Some of the reasons 'cultural' burning may not work include permanent buildings, fences, multiple land titles, prevalence of asthma, introduced flammable plants and increased wind speeds. It seems pyrogeography that sounds like a technical subject is now steeped in mysticism by invoking the wisdom of the elders. That should get plenty of favourable coverage from the ABC.

I'd be more inclined to follow the deeds of a region that has been razed several times but has managed to make itself fire resilient. I suspect that will take more than 'cultural' burning.

will take more than 'cultural' burning.
Taswegian,
It'll also take more than maintaining the culture within our bureaucracy that causes such natural events to be worse than they otherwise would be !

The fix is in! Did anyone expect anything else? Green politics, they will go to any lengths to destroy us!

The problem is well stated by Taswegian above.

It's the attitudes of those that choose to live in the bushfire danger zone.

I live in an area where villages galore, are built in extremely hazardous bushfire areas,huddled into bush land.

These villages were showered with huge resources during the recent bush fires, in order to save them.

There is no evidence at all, these villages intend to remedy their own plight by clearing fire breaks.

These villages and outlying scrub dwellings should be given an ultimatum, either clear surrounding hazards or move out.

Dan

Firebreaks and waterbombers don't work in bad weather. But during the settlement drought in 1792 they controlled fires at Parramatta in mid 40 degree temperatures and howling dry northwesterly winds because blackfellas maintained a healthy and safe landscape.

Science? What science!? some PhD with an opinion that relies solely on traditional belief and hearsay, is just not science, but rather consenting, don't rock the boat, opinion!

Anyone with alphabet soup after their name can mount a contrary opinion. Some will as paid commentators, mount a case that climate change is all BS!

And some bought and paid for politicians will do and say the absurd to support such claims.

For years we know the scientists employed by big tobacco and asbestos, claimed no harm from allegedly benign products. Is this the sort of (fossil fuel) science being presented here?

Intensive grazing also reduces hazardous fuel loads!
And the soil is made even more carbon-rich and nutritious for plant life and the herbivores that graze on them

Intensive cell grazing ensures that the carbon and rare minerals are returned and recycled. Add dung beetles and the soil is made even more pervious to such rain as does fall and allows it to soak in as opposed to running off and contributing to erosion.

Traditional cool burns, were only ever a practise to make hunting easier and done for no other reason.

The fact that thousands of years of such practise also includes many fires that got away is never considered, or that such fires always take out all the non-fire tolerant species, destroyed as a billion with the last firestorm

Nowhere where traditional burning practised do we see the soil improved, but we do see vast arid wasteland where this has been traditional practice/ownership of centuries.

Fuel loads can be also reduced by grazed animals and whipper snippers. Very short term call grazed with hooved herbivores also chops up fire-baked and hardened soil, allowing the rains to soak in!

Uncontrolled fires and cool burns that got away, allowed feral infestation! Often impossible to reverse!

I get that you want to reoccupy as rangers/land managers and then able to support traditional land claims where none are currently available for "urban blacks"
Alan B.

Folk who want to build in the bush need to have a mandatory code applied to all such building approvals.

First, there needs to be an area of completely cleared land around the domicile. An engine-powered, ride-on brush cutting razor the minimum!

The domicile cannot be built with timber or any other flammable material, there should be a 2 metre high colourbond fence and the supporting framework, concrete and steel.

Houses should come with steel frames and metal roller doors mounted just under eves.so as to exclude any ember storm.

The yard, front back and sides, need to have popup sprinklers and the roof needs several to ensure wetting during any fire overwhelming period.

One notes that 445 folks died of smoke inhalation during our last firestorm season!

And there needs to be at least two million litres of reserve water storage to support such amenity that can disappear at the rate of 5,000 litres an hour! hemp and limestone bricks are not just fireproof but have thermal qualities that make life more tolerable during heat waves and the coldest winter night

There needs to be a buried shipping container equipped with a toilet and reserve water etc to last at least 24 hours, as your last stay and fight refuge/firestorm shelter.

If we are to return to past practice? Then let it be grazed national parks and selectively logging of all bushland! And where logging roads became natural fire breaks and where dozens more eyes were there and alert to any outbreak of fire!
Alan B.

