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February 10, 2009
Australians understand that they cannot control bushfire and that they have to live with fire. it id now acepted that Australia is a fire-prone land with the wet and dry cycles setting the scene for massive fires. Climate change has nudged the temperature in southern Austrlaia up a degree, turning the 44s into 45s and the 45s into 46s. There are more of these scorchers, more intense heatwaves and the rainfall is projected to decrease.
Alex Coppel, bush fire smoke+ sun, 2009
The indications are that the frequency of the megafire fronts will increase during the 21st century, if the climate projection models are correct. That does mean more controlled burning and a rejection of the European view that fire is something messy to be removed from the cultivated landscape. The utilitarian vision of Australian lands has collapsed in favour of one that supports environmentalism and preservation.
Bushfire is the site of the culture wars that has seen the bush pitted against the city, the land managers against the fire fighters, the fire ‘professionals’ against the volunteers, the foresters against the environmentalists.
M Smith, burnt cars, Victoria
Stephen Pyne in The Still-Burning Bush argued for the following narrative. Australia was shaped by Aboriginal fire-stick farming; colonisers sought to suppress fire but eventually were forced to adapt to it; the resulting fire-stick forestry was a singular achievement of science and administration; new environmentalism has unraveled fire-stick forestry; active burning needs to be at the centre of the new approach based on the twin pillars of fire-stick ecology and risk management.
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Gary
your comment: "active burning needs to be at the centre of the new approach based on the twin pillars of fire-stick ecology and risk management"
This is especially the case with the tree change communities of people living in the bush in the peri-urban areas of Melbourne and Adelaide. Often these rural -residential palaces have decreasing water availability, are areas of high hazard, and rapidly increasing population. They would be hard to defend from a megafire.