Climate Change and our Land of Fire, Flood and Drought.

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Originally Posted by 101RRS

Now why did we already know you would say that [bighmmm].

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Because you know I prefer facts over hype! [biggrin]

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I will ignore the gratuitous insults in your post and concentrate on just one point.

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No gratuitous insult intended ... just stating the facts.
It's a well known fact that people swear by headlines, and gloss over content!
Hype seeking individuals would swoop on this headline, without any pause for what the reality of it was.

A decade to decade 2x greater effort of fuel load reduction, when the previous decade was half what it was historically isn't the same thing as a straight up 2x fuel load reduction.
Clarification of the facts were needed.
There is a very high probability that the reduced effort in the two decades 1990-2010 may have caused a higher fuel load, and that the effort made between 2010-2020 was simply not enough.

I understand your point, that many(of us) assumed that the reduced effort of mitigation was continual, and it's likely that everyone thought similarly of the 2010-2020 period too.
But it still confirms that for 20 years, it was reduced to a low enough point that it may have magnified the recent issue.

Not enough data on where these burns-offs were(exactly), and how they may have helped or otherwise.

But the last paragraph of the link you posted serves as a warning tho:

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"Pushing state agencies to chase area targets results in large, hazard reduction burns in remote areas where they are easy to execute — as happened in Victoria in the first years after the Bushfires Royal Commission — rather than strategic hazard reduction burning close to houses where they are more effective as indicated by our research."

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So we have no idea if a similar process happened in NSW too .. that is, pseudo burn-offs to keep 'everyone'(ie. greenies and right wing denialists) happy.

The fire commissioners have said that hazard reduction can only be done when the conditions are right - cool, dry, no wind.
They have also said the extreme drought, which has been going for several years, has shortened the period when the conditions are right for hazard reduction.
They have also said there is no truth to the claim the Greens have prevented hazard reduction - it's just false.
Hazard reduction doesn't just mean 'light her up' and stand back and watch it burn.
For example, a NSW forester told me they used to be able to let cool burns go slowly towards the edges of rainforests, knowing the fires would then go out, but now the rainforest is so dry it also burns, so they can't hazard burn in those areas because the fragile rainforests have to be protected.
In fact, in Northern NSW large areas of sensitive rainforests have burnt anyway, because climate change has made the drought extreme, which is exactly what the climate scientists predicted. Some plants and animals may never recover, they say.

We both seems to accept that burns are probably most difficult to organise in the very places where they would have the greatest benefit.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

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Hazard reduction doesn't just mean 'light her up' and stand back and watch it burn.
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I'm convinced that a lot of people don't understand the complexities of hazard reduction burns. Just because a technique works well in the Northern Territory spear grass doesn't mean the same technique can be used in forests of the NSW South Coast.

While they were not hazard reduction burns, I still clearly remember the obsession my grandfather had with lighting fires to make the green pick more accessible to our two house cows.

He regularly lit grass fires with just himself and a couple of primary school aged kids with a green branch to keep things under control. Not one of those dozens of fires even looked like getting away from us.

Doing that was perfectly safe in Sawtell in the 1950s. It would be disastrous now in the forests around here.

Like so many things in life, people want simple answers. I believe the expression is, "For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong".

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An old sales manager boss of mine back in the sixties used to say that if a customer described themselves as honest and/or Christian then keep the solicitors handy.

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That is a bit rich coming from a "Sales Manager" in charge of Salesmen/Women whose mantra probably was "Get out there & Sell, Sell, Sell, no matter how much bull**** you've got to promise".

[biggrin]

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Originally Posted by AK83

Because you know I prefer facts over hype! [biggrin]

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But you go with the hype and ignore the facts when they do not suit your argument.

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Originally Posted by 4bee

That is a bit rich coming from a "Sales Manager" in charge of Salesmen/Women whose mantra probably was "Get out there & Sell, Sell, Sell, no matter how much bull**** you've got to promise".

[biggrin]

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We were selling top shelf high end heavy duty trucks. Lots villains in that trade both buyer and seller. Selling high ticket industrial goods is quite a bit different from selling TV's and cars to Mr. & Mrs. Veg from the 'burbs.

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Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

An old sales manager boss of mine back in the sixties used to say that if a customer described themselves as honest and/or Christian then keep the solicitors handy.

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When your neighbor goes to church, count your sheep. [bighmmm]

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Originally Posted by V8Ian

When your neighbor goes to church, count your sheep. [bighmmm]

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......because we are expecting a Welshman & a New Zealander to visit."[biggrin]

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I'm convinced that a lot of people don't understand the complexities of hazard reduction burns. Just because a technique works well in the Northern Territory spear grass doesn't mean the same technique can be used in forests of the NSW South Coast.

While they were not hazard reduction burns, I still clearly remember the obsession my grandfather had with lighting fires to make the green pick more accessible to our two house cows.

He regularly lit grass fires with just himself and a couple of primary school aged kids with a green branch to keep things under control. Not one of those dozens of fires even looked like getting away from us.

Doing that was perfectly safe in Sawtell in the 1950s. It would be disastrous now in the forests around here.

Like so many things in life, people want simple answers. I believe the expression is, "For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong".

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Yes, outback has far less fuel than in the coastal forests, so it's much easier to get a cool burn out back than it is in the forests, particularly once an extreme drought has dried out the vegetation.
I was in a remnant of original rainforest yesterday. Until two weeks ago when the rain started, the swamp was dried up, the leaf litter was dry as a bone and a fire in there would have been unstoppable. Fortunately the rain has now filled the swamp and wet everything.
Indigenous fire regime relied on intimate local knowledge.