Parachutes & Prescribed Burning: A Note from David Ward
Posted by jennifer, January 22nd, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Bushfires
“It has come to my notice, through a regular contributor to this blog (Rog), that Professor Smith, of Cambridge University, has submitted a systematic review of parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge. He found that there was no experimental, evidence based support for their use (Smith & Pell, British Medical Journal 2003;327:1459-1461).
A letter by Professor Brendan Mackey of ANU (23 Dec 2006) to the Canberra Times, suggested that there is no experimental, evidence based support for the use of widespread prescribed burning to prevent large, dangerous bushfires. A similar opposition to widespread prescribed burning, citing support from ‘most authorities’, has been expressed by Professor Rob Whelan, of Woollongong University, in a letter to a well known journal (Nature416, 15: 2002). Both these letters were, of course, before the recent, and ongoing bushfires in south-eastern Australia.
Professor Smith, the author of the parachute review, proposed that those who demand rigorous evidence from randomised, controlled parachute experiments should themselves volunteer as a control group, without parachute treatment.
May I suggest that Professors Mackey and Whelan, and other academics opposed to widespread prescribed burning, should volunteer, as a control group, to sit in long unburnt bush, on a hot day, as a fire approaches. They should publish their observations (posthumously) in a refereed journal.
I, and others with real bushfire experience, will volunteer to sit in an adjacent large patch of bush recently treated by prescribed burning. I guarantee we will see more native plants and animals, both before and after the fire, than the professorial control group, and, unlike them, will be available for further experiments.
Dave Ward
aka Davey Gam Esq
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Previous posts by Davey include:
Fire, Folly and Dead Canaries, 20th June 2005
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000703.html
Species Vulnerable to Extinction, 12th March 2006
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001253.html
Noogars Knew Best, 17th June 2005
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000672.html
Oh so it’s not Google – maybe blame Microsoft?
FAir nuff – but on the official sites you get a wad of production stuff indicating foresters must still be doing a few things out there.
Ian I have heard so many Aila stories from high priestess of virtue to bride of satan – it’s enough to make your head spin. And she also seems to be in 3 places at the same time. Supernatural?
And I reckon your leadership has failed you – did we see extensive TV interviews, newspaper adverts, trucks and tractors jamming George St – no you all just rolled over on veg. Wot a crap response. You all just had a beer and a sook. And now you’re just whinging and abusing the few people in town like me who still listen to you.
But that’s a typical result from assisting industry advocates – they usually knife the scientists in the back at some point. Et tu lobbyists !
So if we give the forests back to the communities that looked after them – mmost pertinent for Australia Day – on invasion day that would be the Aboriginals would it not? And how did all these forests survive without European foresters until we all turned up on the boat anyway?
Jeez Ian you do seem to know a lot about the seedy side of the Internet too? (best to be quiet or you’ll have Pinki Pants dressing u down again).
:-)
OK so I went here
http://www.sd.qld.gov.au/dsdweb/v3/guis/templates/content/gui_cue_cntnhtml.cfm?id=5444
And yes you are right – but SD are a bunch of spivs and you must be the first person to ever use that site looking for anything serious on forestry.
Hi all. What fuel? I have tried looking for fuel in some old coastal strips down here but it rots so quickly. There is no solid timber. Can’t even get a fire to boil the billy from what is on the ground. Termites play a big role here, along with fungi and bacteria. If it was burnt this strip’s capacity to rot timber would be significantly reduced.
In coastal rainforests strips in northern NSW there is no fuel the litter life is so intense that even leaves remain in a light single layer and fallen timber becomes soil.
If all forests build up ‘hazardous’ fuel without fire, become and increasing hazard ,then why are there any patches of old forest left?
In East Gippsland, while developing a Community Fire Protocol to manage fuel reduction burning locals pointed out that rainforest gullies slowed fires – once – and it was a good idea not to burn them in fuel reduction burns.
I fought fires in several places and I am also interested in what does not burn – and when vegetation burns – how hot does it burn? Can it ignite dead wood or not? Wire grass, for instance, explodes – but you can run through it without getting burnt – an experiment forced on me by an overzealous mate during a back burn.
