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I believe they've been avoiding back burning and using fire as a method of helping the landscape simply because there have been too much attention paid to "weekend warriors" and "rabid greenies". (And I say that even though I consider myself to be both a weekend warrior and a bit of a greenie). It has become Government policy that people must "preserve" the environment as it is to such an extent that you can't even remove trees that have fallen over roads. You have to push them onto the nature strip beside the road. Over time that builds up and boy has it built up.
I was watching an expert on fire last night talking about how of the 20 recommendations of his bushfire prevention study presented to the Government only 7 were implemented and the other 13 where either outright ignored or acknowledged as valid but wouldn't be implemented. Fire is a natural part of our landscape here and HOPEFULLY we will see a return to sensible use of it to help manage the ecosystem as it should be. Most of our bush is gums and eucalyptus, narrow leaf, non deciduous trees as well as a lot of bushes and scrub.
I don't quite understand. "Rabib greenies" should be FOR prescribed-burns, if fire normally occurs there. A true greenie should be for native plant life and ANTI-non-native. (plants) Unless of course most of these "rabib greenies" no little to nothing about horticulture and are simply obsessed with the appearance of the bush... what I'd expect from a weekend warrior.
Something like that happened in Florida a few years back (on a much smaller scale, and no crazy wind speeds) possibly due to fire-prevention combined with drought, even though much of their forests are naturally fire-dependant.
(most of their pine forests and "savanna" ecosystems)
I don't quite understand. "Rabib greenies" should be FOR prescribed-burns, if fire normally occurs there. A true greenie should be for native plant life and ANTI-non-native. (plants) Unless of course most of these "rabib greenies" no little to nothing about horticulture and are simply obsessed with the appearance of the bush... what I'd expect from a weekend warrior.
Something like that happened in Florida a few years back (on a much smaller scale, and no crazy wind speeds) possibly due to fire-prevention combined with drought, even though much of their forests are naturally fire-dependant.
(most of their pine forests and "savanna" ecosystems)
Well last night I watched a guy on the tele from the Wilderness Society try to tell a community meeting of bushfire survivors that prescribed burns are not the answer. He tried several times to tell people at the meeting this over the cries of outrage from the folks around him that are living it. Someone asked him where he lives. He just kept on with his prescribed burns aren't the answer until one old bloke demanded to know where he lived, to which the answer was inner city Melbourne. Now whether his argument had merit or not isn't really going to matter now, his credibility was shot right there.
I have seen those who live in the bush decimate the environment with no regard for the habitat at all and that went on for a lot of years until we saw this turn about where things swung too far the other way and nobody was allowed to touch, or move anything. BOTH of these extremes are not the answer.
What is safe to say is that government policy hasn't really helped the current situation at all and things need to change dramatically till we find a middle ground. Our bush is unique and it should be conserved, we depend on that being the case but not understanding the best way of dealing with it has got to stop.
There are a lot of smart people that have been working on really good solutions for a while now and they've been ignored to our detriment. What we're seeing here at the moment is the catalyst of that I suspect.
Interestingly I heard one of the survivors last night saying that the gums have got so dry in the drought around her that branches were just falling off they were so bone dry. And she's not the only one that has been saying it. It certainly brought it home for me hearing her speak after watching a really large gum just topple over right in front of me a few weeks before Christmas. I knew it wasn't an isolated incident and also a really good indicator of just how bad things are but seemingly those who have been nervously watching the evidence mount up had no voice at all until now.
(most of the people here who're enthusiastic about the environment actually do a lot of research about their area of interest. )
Well I'd say I am but not the Toorak Cowboy kind of greenie that is currently getting all the airplay.
I'm enthusiastic about the environment but fairly realistic about it I think. Lot of old school bush folk in my family, some of their ideas are antiquated and need to be abolished but a lot of them that have been over run should not have been. I also have a lot of "rabid" greenies in the family. It's fun at Christmas!
I still think back-burning operations would usually minimise the risk off bushfires, but only if it is done close to the Summer time in appropriate weather, not just after Summer when everything is able to grow back by the next one!
But I strongly believe that back-burning would have had no affect on the recent/current fires occuring in our area. The winds and dry landscape was just the key ingredients.
No rainfall in the outlook for western Victoria of substantial quality, just the odd mm here and there, but eastern Victoria has a better chance with around 10-15mm a possibility, perhaps more localised bigger falls to 30-40mm. That should help fires.
I still think back-burning operations would usually minimise the risk off bushfires, but only if it is done close to the Summer time in appropriate weather, not just after Summer when everything is able to grow back by the next one!
But I strongly believe that back-burning would have had no affect on the recent/current fires occuring in our area. The winds and dry landscape was just the key ingredients.
No rainfall in the outlook for western Victoria of substantial quality, just the odd mm here and there, but eastern Victoria has a better chance with around 10-15mm a possibility, perhaps more localised bigger falls to 30-40mm. That should help fires.
Think every area is different Power Storm. I'm not really sure of the landscape where you are although in my mind I'm picturing flat and grassland more than bush but my brain does that. But yeah, the heat and wind are big players in it and I don't expect that the back burning would stop the fires but I do think it would make a fire considerably more manageable where we are.
There's a few other things need to be attended to first before they do. Such as the neighbour whose paddock butts right up to within a couple of meters of our house needs to be a little less lacsidaisical about keeping the thing cut. Should be law that the council can fine him if he doesn't.
The roads people need to get in and clear the undergrowth and all the dead branches and dead trees from along the roadside and the ranger needs to come down into the forest a bit more regularly and clear out some of the ferals that get down there littering and dumping cars and leaving a mess, including lighting fires and getting drunk. A lethal combination given just how dry the forest is.
I don't really want to see it back burnt but truly there is so much fuel built up it's scary to see and it's so dry ALTHOUGH we did get a good dousing of rain early in December, I'm thinking that's all that stopped it around us last week. That it maybe wasn't as dry as it has been but now that it's been so hot perhaps it's just fluke that has saved us so far?
I had thought up until this past week that we were isolated in terms of how the various authorities have ignored and not managed the area very well but now I see that it's been happening everywhere, so I'm not surprised this has happened.
I just wish we could have a tonne of rain right now and no more hot weather.
Prescribed burns might not be the best idea now since you are already extremely dry.
But under less threatening conditions it could be a good idea.
I think in North America forestry groups often pick times to burn when rain is in the forecast,
or at least periods of higher relative humidity.
The idea of prescribed burns in areas in ecosystems where fire isn't uncommon is to reduce the total fuel load. By reducing the total fuel load, the maximum temperatures of individual fires are reduced, as well as flame heights. All of this leads to increased chance of survival for many kinds of plants and animals.
Also, many ecosystems like this actually have increased bio-diversity when fires are allowed to burn,
since there's more open space, sunlight and sometimes more nutrients.
What are you guys hearing for news stories down there? This morning our national news said that they arrested one person for arson.
They arrested Brendan James Sokaluk (reavealed his name but not an image of his face) for one of the fires which killed around 10 people in the Churchill fire. The fire ended up burning his own house in Churchill which he claimed on insurance the day after the fire.
The deadliest fire which was in the Kinglake area north east of Melbourne and claimed around 120 lives looks like it was caused by a fallen power line.
The official death toll is now 189 and still set to rise.
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Fire is a natural part of our landscape here and HOPEFULLY we will see a return to sensible use of it to help manage the ecosystem as it should be. Most of our bush is gums and eucalyptus, narrow leaf, non deciduous trees as well as a lot of bushes and scrub.
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