The following article was written for The Australian newspaper back in 2009.
The author, David Packham, a bushfire scientist for more than 50 years, said that “it has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation’s capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed”.
Seven year later and nothing has changed… Is anyone listening…
A workplace injury case history…
A recent case was presented by a current RFS Volunteer to a VFFA Executive Meeting and it showed the utter frustration of a Volunteer being injured on the fire ground. The Volunteer’s injury was an ongoing one and over the years the RFS had accepted every medical certificate from the treating doctor allowing the Volunteer to go on the fire line with restrictions in place as per the certificates, Work Cover also accepted the certificates. The Volunteer recently needed to have surgery which had the Volunteer requiring four months of work. Although the Volunteer was entitled to workers compensation payments, there was still quite a significant short fall compared to their regular income.
Stories like this one in the Australian are becoming way too frequent when the solution is low cost by comparison. These costs extend way beyond the public purse, there is a massive cost to our environment, local business and economy. A rethink of our hazard reduction targets is long overdue.
In reference to the article (The Australian – Dec 28, 2015) one of our readers said “Give the Volunteers back full control and get back to realistic hazard reduction targets. If a politician stepped up and made that decision, we’ll save lives, homes, our wildlife and heaps of money that could be better spent on hospital, infrastructure, the drug problem… the list goes on…”
Two weeks after Black Saturday, the Prime Minister of Australia was asked in parliament: “My question is to the Prime Minister, and I recognise that he answered part of this to the member for McEwen earlier. My question relates to the Prime Minister’s comments at yesterday’s memorial service that successive governments have failed in terms of bushfire management, and also comments made by Wurundjeri elder, Aunty Joy Murphy, from Healesville who said that Aboriginal people historically burned the land every seven years for ‘cleansing and regrowth’, but Black Saturday was a ‘torture of the land’. Prime Minister, could you elaborate on your comment and, given that every inquiry since 1939 has focused on fuel reduction in fire-prone areas, do you believe it is time we learnt from Aboriginal Australians, whose firestick management practices created the bush environment that white Australians are attempting to modify to a landscape that has never existed?”
One of Australia’s leading fire experts has warned that the failure to conduct enough controlled burns is exposing people to another large-scale disaster, declaring the lack of intervention is creating Black Saturday-sized fuel loads.
Does your Brigade participate in a “Santa Run”?
Did you know that the RFS published a “Santa Run Frequently Asked Questions” document?
Do you think that this type of RFS intervention is necessary?
How much consultation with volunteer firefighters was obtained before preparing this document?
Are the days of freshly made sandwiches, cakes and slices supplied by the locals numbered?
In this article we have a look at an RFS tradition (the Santa Run). The RFS is acting in a risk-averse manner but we are asking our readers to provide their thoughts via the comments section. Any sensible comments (for and against) will be published.
It is safe to conclude that it is not until we undertake a 15% pa burning program that we could expect no life loss. The gain at 5%pa is small but by 8% pa it is becoming very much better. There is informed opinion amongst fire managers that 10 – 12% is the optimum for fire protection.