Bundarrah Days

LAST week I was privileged to hear a brilliant speech by distinguished Western Australian forester, Roger Underwood, to the Stretton Group. It is reproduced in full here. Read it! It answers green fanatics like Williams, Bradstock and co in great style with great knowledge.

Australian Bushfire Management: a case study in
wisdom versus folly

"One man’s wisdom is another’s folly"
Ralph Waldo Emerson


By Roger Underwood


Many years ago, still a young man, I watched for the first time the grainy, flickering black and white film of the British infantry making their attack on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. The stark and terrible footage shows the disciplined soldiers climbing from their trenches and, in line abreast, walking slowly across no-man’s land towards the enemy lines. They scarcely travel a few paces before the German machine gunners open up. They are mown down in their thousands. They are chaff before a wind of fire.

I can still remember being struck nerveless by these images, and later my anger when I realised what that calamitous carnage represented. It spoke of the deep incompetence of the Generals who devised this strategy of doom and then insisted upon its implementation. It spoke of front-line men led by people without front-line experience. It spoke of battle planners unable to think through the consequences of their plans, and who devalued human lives. It spoke of a devastating failure of the human imagination.

Worst of all, the strategies of the World War 1 Generals demonstrated that they had not studied, or that they had forgotten, the lessons of history. In the final year of the American Civil war, 50 years earlier, the Union army had been equipped for the first time with Springfield repeating rifles, replacing the single shot muskets they had previously used and still were being used by the Confederate army. The impact on Confederate soldiers attacking defenders armed with repeating rifles was identical to that later inflicted by machine guns on the Western Front. But it was a lesson unlearnt, of collective wisdom unregarded.

None of you will have any difficulty in seeing where this analogy is taking me.

The catastrophic bushfires in Victoria this year, and the other great fires of recent years in Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia are dramatic expressions not just of killing forces unleashed, but of human folly. No less than the foolish strategies of the World War 1 Generals, these bushfires and their outcomes speak of incompetent leadership and of failed imaginations. Most unforgivable of all, they demonstrate the inability of people in powerful and influential positions to profit from the lessons of history and to heed the wisdom of experience.

But just a minute, I can hear some of you thinking. Is this fellow going too far here? What about the malignant influence of global warming on bushfire conditions, making things impossible for firefighters? What about the unprecedented weather conditions on the day, making the fires of February 2009 “unstoppable”. What about the years of drought making the bush super-ready to burn? Does he not realise that conditions beyond human understanding have now arisen in Victoria, making killer bushfires inevitable? And what about the promises of technology, the super-aerial tankers and so forth, that will give the initiative to our firefighters for once and for all?

I have thought long and hard about all these issues. I am well aware of the drought, of the terrible conditions on the days of the fires, and of the view from some quarters that all of this is a result of global warming. I accept that drought and bad fire weather increase the risk of serious bushfires. What I do not accept is that “unstoppable” bushfires are the inevitable consequence. And while I will always welcome improved firefighting technology, I know from experience and from an understanding of the simple physics of bushfire behaviour, that technology can never be a substitute for good land management. The serious bushfire is like a disease that is incubated over many years; good land management is the preventative medicine that ensures the disease does not become a killer epidemic.

To me, the epidemic of recent killer bushfires in Victoria are not an indicator of what is inevitable in the future. To me, they are an indicator of the inevitable consequences of what has happened in the past. To me, these fires toll like bells: they toll for failed leadership, failed governance and failed land management.

The issues of leadership and of good governance are central to my position. What these terrible fires point to is that the leaders of our society, Victoria’s politicians and senior bureaucrats, have palpably failed to do the most fundamental thing expected of them: to safeguard Victorian lives and the Victorian environment in the face of an obvious threat. They have failed to discharge their duty of care. Just as we now look back with incredulity at the amateurish strategies of the Generals in The Great War of 1914-1918, so will future Australians look back on the work of those responsible for land and bushfire management in this country (our bushfire Generals) in the years leading up to The Great Fires of 2003-2009.

