ABC Landline produces some excellent programs and these archived episodes on the Pinery and Esperance Fires are no exception.
Feel free to makes comments on issues that you wish to bring to the table.
ABC Landline Programs to check out
Australian Bushfire Management – wisdom versus folly
This post includes the paper by Roger Underwood titled “Australian Bushfire Management: a case study in wisdom versus folly”.
The choices before us are straight-forward:
Do we (Australians) want our bushfire and land management planning done by professionals with front-line experience, or by campus intellectuals and ideologists?
Is it smarter to manage bushfire fuels by burning them at times of our own choosing when conditions are mild, or to stand back, do nothing and risk being engulfed by fire at the worst possible time?
If fires are inevitable, which is preferable:
A controlled or a feral fire?
And do we see humans as part of the ecosystem and plan accordingly, or do we see them as interlopers, as illegal immigrants in the Australian bush?
Do we opt for Wisdom or for Folly?
Victoria bushfires stoked by green vote
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…
Emergency Services Ready to Respond with 74,516 Volunteers
Mr Elliott claims that we now have 74,516 volunteers in the RFS.
We disagree with that claim, but don’t take our word for it, ask around for yourself. Go to a few country towns and ask the local Brigade how many people they have on the books, then ask how many are actively engaged in the day to day activities of that Brigade.
Emergency Services Minister David Elliott ‘insults’ Volunteer Firefighters just three months into the job
Only three months into the job and Emergency Services Minister David Elliott has upset some of the very people he is in the post to represent.
Volunteer firefighters along with landowners who lost property and farm animals in the Wambelong Fire on “Black Sunday” in January 2013 say they are insulted by comments made by the minister at a recent conference.
Image: Martin Lill, son of stud farmer Stephen Lill, who lost more than 200 stud cattle in the fire. Photo: Jacky Ghossein
Volunteers are keen to catch up with the new Minister
A letter was sent to the new Minister for Emergency Services, The Hon. David Elliott, MP on the 6th April, 2015.
It was prepared by the VFFA Vice President, Brian Williams and it provided the Minister with an overview of the Volunteer Fire Fighters Association, a congratulatory welcome message and a request for the VFFA representatives to meet with him at his earliest convenience.