The frequency of both fuel reduction burning and fires has increased over the last twenty years in many site specific locations. There may be no relationship – but there might be. We need to have a look as individuals and not wait for ‘others’. In the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires at Mount Macedon bush that was frequently burnt burnt as well as the rest with a crown fire.
10 Days before a wet gully of ferns and old trees on the south side of the Mount Macedon ridgeline held up what started as a grass fire for two hours enabling the town to be saved. The grass fires took only minutes to race up the north face – I watched it and then drove through it to get to my place on the south side – saved on that day to be burnt 10 days later from the south where there were not wet gullies between the town and the fires.
My grandmother was saved by her father cutting and bleeding her hand when she was bitten by a snake. He didn’t actually do the right thing but she believed he did – was calm and survived.
It will take time for people to feel comfortable with letting the bush grow out in places where this works – and to see solid unrotted timber left from logging as the a major hazard compared rotting timber where the bush is older and rotten braches fall – but the change has to be non adversarial – a no fault change based on peoples personal observations at the pace of their change in belief.
I recommend every individual with an interest in fires taking a stove lighter (and some water) into the bush and light vegetation samples, just a few leaves, for 5 seconds and withdrawing the flame and see what goes out and what still burns as a good starting point.
If anyone had argued with the my great grandfather on the day he cut his daughters hand I likely would not be here to write this – so respect all those contrary to mine and I am prepared to be wrong – but first we need to have an objective look at what has happened with fuel reduction burns in the last twenty years and be site specific (which is almost impossible on a blog sadly).
Cheers Bob McDonald
Hi Bob,
I’ve just done an edit of the above comment and sent it to you by email with the suggestion I post it as a new thread. Please let me know what you think ASAP. Thanks,
Good one Jen!
I note your comments Bob, and will join the debate if Jen starts a new thread. I think this one has run its course, so I thank all those who contributed. It’s a pity JD called for evidence, then pulled the ripcord when things got mildly mathematical. Ian Motte and Stewie gave me the impression of people who have actually fought fires, and know the reality. The sort of people Bruce Esplin’s 2003 report recommended should be consulted, but apparently failed to consult. I think it’s fair to say, in view of this summer’s fires in Victoria, that the Esplin Report was ineffectual in reducing the size and ferocity of bushfires in that state. How much did it cost?
I am all for patchy, diverse burns, and moist and shady areas can create such a mosaic, provided surrounding fires are not too fierce, due to long fire exclusion. We should work with such natural self-organisation. It is cheaper, more effective, and more benign to native plants and animals. ‘Strategic prescribed burning’ is, I suspect, academic-political weasel words for broadscale, long term fire exclusion, with token burning. That has been tried on a large scale in Western Australia. It doesn’t work.
By the way, Bob, I don’t want to be pedantic, but doesn’t fairly recent research show that snake venom travels through the lymph, not the blood? I believe cutting is no longer recommended as a first aid treatment. Anybody medical like to comment?
Hi Davey,
I think that is part of what Bob was saying:
“He didn’t actually do the right thing but she believed he did – was calm and survived.”
The pressure bandage first aid works because, as you point out, our snake venom travels under the skin through the lymphatic system. The bandage slows its movement towards the heart. We were originally taught to cut and suck or wash the wound. Apart from causing more distress to the patient by weilding a knife and cutting, the wound should remain as is save for the bandage.
At the hospital the doctors will swab the area to try and collect any venom around the site, place it in a venom detection kit, and ID what group of snakes the bitter belongs to. They can then administer the appropriate antivenom.
Many snakes give dry bites, where no venom is injected, and I suspect that is what happened to Bob’s grandmother.
Thanks Libby,
In case anyone finds themself in Africa, the reommended cure for venom in the eye (spitting cobra) was milk. I’ve never had to try it, but as apprentice bwanas (1950s) we were assured, by an African instructor, that every African village has at least one nursing mother, who would be happy to oblige. I don’t know what the current implications might be with HIV.
What a great pick up line. Hey babe, a snake just spat in my eye, can I just avail myself of your… (slap).
Ian,
In those days (don’t know about now) bare boobs were African national dress, so aroused little interest in the male population. This despite the claim that absence makes the darks grow blonder. Concealment is the source of fascination. Our current young Aussie chicks might consider that in their fashion choices. Not that it has much to do with bushfires, except as protection from radiant heat (JD to note).
African culture is the new black.
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