Alan B's got a lot to say but not much to contribute. Blackfellas burnt to maintain access and food, for cooking, heating, signaling, sanitation and celebration as well as to flush out, uncover or attract game. Burning is easy and safe and fun when it's done properly as it was when i started working in the bush. Fires get away now because RFS Bureaucrats got rid of most of all the old hands that knew what they were doing and stood up to the bosses with the uniforms and medals and stupid rulebooks. Now they light lines of fire from the bottoms of hills and across the wind. Of course they get away. Most burns are too hot and create more fuel - hazard production burns. If you do it right, the more you do the easier it gets.

Alan B, we really gotta educate blackfellas! Silly buggers bumbled through more than 40,000 years of climate change without boots or overalls or colorbond fences or limestone bricks or buried shipping containers.
But never mind. Stuart Ellis is giving evidence to the Royal Commission tomorrow. He headed up the COAG inquiry that delivered us education instead of sensible land management. 15 years of "Learning to live with bushfires" killed hundreds of people. Looks like we're lining up for more of the same.

I very much doubt there are many aborigines left who know much about fire. The when, why & the how is long gone among most of them, & none have actual practice, at least not in areas where people are killed & many homes burnt.

How ever there are still a number of graziers who have long experience, & even a few who learnt the art from the old aboriginals.

Around here the old hands burnt most paddocks every 4 years. The rotation was 2 years grazing, a year locked up to grow enough fuel to carry a warm fire, then a burn in the forth year, followed by grazing to pick off sprouting scrub.

These burns were not for bush fire control, but for woody weed control. With out the regular burns the woody weeds & saplings proliferated crowding out grass, & producing the dangerous understory that makes fires hot & dangerous.

This burning maintained the open woodland best for grazing, & prevented the dangerous fires we see today. Too many greenie regulations & too many tree changers bitching their heads off at a whiff of smoke have led to many giving up. The really good graziers have cleared their places & planted improved pasture, with no weed control required.

Meanwhile there are far too many tree changers building in places that are pretty, & have great views, but are a death trap in a big fire. While we have some councils fining people for clearing a suitable fire break around their homes, we know fire reduction will never be practiced as needed.

Little,
The Blackfellas weren't vying for positions on podiums for Hero status either !

Hasbeen and Individual,
There's not many blackfellas or whitefellas left that have been brought up with it and know how to do it. But there's enough. The problem is green academics, emergency services chiefs and politicians.
With Bradstock giving expert advice to NSW Inquiry, and Ellis giving evidence to the Royal Commission, there's no bloody hope of our elected politicians working for us and restoring sanity.

There is far too much bushland in Australia to conceivably hazard burn.

A simpler and less expensive approach is to change zoning requirements mandating the removal of trees and scrubland from village settlements and bush residences.

In the end, those hazards were responsible for the burning down of assets.

As a precedence, flood zoning is robustly adhered to. There seems little to no effort made to similarly zone for fire protection.

Dan

A simpler and less expensive approach is to change zoning requirements mandating the removal of trees and scrubland from village settlements and bush residences.
diver dan,
I went for a fair hike in Bushland north of Cairns & I was amazed at the residences I walked past. They're totally obscured by trees so, when a fire does eventually grab hold, there won't be a single house left standing. The owners will then bleat for help from Govt & blame everyone & everything else for the loss.
I think, if a property can't bee seen on Google Earth then the owners should have to waive their their right for assistance in an emergency ! If they're not willing to safeguard their property by simple means of keeping flammable bush away from their homes then aren't they literally inviting a fire to burn it down ?
Insurance premiums are too high for those who are unlikely to ever claim because of those who selfishly disregard precaution. There needs to be legislation for Insurance policies that those who take reasonable precaution, don't pay such high premiums to pay for others !

I agree with the author that we should be concerned at how arms-length academics without practical experience have become so prominent and potentially influential in shaping government policy and practice on forest fire management.

Last week, we had arguably the nation's most publicly vocal ecologist (courtesy of the ABC and Fairfax media) stating in two of Australia's biggest daily newspapers that fuel reduction is only effective if done in close proximity to houses and repeated every three years.

The fact is that major fires, such as those in Victoria and NSW last summer are most often ignited in remote areas where reduced fuel loads could enable them to be contained while small. Letting fuels build in such areas as many ecologists advocate via opposition to broadacre fuel reduction, almost guarantees that remote fires will eventually become uncontrollable mega-fires with catastrophic impacts on the ecology and possibly human communities. That so called conservationists are effectively advocating such ecological damage is perverse