“Part of bushfire fighting culture is that you control lightning strikes by 10 o’clock the next morning or you are in trouble. We have done that over the years and we have done it successfully. We had not lost them before. But nobody seemed to want to put these out. I do not know why. I keep asking myself why, in the middle of January, in the middle of a drought and with the highest fuel loads ever, nobody seemed to want to put those fires out. It is just sickening.”
Val Jeffrey was referring to the January 2003 fires that went on to burn 3 million hectares of south eastern Australia including much of Kosciousko National Park.
According to two new blog posts at HenryThornton.com,
“This summers’ fire season is not yet over but we hope not to see a major fire in the [Victorian] Otways.
The Victorian Government must urgently learn the lessons from 2003 that have not been learnt in the Grampians and Brisbane Ranges, and must apply improved practices to the management of the Otways and other parks in Victoria.”
Read more,
http://www.henrythornton.com/article.asp?article_id=3893
and
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“Parks officials have stood in the way of volunteer efforts to put out the fires through a misguided sense of environmental protection. As Robert Cooke has put it, the protection of parks has been taken over by ‘tree-huggers’, and there is a need for a return to practical policies of forest management.”
The law states that fire officers must adhere to Park protocol and heed Park officers. In my (limited) experience National parks have no real experience with fire management and the organisation has no structure for fire control. No-one is ultimately responsible and come a situation people just stand there and look at each other. There appears to be no political need to change this situation.
If park officaldom both stands in the way of firefighting and is also ovetaken by tree-huggers, why do we not feel the relief?
Rog? Declare yourself. Submit a ‘people’ post and I promise to be kind to your attire.
On over zealous fire suppression, Richard Minnich of California has some good mosaic maps. Search on (minnich+chou).
Neil, I was quoting from http://www.henrythornton.com/article.asp?article_id=3893
I have had exactly the same experience myself.
“..In a similar vein, Durdidwarrah farmer, Daryl Ferry, who is a neighbour to the Brisbane Ranges National Park near Anakie, told how having poorly managed the park, allowed fuel loads to increase and access tracks to be closed, the DSE wanted to fight the fire on private land instead of attacking the fire in the park. Mr Ferry ultimately had to take bulldozers into the park, outside the direction from officials, to construct a western fire break, to protect his own farm and his farming neighbours.
And CFA volunteer and Meredith farmer, Robert Cooke reported on the efforts of volunteers using clapped out old trucks for private units in successfully fighting off the fire, protecting the town of Anakie, while the ‘Department of Scorched Earth’ as he put it proved ineffective in combating the blaze.
The public land managers have failed to reduce the extreme fuel loads that turn small fires into uncontrollable hot blazes.
Parks officials have stood in the way of volunteer efforts to put out the fires through a misguided sense of environmental protection. As Robert Cooke has put it, the protection of parks has been taken over by ‘tree-huggers’, and there is a need for a return to practical policies of forest management.”
The following comment from Ian Mott was denied for ‘questionable content’, posting now for Ian:
“The article can be accessed :
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060227-093414-4600r.htm
You may be interested in this perspective from the USA courtesy of Ralph
Baraclough, Vic.
Forest restoration realities – Washington Times
By Thomas M. Bonnicksen
February 28, 2006
When a bipartisan group of nearly 100 congressmen proposed accelerated
restoration of forests after catastrophic wildfire, the idea drew widespread
support from those interested in giving future generations forests to enjoy.
The proposal would do two important things: quicken removal of dead trees
that otherwise would provide fuel for future wildfires and accelerate the
planting of new trees to restore forests that burned.
Those supporting the proposal include Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth,
Jim Brown, who served as the top forestry official to four Oregon governors,
the Society of American Foresters, the National Association of State
Foresters, and the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
With 32 million acres of national forest burned between 2000 and 2004, the
need for restoration is clear.
However, what is happening — or not happening — in federal forests in
California provides a glimpse of the challenge of forest restoration. There,
the Forest Service has only replanted 3.8 percent of forests burned in 2001.
Most remaining burned forest is converting to brush that will dominate the
landscape for centuries. Unfortunately, excessive regulation, unnecessary
appeals, and lawsuits prevent the Forest Service from keeping burned forests
from becoming brush fields.
As one who has studied our forests for nearly 40 years, I think one of the
most important parts of this proposed legislation is to use science to make
decisions.
Extremists are using hyperbole, unsubstantiated claims, and convenient myths
to oppose the legislation. In particular, they cite myths about the
Yellowstone fires of 1988 to argue we should not restore burned forests.