The toll of the 2009 Victorian fires is shocking. Over 200 lives - lost. Thousands of homes - destroyed. Millions of dollars worth of social and economic infrastructure - reduced to ashes. The work of generations, the farmlands, stock, fences, woolsheds, yards and pastures – dead and gone. Native animals and birds - killed in their millions. Beautiful forests – cooked, in some cases stone dead. Catchments – eroding. The costs – multi-millions of dollars. Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – the equivalent of a year’s supply for the whole of Australia. Psychological damage to children and families – uncountable.

Our bushfire Generals....... those Premiers, Ministers and senior bushfire bureaucrats in whom the people of Victoria put their trust..... can have no excuses.

They cannot say they didn’t know we have serious bushfires in Australia. This is no soft, green island where no bushfire ever burns. Australians have not arrived only recently in this hot, dry sclerophyllous land. Even if we overlook for a moment the fire management experience of Aboriginal people, accumulated over 40,000 years or so, non-Aboriginal Australians have been here for over 200 years, with 200 fire seasons, thousands of hot, dry and windy days, dozens of prolonged droughts, tens of thousands of thunderstorms, millions of lightning strikes, and hundreds of thousands of bushfires. This is no new or unique phenomenon. [Note 1]

They cannot say the impacts of intense bushfires on human communities were unimaginable. We have known for 200 years that European settlement represented the insertion of a fire-vulnerable society into a fire-prone environment. We have seen the consequences of mixing hot fires and settlements on many..... too many..... occasions, to doubt the result. [2]

They cannot say that Australians are powerless in the face of the bushfire threat, that bushfires are “unstoppable”. From the earliest days of settlement, through to the evolution of the fire management systems developed by experienced land and forest managers in the 1950s and 1960s, we have known what is needed to minimise bushfire intensity and bushfire damage [3], even under extreme conditions. From at least the 1960s we have known how to build and maintain houses in fire-prone environments so as to optimise their survival.

They cannot say that the relationships between fire and the Australian bush are still unknown. There have been 200 years of observation and records and over 50 years of scientific research on this very subject. This experience and this research has confirmed that fire is not an alien visitor, but a natural part of Australian bushland ecosystems. The right sort of fire is an agent for rejuvenation, regeneration, recycling and bushland health, a stimulus for biodiversity. Fire is to the Australian bush as are the waves and tides to Australian seaweeds and marine life. It is the absence of fire, especially of mild fire, that is the real threat to the Australian bush, because the inevitable result is a landscape-level holocaust, from which it might take a century or more for recovery.

And they cannot say that they were not warned. Warnings have emerged from the aftermath of every damaging bushfire for the last 70 years or more...... from inquiries, commissions and reports, from independent auditors and from land managers, bushfire scientists, foresters, farmers and firefighters. In recent years the warnings have come thick and fast. Magnificent books have been written on the subject [4]; there have been dozens of scientific papers and popular articles written by our very own world-respected bushfire experts like Phil Cheney. There have been detailed submissions by professional groups such as Forest Fire Victoria, the Bushfire Front and the Institute of Foresters of Australia. As recently as 2008 the Victorian Parliament undertook its own review and produced one of the best reports I have ever seen. Its key recommendations were simply...... “noted” in passing.

Can anyone say that no clear lessons have emerged from the bushfire calamities of the past? Can anyone say they are unaware of the previous fires that have burned Australian farms, settlements and suburbs, incinerated our national parks, nature reserves, rangelands and forests, or scorched our northern savannahs? Did no-one notice all those bushfires over the years that cut power supplies, burned out bridges and roads, destroyed schools, churches and hospitals, interrupted or fouled water supplies, destroyed observatories and threatened species, plantations, orchards and vineyards?

No, there is no shortage of lessons. They have even flowed in, for those who should have listened and learned, from Greece, from Portugal, and from the western United States and Canada during the last few years.

Over and over again, the same words have rung out, the same message has been sent:

1. In our climatic zone with hot dry summers and periodic drought, and with our flammable vegetation and frequent lightning strikes, bushfires are inevitable.
2. If fuels are allowed to accumulate, bushfires in eucalypt forests rapidly attain an intensity that exceeds the human capacity to extinguish them, notwithstanding the most modern and massive suppression forces.
3. Communities and economic assets in the path of high intensity fires will suffer horrible damage.
4. But! Potential damage can be minimised by application of a fire management system that incorporates responsible planning, and high standards of preparedness and damage mitigation, especially fuel reduction.
5. And! We have a choice: fires are inevitable, but we can chose to have mild controlled fires, or ungovernable infernos.



