinking about more $ for govt pensions)

I think its safe to say no matter which govt or how much any govt rakes in by way of taxes, theyll cough it up.

 

[RooFlyer]

Also eliminating most, if not all GST exempt items .... GST-free-sales

Speaking of the GST, I was meaning to raise a thread or a post about how little it ends up being.

For my grocery store shopping, the total GST I’ve noticed is rarely more than 1%, often about 0.5%. And I’m definitely buying more than rabbit food!

 

[Hvr]

GST of 15% with a conservative government would permit a lot of infrastructure spend

We do have a humour thread.

The only infrastructure right wing governments build is for themselves such as private schools etc. If they increased GST they would give themselves a personal income tax cut.

 

[Flying mermaid]

There was a good article in the SMF the other day stating why the writer wouldn't be donating to the RFS. I'm in agreement, the RFS shouldn't have to go cap in hand asking the general public for donations, stuff like this should be totally funded by our tax base.

While I don’t disagree with the thesis, they need money now, so I donated to the RFS yesterday.

edit : Ms FM tells me that scammers are phoning up asking for RFS donations so if anyone does want to donate go their site and do it. Such lowlifes around