Take responsibility when they can blame climate change? Not likely!

"Standard practices which were effective and successful in the past, such as fuel management across the landscape, rapid attack once fires start, and regular surveillance during the fire season, have been dismantled and thrown out the door."

That is all true, but you only have to either drive through or fly over the forests in Eastern Victoria ( I have done both) to realize the enormity of the problem. For a start the Victorian government's practice of placing locked gates across many of the trails through the high country is strange, to say the least. It may take some time and considerable expense, but for a start, the government should be enlarging the network of tracks through the high country so that rapid vehicular access is possible. Fueled up and ready to go water bombers should be maintained on standby at all the country aerodromes around the perimeter of the eastern forest so that the inevitable fires caused by dry lightning strikes can be quickly doused before they can get going. DELWP should conduct more burn-offs around settled areas.

On top of that, the CFA need to get a bit more pragmatic about using local knowledge in the management of active fire grounds.
David

'Rain rain go away,
come back another more appropriate tim to reinforce our climate dogma'

Fighting fire with fire is standard practice in the driest inhabited continent on earth.

A better method is stopping those fires before they become fires with fuel reduction strategies that can be applied year round!

For mine that is, successfully tried and tested intensive herd grazing by goats behind mobile electric fences. And having reduced said fuel load, trucked on to the next target, urban bush border, forest reserve or national park

After that the world must address climate change with effective measures! Such as a transition to carbon free nuclear energy, i.e., MSR thorium which can also be re-tasked with burning nuclear waste which in MSR technology is mostly unspent fuel.

Fuel which we would be paid annual millions to take, use then store, but only after we've burnt the unspent fuel and reduced the half life to just 300 years! And a win, win all round with energy prices as low as 1 cent or lower, PKWH!

The problem for us is the unelected public servants who advise our pollies and stand up for their preferred and seriously dated policies and continually make unfounded unsubstantiated claims to support their pet theories/projects? And act as filters to filter out/downplay all else?

I am led to believe, the Chinese have installed many of these MSR thorium power sources in their warships and subs?
Alan B.

Gates a locked against intrusion into Aboriginal land.

Can’t have the public tramping around in areas of cultural significance.

AND *… When you combine politics with land use, you get bad outcomes…*

When politics is combined with anything significant, you get bad outcomes. It’s why Democracy fails, especially in times of war, when the two party system of Government lead to the same decisions, and consequently the same outcomes.

Effectively, this article is a big whine about the two party system of Government.
Write about a solution to that particular problem which plagues us all on all levels, and you might fathom a solution to land use problems particularly, and societal problems more generally.

Dan

Extreme weather events that came every 100 years or so, that now come every ten years or so like the recent floods, are new and a sign that something has changed, for everyone except the braindead the moribund and those shackled like fanatics to dogmatic dogma, that go, we've always had fires and floods and then turn willfully blind eyes to recent climate change, changes.

Who then elect the same old same old because they echo their garbage in garbage out C.R.A.P. And are the real problem! And they are held accountable by none!

If we want to change the narrative we need to change those who make the decisions and also those who advise them!

It just cannot be more left, right, left, right, decades long tin ears and the focus on retaining or winning power for power's sake! But a new broom sweeping clean and pragmatic bipartisan, can do policies!
Alan B.

Dan, locks only keep honest people out. Padlocks that defy bolt cutters are no match for a skilled locksmith or indeed me! Albeit have never used this skill for anything but honest outcomes and assistantance to those who have lost their keys.

That said, forest trails with locked gates, don't assist fire fighters or fire starters. Perhaps they could be opened with a master key and such key left with the local fire chief, or his or her deputy.

Anyhow, we once did things very differently and I believe the old tried and tested methods were better, took half the logs and doubled the employment opportunities. Cut logging trails that doubled as fire breaks and put many more self interested eyes looking out for tell tale smoke.

Lookout towers and modern radios could put a loaded and ready, water bombers over the outbreak in minutes as fire crews follow and mop up?

As for sacred sites? Little if any actual proof/archological evidence and lots of perceived humbug around this area as this or that (mixed race) group seeks to reestablish missing or lost ancestorial links? Much of which could be established with proof positive, DNA tests!
Alan B.

Very well said Robert. As an older forester I can certainly appreciate your frustration over this.

It is particularly disappointing that climate change is constantly used as an excuse for the failure of changed fire management strategies, especially risk averse practices instituted as a response to health and safety concerns.

The risks to fire-fighters increase exponentially with the size of fires, so taking the calculated risks needed to control fires when they are small are entirely justified. However, where there is a lack of on-ground experience, it is understandable that risks aren't as readily taken. A big part of the problem is the loss of much of the timber industry because harvesting contractors were always the most experienced bush-wise machinery operators. Soon they will disappear from both Vic and WA as State Labor Govts close their hardwood timber industries, supposedly to 'protect' the environment. The inevitable surge in more bigger fires will be simply added to the list of supposed climate change impacts.