Victor Steffensen – Its pretty simple really

Victor Steffensen – Its pretty simple really

We live in a country that needs fire and what happens is that we’ve stopped evolving with fire.
Our fire culture in Australia is totally flawed to nothing.
As before, even if you go back 100 years, pastoralists and people who were historically a part of land can tell you themselves there used to be fires all the time and even indigenous people would work in with them and burn country regularly, but we’ve backed up to a point of regulations, land tenures.
I sit at home and I watch the news and I see masses of country just going and it brings a tear to my eyes to see that country just being annihilated.

Responses from the Coonabarabran Community – Just Ask a Local

Responses from the Coonabarabran Community – Just Ask a Local

The Wambelong fire of January 2013, burnt out the Warrumbungle National Park, destroyed scores of surrounding properties and shattered the lives of many people in the Coonabarabran community.
The subsequent Coronial Inquest and Parliamentary Inquiry made 52 recommendations.
It has taken well over three years for the government to respond to the recommendations, this article looks at some of the local responses from the Coonabarabran community.
Feel free to add your comments.

Big Fires are Destroying our Environment

Big Fires are Destroying our Environment

High intensity fires can cause enormous damage to water catchments by destroying ground-cover and changing hydrology, as well as altering the structure, behaviour and erosion of soil. Furthermore, the chemical reactions triggered by fire can release nutrients, metals and other toxicants stored in vegetation and soil. Post-fire rainfall has significant impacts on water quality as it often washes these contaminants into waterways and reservoirs. When this occurs, water may be unsafe for agriculture or human consumption without additional treatment or alternative sources of water. Poor water quality and loss of amenity can therefore have substantial financial implications.

Spend money on mitigation, not mayhem.

Let’s not forget fuel?

Let’s not forget fuel?

Most firefighters will recognise the image (above), it is used in text books and in classrooms to teach the very basics of firefighting, you need all three sides of there fire triangle for fire to occur. We cannot control the heat of any given day, we cannot control how much oxygen is in the air but we can control many types of fuel loads.

Given that the fire triangle is such a simple and basic concept then why is the “F” word (Fuel) omitted from many news articles, papers and other references to the worsening bushfire threats to our communities. See the news examples in this post…

Blazing row over bushfires

This newspaper article raises a number of complex issues including:

1. Do we have sufficient number of rangers for day to day operations and proper land management of our national parks?
2. If park rangers deserve an increased rate of pay, should it be built into their base pay rate? They should not have to rely on firefighting operations to supplement their income.
3. Is it appropriate to pay firefighters an excessive rate of pay over and above their normal rate during firefighting operations?
4. Remembering that volunteer firefighters (particularly those who are self employed) can often find themselves fighting fires at personal cost. Is it appropriate to pay other firefighters who are working alongside them an excessive rate of pay?

These issues could be mitigated if proper land management practices and increased burning regimes were adopted.

Spend more money on mitigation and less on mayhem…

Who is to blame?

Is it the power company’s fault?

Is it the land managers fault for not reducing the fuel near the powerlines?

Is it the councils fault for not allowing sufficient fuel reduction?

Is it the Green’s fault for influencing the publics perception of bushfire mitigation?

What about lightening strikes, should we sue God for fires that are started by lightening? or

Is it time that we had a good hard look at ourselves and our environment and we get back to sound land management practices that include fuel reduction (quality burns)?

Our country needs to burn more – Indigenous fire manager

Our country needs to burn more – Indigenous fire manager

Indigenous burning is very distinctive, in purpose and method.

While Western cultures tend to focus on aftermath, its focus is on prevention: managing fuel loads and reading the land to ensure flora and fauna stay healthy.

Indigenous burning is cool: temperatures remain low so flames never reach the canopy.

“The canopy is whole other world,” says Steffensen. “The canopy is so important to us because that’s the life of the flowers, the fruits, the birds, the animals … that top canopy is very, very sacred and the simple rule is that it never burns.

“If you burn the canopy, then you have the wrong fire. Fire should behave like water, trickling through the country so it doesn’t burn everything.”

Traditional burns are also started from ‘fire circles’ and patterns that allow the fire to spread out in a 360 degrees radius. This allows animals to escape as they smell the smoke and keeps temperatures down, with only one fire front to manage.

Steffensen says this kind of fire knowledge has been lost over the centuries, both as a result of colonisation – the diffusion of knowledge throughout the stolen generations, the introduction of non-native weeds that spring up when the canopy burns – and of our migration towards cities. Even European pastoralists knew how to manage the land with fire, he says.

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