No, our politicians and bushfire generals cannot say they have not been warned. They cannot say there were no lessons to learn. They cannot say the message had not been sent.

They can only say that it was not received, or that it was received but ignored. Neither excuse is acceptable.

So what are the explanations? Why were sound messages not received, or received but not acted upon? Why, after 200 years of experience and 50 years of world-leading research, after working examples of how to set up an effective system of bushfire management have been established...... how was it possible that our political and bureaucratic leaders opted to adopt a bushfire system that does not work, that fails to protect Victorians from death, disaster and environmental calamity?

There are two answers.

1. The first is political. Put simply, in the last 25 years and when it comes to bushfire management, Australia governments have failed to govern. The focus of politicians has been on getting elected or staying in power, not in providing intelligent, tough and effective governance. This has led to political parties courting the preference votes of pressure groups and of city-based electors who are in the thrall of pressure group philosophies.



Despite the protestations of environmentalists over the last few weeks, there is no question that the influence of green activists at Federal, State and Local government levels has resulted in a steep decline in the standard of bushfire management in this country. Their influence is exemplified by two things: (i) opposition to prescribed burning for fuel reduction, resulting in unprecedented fuel build-ups in parks, forests and reserves close to population centres; and (ii) rural residential developments, in which developers and residents have been prevented or discouraged by environmentalist-dominated local councils from taking reasonable measures to ensure houses are bushfire-safe; and where people are living in houses in the bush where there is no effective enforcement by councils of building codes or hazard reduction. [5]

The situation where a Government fails to govern is, of course, made worse when communities and individuals fail to self-govern. People building houses and choosing to live in the bush also have a personal responsibility – to look after themselves and their neighbours. This responsibility, it seems to me, has also been discouraged by modern governments.

2. The second explanation is technical. In recent years many Australian bushfire authorities have been seduced by the siren call of technology. This has lured them into a fatal trap. Their assumption is that any fire can be contained so long as they get it early and then have enough hardware to throw at it. This approach arose in the United States in the years after World War 2, and is thus known to Australian land managers as “the American Approach”.



The American Approach is fundamentally flawed. Fifty years of its application in the United States and ten years in Australia has demonstrated that no force of firefighters in the world, indeed the fire-fighting resources of the world could they be marshalled into one place, can stop a crown fire in heavy forest which is generating a jet-stream of spotfires downwind, each spot fire also landing in heavy fuels, and starting new crown fires. The best and the bravest men and women, armed with the most munificent, the most magnificent and the most expensive equipment, is totally overwhelmed [6].

This is a reality that still appears not to have penetrated the Australian bushfire Generals and our political leaders. Not only have we seen the American Approach increasingly supported in this country, and then watched as it invariably fails when pitted against multiple hot fires in heavy fuels...... despite this!..... it seems to have taken on a life of its own. Every year more money is poured into the purchase of super-expensive equipment, but the outcomes on the ground just get worse. As recently as last week, Australian emergency services experts were launching new and strident calls for more and more expensive technology, completely ignoring the need for preventative measures.

Adoption of the American Approach has been accompanied by an equally disastrous institutional re-arrangement: the progressive transfer of bushfire responsibilities on crown lands from land management agencies to the emergency services. In this scenario, beloved of politicians and bushfire Generals, the focus of funding is shifted from preparedness and damage mitigation to emergency response. What this means in practice is less emphasis on fuel reduction and more on building up fleets of water-bombers, tankers, and other high tech firefighting gizmos, an enormous paramilitary force (overseen by technocrats in Head Office) whose function is to put out fires after they start... but which is doomed to failure whenever they are faced with multiple fires burning in heavy fuels under hot windy conditions.

These new and deleterious institutional arrangements persist because they are supported by powerful vested interests. The emergency services have a vested interest in maintaining a huge fire suppression machine and in making every fire – even an inconsequential fire – an emergency. I have watched over recent years as they have created a state of dependence on their firefighting forces, which, when things go bad, they cannot deliver upon. And they have encouraged the belief in the public mind that all fire is bad and has to be suppressed or avoided.

