ABC claims firebreaks are being bulldozed, page-83

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MasterStrategist

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14/11/19

01:57

Post #: 41412466
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Originally posted by Barg ↑

I don't vote for or support the Green Party, but I am a former professional, remote area firefighting specialist, so it is with that background that I'd like to clear up some of the questionable statements I've heard here today.
First, the current situation has nothing whatsoever to do with the Greens other than they "might" have some influence on large scale clearing of forests, and at a suburban level, cutting down trees in back yards. In fact, they have always supported low intensity fuel reduction burns because they have "some" understanding that our forests and the wildlife have evolved to cope with low intensity fires, which are a beneficial part of the ecosystem.

That said, fuel reduction burns have become incredibly problematic. In the interest of safety the criteria to conduct these burns is necessarily highly regulated, so they can be controlled. Even so, they are very risky, and with ever more building assets and people inhabiting forest environments the problematic of risk has increased exponentially. Add to that the changing weather patterns shortens the window of opportunity available to conduct these burns - not to mention the vast areas involved and the associated man power and costs. So its impossible to expect widescale fuel reduction burns everywhere on a regular basis.

That is the reality of the situation we now find ourselves in. Whether you believe in GW or not is a mute point in the current circumstances. But understand this: wildfires in Australia have been exceeding the historical 'fire index' since the late 90s. By the 2008 they were exceeding the known fire index by more than 100%.

Long term we "might" be able to ameliorate the fire risks by cleaning up the atmosphere, but short term the only thing we can do to fight these off the scale fires is for the government to increase the number of large, aerial fire bombing assets. Where once we could cope with one or two Ericson choppers and smaller aerial appliances, we now have to think about 30 to 40 large, fixed wing bombers. We need to think of fire seasons in terms of a war footing and fight them accordingly.

In conclusion, my hats off to the volunteer firefighters and the specialists that you rarely see or hear about jumping out of choppers behind the lines. Hero's all.

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Just thought I'd repost the above to bring the arguments back into perspective. The one addition I'd like to make is this: My wife is a recently retired local government director, having served in Victoria and NSW. I already knew the answer due to my above work history, but I thought to confirm by asking her what influence shire councils had over prescribed/fuel reduction burns. The answer - None.
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