Thread: Fires in the NE Victoria

Do us all a favour Jase and report in as soon as poss....

Sounds bloody scary.......

Good luck and be safe (and think).......

GQ

Hope you don't get hit. Our block is a black spot. Wife and I have an agreement that if the fires are comming she takes the kids and heads to her parents place. I will either leave with them or help the neighbours save their places. Our place is to be treated as already lost and no going back till after the fires.

That is because a lot of the wood that died due to the area NOT being burnt before 2003 is either standing OR has fallen. As you are not allowed to harvest the wood, it is just left there. I think the greenies who made these policies should be made to go up there in the front line fighting the fires they helped fuel due to their own stupidity. After all, our native people burnt that land every few years to prevent this kind of thing, and did it for some 30,000 years (approx) yet some jumped up extremist greenie with a bit of paper in his hand thinks he knows more that the people who have lived here for thousands of years!

For some reason the hazard reduction debate seems much more passionate in Victoria than in NSW (and I thought it was bad enough here).

Given some of the area was burnt by wildfire in 2003 and it is burning again what do you think would be an appropriate time interval between cooler burns?

If this area is mountain ash then it needs avery hot fire to ensure species survival, the parent trees are killed to enable the seeds to germinate. I was talikng to an older guy today who remarked that he went through the area in the early 60s and a lot of the mountain ash killed in the 1939 fires were still standing.

Nornmally the vic high country is not ready to beun until Jan/Feb as the fire seasons move south. This must be an exceptionally dry year to allow it to burn now, and maybe that would have prevented some hazard reduction earlier.

Unfortunately there is a very narrow band of weather conditions that will allow fuels to be OK for controlled burning.



Martyn

The problem of lack of hazard reduction is one that is self correcting in the long term - this is what we see happening now. As gruntfuttock says, most of Australia has been regularly burnt for many years, probably at least since the beginning of the pleistocene as Australia became arid, even without the aborigines - don't forget most of the current fires were started by lightning.

What has changed is that while we started fighting bushfires probably 150 years ago, we have only got good at it in the last fifty years, and particularly in the last twenty. This is why there is so much more bush in much of NSW at least than there was at the start of white settlement, and it has mostly grown up in the last fifty years. What HAS happened is that a lot more property is lost due to fires, simply because there IS a lot more property, in particular, there are a lot of people living IN the bush than ever before, mostly within 100km of our major cities, and with a lot more property to burn, and often with little bush knowledge and little fire knowledge.

John

John

So I guess if the "greenies" didn't protest and campain to save "our" forests and other areas of national interest we wouldn't have any fires............cause there wouldn't be any bush to BURN! OR DRIVE IN FOR THAT MATTER!

Come on people. It's not the greenies fault. Aboriginies did burn the bush but they didnt stop lightning. This is a natural phase for the australian bush. As has been mentioned, more people live in the bush now, more people are at risk.

I'm a greenie through and through, been fighting fires as a firefighter for both the CFA and government departments for a long time now. been through many large campain fires and you know what I like the best is? that firefighters no longer die in forest fires because firefighters no longer are put in stupid places trying to save trees, as a consequence of this fires tend to be larger, up the the country where these fires are are burning I'm damn sure areas never saw a fire brand from the aboriginal in 40,000 years, natural ignition by lightning yes just as these ones were. I will always will prefer to spend time in the green and wild bush as opposed permenenty burnt black from fires we decide when where and how should be burnt

Originally Posted by D110V8D

So I guess if the "greenies" didn't protest and campain to save "our" forests and other areas of national interest we wouldn't have any fires............cause there wouldn't be any bush to BURN! OR DRIVE IN FOR THAT MATTER!

Come on people. It's not the greenies fault. Aboriginies did burn the bush but they didnt stop lightning. This is a natural phase for the australian bush. As has been mentioned, more people live in the bush now, more people are at risk.

The aborigines did start some fires, but more importantly, they didn't even try to put fires out - as pointed out, most fires, including the worst of the current ones, were started by lightning. The big increase in vegetation has been not because of the greenies but because we have started not only to try and put fires out, but have been successful at it, and to some extent the control of rabbits has helped, as has controls on management of regrowth on private land.

John

geez I think the only bit nobody mentioned is the removal of cattle from the high country increasing fuel loads...

it's all a natural process (excluding the firebugs) and my family got hit hard by fires in 1939 and again during 1983. Basically preparation is the best defense, because the fires are going to come no matter what!

Up on Mt Macedon where we have a family property there are homes built since the ash wednesday fires that are incredibly stupid - can you imagine a 50+ year old mountain ash in the centre of the house? or 'land for wildlife' surrounding a home - right up to the front door? it's crazy...

Our place has plenty of native trees, but they are over 200 metres from the house - in between there is open paddocks, short mown lawns, only the odd deciduous tree, no mulch (grey water fed), shallow eaves, roof mounted all steel sprinkler system linked to diesel fire pump that recirculates into a 10,000 litre steel water tank... and it was the only house among the surrounding 30 or so that survived the fires back in 1983.

Jase, pull on the nomex (if you got it) and stay safe!