Politicians also have a vested interest in the American Approach. It is easier and simpler to finance suppression systems than damage mitigation, and they can bask in the glow of measures which are highly visible to the public and the media, and give the impression that they are doing something useful, irrespective of the fact that it will not succeed under bad fire conditions. I ask you....how often have you seen a politician lighting the first match of a prescribed burn, compared with the occasions when you see them breaking the champaigne over a newly purchased helicopter water bomber?

In saying this, I need to make an important point: I am not critical of the firefighters on the ground, professional and volunteer. I know these people, and I know them to be brave, resourceful and tough. I admire them unreservedly. But they are increasingly being asked by their own leadership to do the impossible.

But what of the assertions from groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society that because of global warming, big unstoppable bushfires are here to stay, and we might just as well get used to them. I totally reject this line of argument. It is an insult to human intelligence and to the human spirit. If the computer projections are correct and it does become hotter and dryer, this means we have to make even greater efforts at fire prevention, further improve our state of preparedness and take even more serious measures to minimise potential bushfire damage. The idea that there is nothing we can do in the face of global warming but retreat into the CFA shed and wait for the next fire to come at us over the horizon is defeatist and in the end, inhumane. And suggestions that everything will be OK if only Australians reduce their carbon dioxide emissions is surely an example of kindergarten-level thinking.

The need for mitigation of bushfire damage through fuel reduction by prescribed burning is absolutely central to effective bushfire management in dryland Australia [7]. I support the concept unequivocally, although I set some clear parameters: burning must be based on sound research into fuel characteristics, fire behaviour and fire effects; burns must be conducted professionally by trained personnel using the best-available burning guides; and every burn must be part of an overarching strategic approach, the carefully designed and constantly updated jigsaw known as the Strategic Burning Plan.

This is how it is done in Western Australia and could be done in Victoria. But even in WA the system slipped in recent years, as foresters battled to keep a fuels management program going in the face of cunning opposition from environmentalists and compliant politicians. WA has also seen an almost complete abandonment of effective bushfire management on private land over the last decade, with Local Government opting out and no-one else filling the vacuum. This is a situation people like me are trying to address as we speak. Would it not be better, we say to the WA government, to sort things out in advance, rather than after a disaster?

Nevertheless, 50 years of hard experience in Western Australia and world-class research [8] has demonstrated beyond argument that while fuel reduction by prescribed burning does not prevent bushfires, it ensures fires do less damage, and it makes them easier and safer to extinguish. In gambler’s terms, it shortens the odds in favour of the firefighter. In human terms, it means people living in bushland areas where fuels have been reduced, are less likely to be burnt to death than are people living amongst heavy fuels.

Victoria, New South Wales and to a lesser extent South Australia are years behind Western Australia when it comes to the critical business of fuels and fire management. There is a no need for new research to demonstrate the value of prescribed burning, as some academics are suggesting [9]. The need is to apply existing knowledge in a vastly expanded prescribed burning program on the lands that burn. The need is to upgrade the fire skills of field staff in parks and forests so that they can handle burns confidently and efficiently. The need is to develop comprehensive planning and control systems to ensure burning is professionally carried out, and the results are properly monitored and recorded. Above and beyond all this is the need for governments to recognise these needs, to act on them and to support their staff in the field.

And here’s the rub. Based on history, you could be excused for asking will anything change, or will we see just another revolution of the bushfire cycle? [10]

My fear is that governments, however much they make the right noises, will in the end want to stay in office, and unless things change, this will mean pandering to those who (despite their current protestations) have consistently opposed responsible bushfire management.

My fear is that the forces who benefit from the status quo will already be marshalling their resources in its defence. These will include the bushfire Generals who will not want to lose their power and influence, or to see funding going to land management (which they do not control) instead of new helicopters, water bombers and tankers (which they do).

