By Roger Underwood AM

Environmental activists and green academics in Western Australia are pushing the government to make radical changes to bushfire policy and operations. In place of the current approach, which integrates pre-fire mitigation with post-fire response, the activists are pushing for “response only”, otherwise known as ‘the Aunt Dolly Bushfire System’.

Specifically, they want the government to abandon the program of mild-intensity prescribed burning, a strategy aimed at reducing fuel levels in a mosaic pattern across south-west forests so as to make it easier, safer and cheaper to control fires under the worst case scenario situation.

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The Bushfire Front Inc has produced a submission to the Federal government in relation to their inquiry into the impact of fire regimes on biodiversity in Australia.

The paper the government attached to the call for submissions was terrible. If this represents the level of impartial scholarship and understanding of bushfire science in the Commonwealth public service, then the country is in a worse position than I thought.

Please feel free to circulate this submission as you see fit. We regard it as a public document.

Roger Underwood
Chair, The Bushfire Front Inc

Submission document: https://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/bushfire-front-submission.pdf [PDF, 170 kB]

Bushfires are normal events in this season in tropical and sub-tropical latitudes of the southern hemisphere – in Australia, Africa and South America. Even Captain Cook noted many fires in Eastern Australia in 1770, long before the era of “global warming” hysteria.

What is unusual is the number and ferocity of recent Australian fires.

Destructive bushfires need three things – a big load of dry fuel, hot dry winds and a point of ignition.

A big load of dry fuel, close to towns and buildings, in this season, is a sign of gross mis-management (seen most commonly in public lands). That fuel should have been raked, dozed or burnt in safer weather conditions.

Hot dry winds are not unusual in this season in these latitudes – no use whinging.

But how do 100+ bushfires start suddenly? Machinery occasionally starts fires but not 120 fires in a short time. There have been no lightning storms so who are the arsonists or idiots starting these fires?

Viv Forbes

Viv Forbes and his wife Judy have spent a lifetime in the bush of Queensland and NT. They were both volunteers in a rural fire brigade for over 25 years. They have fought many bushfires and have seen several fires lit – some deliberately, some naturally, some carelessly. One careless fire burnt out their exploration camp in Arnhem Land, another accidental “fire with nine lives” threatened their grazing property in SE Qld, and a deliberate fire on another property cleared a lot of lantana and leaf litter from their property and also made the adjacent National Park a much safer neighbour.

Below is a true unpublished story about one fire we fought on our grazing property during the Millennium Drought. We hope you find it interesting: “The Fire with Nine Lives”:

https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/the-fire-with-nine-lives.pdf

by Viv Forbes

Carbon dioxide must be an almighty gas – it gets blamed for almost every human disaster.

Now we have the alarmist Climate Council blaming bushfires on carbon dioxide and global warming. Focussing on the wrong problem is doing more harm than good. It is disappointing to see respected firefighters like Greg Mullins now blaming “climate change” for more and worse bushfires, and now even promoting the misguided Climate Council.

We have heat waves, dry spells and bushfires in Australia every year – bushfires were burning all up the coast when Captain Cook sailed by in 1770. But today we know what causes dangerous fires. It needs deliberate political mismanagement to create disastrous wild-fires which destroy everything – houses, sheds, fences, wildlife and mature trees.

A good wet season can result in nature building up a dangerously large fuel load. In the past this was usually removed safely by many small fires lit by lightning strikes, aboriginals, graziers or foresters. Today massive fuels loads are too often allowed to accumulate for more than one season in forests, reserves, parks and around suburbs. Then one match or spark on a windy day can produce massive fires.

Image acknowledgement: www.pixabay.com

Today’s stupid green policies that discourage and prohibit burning-off, encourage the accumulation of bushfire fuel and exclude grazing animals from large areas of parks and reserves are making uncontrollable wildfires more common. (more…)