Aussie forest fires...

I agree it's timing in insensitive and appreciate that you have been affected by this, but how is this article inaccurate? I have read the salient points made in other articles in the last year, namely that bushfire is a natural process that has been suppressed in recent decades. Is this wrong? I do not want to underplay the loss of life or the possible criminal cause of the fire, but are lessons not to be learned?

well, i guess it's not so much wrong as just really ill-informed. i think the questions of fire and land management are definitely worth debating, and the local media are doing so.

the guardian article cops a good serve here which will explain why it sucks better than i probably can.

It's just that the author takes a very simplistic viewpoint, and does it with a condescending arrogance that really pisses people off. and it's not even accurate - in lots of areas controlled burns are used to reduce the fuel load before summer. it's not as if she's discovered some new approach that we stupid colonials aren't aware of because we're such rednecks we ignore anything the aboriginal people may have known. land management and awareness of sustainability has improved a lot in the 25 years since she left australia. i reckon the people who live in those areas and have actual lifetimes of experience dealing with the environment and fire may have something to say about her smugness from a city on the other side of the world.

however, she completely misses the point that the problem in this case was really the extreme weather conditions, not so much the planning and execution of fire plans. the debate over fire policy is pretty intense here now (both in terms of fuel reduction burning and the "go early or stay and defend" policy), but it's not actually clear cut what is the best policy. In some instances burning the undergrowth actually makes it grow back thicker (which is why the aboriginal people did it - although not in all regions, remember how much variation there is in australia's environment - it speeds up regrowth of vegetation which has evolved to rely on fire). the best management practises will vary depending on the specific area - Churchill is quite different to Kinglake and the best approaches will probably be quite different as well. But controlled burning is not that safe in any case, and it's not easy to do. Remember most of the CFA firefighters are local volunteers, resourcing is an issue, as is the size of the areas involved - should we pre-burn the whole state?

The deaths were caused mainly by the speed and intensity of the fires - people had literally minutes between hearing they were coming and being inundated. The speed of the fires is not overly influenced by the undergrowth, apparently it's all about windspeed, so it probably wouldn't have helped much anyway, especially considering these incredibly fast fires were burning at canopy (treetop) level. Would fuel reduction burning have helped? Probably not. So her argument is simplistic, at best.

The comments that people "pretend" to live in the bush but want to be near shopping malls is wrong, these are rural communities that burned. Churchill is a long way from the nearest mall! Also it's pretty stupid to say that people shouldn't be allowed to live in the bush - these are farmers and people in towns that provide services to rural communities. Europeans have lived there pretty well for 170 years, with a serious bushfire maybe every 25-30 years on average. This one was abnormal.

as for "you should be living in bark huts and farming kangaroos"... i think this shows how far out of touch the author is. I think it sums up the article in general: there is a kernel of truth here (that we need to manage the land better and live more sustainably) but it's wrapped in patronising bullshit and is just over the top.

So in summary, the article was simplistic, engaged only at a very very shallow level with the realities of the situation, and to top it off was smug, self-satisfied and insensitive to the victims.