As Congress considers this new legislation, it is imperative the facts are
known and extremists don’t rewrite history. In 1988, U.S. Senate and U.S.
House of Representatives committees sent me to Yellowstone to investigate
the fires.
Wildfires burned 1.3 million acres of forest within and around Yellowstone
National Park. These fires blackened 41 percent of the park. Now, because
lodgepole pine is growing back over much of the burned area, many people
claim the fires were natural and all burned forests will recover in the same
way. They proclaim this as the “rebirth” of Yellowstone, as if it is a
miracle, even though it is common knowledge lodgepole pine regenerates after
fire more quickly than most trees.
The wildfires that swept through Yellowstone and surrounding forests in the
summer of 1988 were not natural. Those fires were due to nearly a century of
fire suppression that created a ready-to-burn forest that nature would have
never allowed.
Scientific study shows that in 1735, only 30.4 percent of the forest
consisted of scattered patches of decadent old growth ready to burn. By
1886, Native Americans had been removed from the park, so the fires they set
for centuries stopped. Then the Park Service put out all lightening fires,
which allowed flammable old growth to increase. By 1985, it covered 64.9
percent of the park as one continuous blanket of fuel.
The Park Service knew this, but it adopted a “let burn” policy in 1972
anyway, even during a drought with winds of 70 miles per hour. That led to
the huge fires of 1988. No fire anytime else ever burned such a large area
of Yellowstone.
Thus, the Yellowstone wildfires were caused by a combination of decades of
neglect and incredibly poor judgment. It was not a natural event; the forest
coming back is not natural either.
Now, we see a forest dominated by young lodgepole pines intermixed with dead
trees. They will grow older and thicker as a unit, becoming a vast unbroken,
highly flammable mass. This will create a new cycle of massive and unnatural
wildfires.
It is vitally important policymakers understand our response to unnatural,
catastrophic fires cannot be to “let nature take its course.” We caused
today’s monster wildfires, not nature.
Blackened forests and brush fields across the West remind us of our loss
from recent wildfires. This may be our last chance to prevent the next
firestorm and restore our forest heritage.
Thomas M. Bonnicksen is a historian of North American forests and the
originator of the concept of “restoration forestry.” He is professor
emeritus of forest science at Texas A&M University, visiting professor at
the University of California-Davis, visiting scholar at fhe Forest
Foundation and the author of “America’s Ancient Forests” (John Wiley, 2000).
Ian Mott”
Interesting article here:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060227-093414-4600r.htm
from the Washington Times
Most people in Australia and all National Parks authorities tell us constantly that the Australian bush is unique in the world and benefits from being destroyed by fire. They all tell us that Australian plants and animals are fire adapted.
There are no plants or animals in Australia that have in any way adapted to fire. We are fortunate in having a range of plants that can survive some burning, nothing eventually survives continual burning.
Top soil is destroyed by continual burning meaning a very poor quality of regrowth occurs after every fire, this progressively gets worse as more is lost each time we burn.
Hazard reduction burns sound wonderful. if you have a hazard its a good idea to get rid of it. And after all fire is and always has been a natural part of the Australian bush! Every one knows that, if you do not you are out of step and a fool.
All topsoil is made from dead plant material ( hazards ) that is slowly broken down to form new soil. If you continually destroy this dead plant material, guess what happens!
I suggest all National Parks authorities do a bit more careful research into these “facts that everyone knows”
Look at the definative research on this subject that proves the opposite to be the case. University Of Colorado At Boulder researchers have finally put all the nails in the coffin of this tragic and missguided approach.
However, as all these National Parks authorities have built up an Australian burning industry and they are all beaurocrats, I can guarentee that nothing will change. The truth will be found by then to be false for some reason or another and the burning industry will continue.
National Parks authorities in all states who deliberately burn the bush are;
1. The biggest single contributor to greenhouse gas emmissions in each state.
2. They kill, by burning to death more wild life that any other single entity in Australia
3. They alter the continents climate making it drier and hotter than it would be if they read and believed the research.
4. They are the biggest contributers to airborne pollution in Australia, Airborne pollution in this country kills far more people each year that road traffic accidents.
If you remember just a short while ago, in Western Australia the beaurocrats destroyed much of Western Australia by imposing the rule that all native vegetation must be cleared from all land that the government granted leases on.
This is exactly the same situation, until we stop burning the bush we will continue to cause massive long term damage to this continent.
I realise I am an idiot for even suggesting that the earth is in fact round and not flat.
Read the research, if you think its wrong, then prove it. In the meantime stop burning the bush.
What puts out a bushfire other than water?