Jennifer Marohasy

IN January 2013, from the comfort of their lounge rooms, many Australians watched the forests of the Pilliga burn. The word Pilliga wasn’t mentioned in the sensational reportage as such. The stories were primarily about the devastation and drama of Australian bushfires. Mention was made of the town of Coonabarabran and of the Warrumbungles National [...]

“IT is too late to leave, you need to take shelter in your home and actively defend it.” That’s part of a government warning issued today to residents in the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River in south western Western Australia. Twenty homes have already been lost. Roger Underwood, Chairman of The Bushfire Inc, an organization devoted [...]

IT is generally agreed that the worst dust storms since European settlement were during the 1944-1945 period.   In his book Out of the West: A Historical Perspective of the Western Division of NSW, former Western Lands Commissioner, Dick Condon, says there were 34 severe dust storms at Wagga Wagga during the period 1944-45, many so [...]

“I moved from San Francisco to the LA area about a month ago so am experiencing the fires from a little closer vicinity. The local news told us that the areas on fire last burnt about 1929! The brush is 20ft high in many places! After a week of burning they finally pulled in the [...]

Los Angeles: The so-called Station Fire more than doubled in size as it burned out of control for a sixth day, charring 105,000 acres (42,500 hectares), up from 42,000 acres (17,000 hectares) late on Sunday, and sending up towering plumes of smoke that fouled the air for miles (km) around.  Read more here.

A PERSISTENT complaint from victims of the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria was that they had “received no warning”. Over and again we heard statements like this: “There was no fire anywhere, but the next thing, we had fire all around us. There was no word of warning, and we never stood a chance”. This [...]

 THE Tiwi Islands (Bathurst and Melville) are off the north coast of Australia. They are mostly covered with grassy savanna, much like that in parts of southern Africa. In Africa, this savanna is the result of thousands of years of burning by humans. If burning is interrupted, then woody shrubs thrive, and the savanna turns [...]

IN 1994, Ray Evans bought a cottage at Marysville (Victoria, Australia) which he and his wife subsequently renovated and extended.   The cottage and its extensive garden were destroyed by fire on the night of Saturday February 7 – now known as Black Saturday.    In the following provocative and political article Mr Evans blames the fire “on green [...]

Greetings Everyone, Below is the details and terms of reference for a Senate inquiry into Bushfires in Australia. This should compliment the gaps that will likely be left in the Royal Commission for the chronic state of the environment due to political nest feathering for green preferances. This green lunicy of using the environment as [...]

HUNGARY has produced many outstanding mathematicians and physicists. Perhaps there is a connection with rampant violin playing. One of these was Paul Erdös who was the twentieth century’s most prolific mathematician, with 1475 papers to his credit. He rivals Leonhard Euler, the Swiss genius of the eighteenth century. There is a worthwhile biography of Erdös [...]