Clownfish, I understand your point, a burn everything policy is not only irrational but also ecologically dangerous. An environment must a suited to burn offs and must also be able to be burnt without causing danger to people or property.

However I must also inform you of some other bitter truths. One, In Western Australia (where I live so it is local knowledge) where back burning is a regular practice there has not been a major bush fire of the magnitude of SE Aust since before regular back burning. Two, It has only been since there has been a reduction in the total area of burn offs in WA that larger fires have been able to take hold. The old system effectively controlled a fires spread as fire prone areas where adjacent to areas of low fuel load. These areas would then be rotated so as not to have any one area excessively burnt or loaded. Finally, 'Mega-Bushfires' as it has been termed are far more destructive to the areas which are burnt than regular controlled burn offs. Large intense bush fires cause excessive heat in the soil which not only kills off the insect life required for a healthy ecosystem but also sterilizes the earth of all bacteria, vital for plant life, for quite a few inches below the surface.

Fuel load reduction is as you say not a magic pill, but it is effective and it is the sane thing to do. There will always be fires, and there will always be a loss of life due to them but the operative term here is 'how much are we prepared to lose'. Are we prepared to put you in an uncomfortable situation of controlling a burn off fire and living with the possibility of burning a few homes to keep 183 people alive? Or do we throw up our hands in pious horror and bury our heads in the sand until the next 'Mega-Bushfire'?

That is the only choice.

Arthur, I agree with everything you say.

My point was that many of the, especially populist media commentators, spouting off about fuel reduction burns don't realise the complexity of the issue. Especially those who blame those nebulous, evil bogeymen, "Greenies".

I was also trying to point out, from even my own experience, just how difficult it is to conduct a safe burn-off. Everyone is ready to kick the heads of various authorities for not doing burn-offs, but should we really be so surprised that they're a bit leery of doing them when conditions are so difficult, and they're as like as not to be sued by all and sundry?

Burying heads in the sand is a large part of the problem - and not just with regard to fuel reduction. The 30-year fire cycle is, unfortunately, just long enough for new generations of people to move into an area and develop a sense of complacency.

I still maintain that there are some places that are just very dangerous to build houses in, and people are going to have to reckon with that. If someone built a house on the edge of a cliff, the risk is obvious. Unfortunately, the risk is not as obvious to most people, when building a house on a thickly treed ridge, accessible only by a narrow driveway, and far from town water, power and communications.

Funny how all you commenters on my post only dealt with one of the arguments i raised. The cash! What about asthma sufferers and little old ladies with bronchitis? Dont you give a toss about their health? What about the safety aspects of burnoffs? (the reason they are so costly) Who pays when the inevitable happens and the fire escapes and destroys assets or people? Are you okay with houses burning down due to a fuel reduction burn? The more burnoffs that are done the more chance that this will come about as it has numerous times in the past.

Seems to me you are the unrealistic ones who think we can tame and subdue this wild continent even though we have been shown to be totally powerless time and time again.

I agree with Clownfish the only one so far to know what he is talking about. Get real people we cant afford, dont have the manpower and the risks are too great for all the burnoffs you people are calling for.

Leave it to the experts and stop using this tragedy as just another excuse to rail against the hated greenies and lefties. It is just obscene how many of the tory "extremist interest groups" have jumped on this disaster to further their the capmpaign of hatred and villification of anyone who actually cares for the environment or could possibly be considered "left".

‘Claimed associations’ Jennifer? Are you suggesting AEF director Tom Bostock is not a director of the Lavoisier Group? That AEF director Jennifer Marohasy (not you is it Jennifer?) does not work for the IPA, and never worked for those rent-seekers extraordinaire the Queensland Canegrowers? Do you suggest that said Jennifer did not write in 2006 that ‘we don’t need to worry about the Murray River’? That the AEF is not sponsored by multinational genetic engineers Monsanto, amongst others? I mean I got all that information from the AEF’s own web site, so it’s hardly contested.

I’m content to await the findings of the forthcoming Royal Commission about the causes of the fires, where the issue of hazard reduction burning will get intense scrutiny. But that’s not really what this post is about, is it?

No, this post is by way of a pre-emptive first strike; an attempt to blame the ‘green left’ (whoever they might be) for the fires and distract attention from the fact that these fires fit squarely within the predictions that have consistently been made by scientists who affirm the reality of anthropogenic global warming. The IPA and AEF are waging an increasingly desperate battle to discredit the mainstream majority opinion amongst scientists, so the last thing they want is for people to notice that more frequent extreme events like wildfires have been forecast to be one of the consequences of AGW. Thus they and their allies like Miranda Devine come out – without a shred of the evidence they profess to believe is at the heart of informed discussion - with this nonsense about government policies and practices being dominated by crazed greenies.

KenH and Wing Ah Ling I knew the climate change denialists were struggling to find coherent voices but if resort to mindless personal abuse is the best they can do, they are in more trouble than I thought. If you want to be taken at all seriously you would do well to respond to the points people actually make instead of abusing the green straw men inside your heads.

"political acquiescence to the pressure of city-based green lobby groups"

All the usual right wing soapboxers in there media are saying this, but nobody's yet provided any evidence.

FACT: The Wilderness society endorses controlled burning.

http://www.wilderness.org.au/files/6-point-plan-to-reduce-bushfire-risk.pdf

FACT: The Australian Greens Party have never opposed controlled burning, and in some states actively endorse it.

http://nsw.greens.org.au/policies/policy-summary-pages/bushfires

So I don't know who this shady, mysterious, all powerful lobby group is supposed to be. I suspect it's the product of an over active imagination, and one that's keen to score political points.

It's nice to see some reason finally begin to prevail in this thread. I thought I'd let the wingnut firestorm die down a bit before commenting.

The scapegoating of "greens" in the media in the immediate aftermath of the bushfire tragedy has been nothing short of shameful, but it's been hardly surprising that it's been largely orchestrated by the usual far-right anti-environmentalists.

I'm both a "green" and a member of the Greens, and I don't know anybody of similar persuasion who has opposed controlled burnoffs in appropriate areas to reduce fuel load. Indeed, I burn my own place regularly with the assistance of the local firies.

It'd be nice if some of those who've been hysterically baying for the blood of "greens" to produce some actual evidence that any of us was in the slightest bit responsible for the unprecedented firestorm. Perhaps it's a 'smokescreen' behind which the global warming denialist contingent can hide temporarily - at least until the next destructive conflagration largely attributable to climate change.