I fear that all-knowing academics from the Fenner School of Environmental Studies at ANU, and members of the Canberra and Melbourne intelligentsia will emerge from their leafy campuses to tell us that actually there is no problem at all.... surely, everyone knows that killer bushfires are simply Mother Nature at work, or the planet’s revenge for our despicable environmentally-unfriendly behaviour. This line will be pushed over and again, helping to massage the consciences of politicians reluctant to make substantial changes to policies and practices which they think will be electorally unpopular [11].

Yes, I am fearful. But I am also hopeful (in a pessimistic way!) My intense hope is that this time things might change. Notwithstanding the whining of the effete intelligentsia, and opposition to change from the green bureaucracy, the powerful environmental groups and the emergency service chiefs, I think that this time it is going to be hard for the Victorian government to find excuses for doing nothing. In turn, I think that it is also going to be hard for State governments in NSW, SA, Tas and WA to ignore the carnage in Victoria and the fact that fingers are being pointed very directly at the politicians and their bushfire Generals.

I also think that the Federal Government might finally decide that it is high time they reviewed their approach, which is basically one of rewarding State governments for failed land management. And I think that a great many Local Governments are going to realise that the planning buck stops with them..... if they knowingly put people into danger through their town planning and environmental policies, and the people are then killed, they cannot escape accountability.

Finally, I think that this time, it will finally dawn on governments and their advisers that in the Australian bush if you do not manage fire, you cannot manage for anything else.

Think about that for a moment. In the Australian bush if you do not manage fire, you cannot manage for anything else.

It is all very well to say that the management objective for our parks, forests and reserves is “protection of biodiversity”, as most national parks agencies say these days. The trouble is, this objective cannot be achieved without first having put in place an effective bushfire management system. Where is the biodiversity today in those thousands of hectares of bushland without a green leaf to be seen, those “bare ruined choirs where no bird sings”?

It is the same in areas where the stated management priority is to protect water catchments. But to say this, and then adopt a strategy that allows fuels to build up until the day comes when the catchments are reduced to dead trees and ash - is blatantly self-defeating. And it is the same for every other land management objective, whether this be protection of aesthetics and lovely forest landscapes, protection of recreational areas, protection of commercial values and residential areas or the conservation of soil, remnant bushland on farms or threatened species.

Therefore, the first rule of land management in Australia is this: get your bushfire management right, or be prepared to lose the lot.

I started this paper with a reference to World War 1, and the futility of the strategies adopted by the Generals throughout the first three and half years of the war. It is significant that the breakthrough in 1918, the new strategy, was designed by an Australian, indeed a Victorian, General Sir John Monash. The Monash strategy was based on firstly establishing clear priorities and unambiguous objectives - he knew exactly what he wanted from amongst the options of what could be achieved. It was based on excellent planning, anticipation of difficulties and attention to detail [12]. It was based on the advice of experts, men who had been at Gallipoli and in the trenches in France and Belgium, and who spoke from experience on the ground, not from ideology. Above all, Monash was not prepared to sacrifice human lives needlessly. With all of this behind them, the troops on the ground did the rest. Monash’s new approach provided the blueprint for the end to the slaughter on the Western Front.

What Australian bushfire management is crying out for is a new General Monash, a leader who understands that the current approach has failed and is doomed to continuing failure, that the influential advisers have no front-line experience. An effective new leader will know that if we clarify and properly rank our objectives, listen to the voices of experience and the lessons of history, and act accordingly, the odds favouring success will be massively shortened.

But the great General Monash himself would not succeed without the support of Prime Ministers, Premiers and Ministers, prepared to stand firm behind him when the Wilderness Society, the Canberra intelligentsia and the ABC current affairs people gang up on him. A good response to this lot might be “Sorry, mates, we are doing what is best for Australia and Australians, based on good science, experience and the word from the people who have most to lose”. Politically incorrect, of course, but it is the approach adopted when it comes to defence of the country against external enemies and national security, and which most Australians accept in that context.

Nor will a new general succeed without legislative and policy backing to enable land management agencies to win back the ground they have lost to the emergency services. Our parks and forests agencies must be empowered and resourced to manage fuels, indeed they must be required to do so, if necessary by legislation. Australia must abandon the American Approach, replacing it with an Australian Approach, a system in which equal weight is given to prevention and suppression, rather than trying, helplessly, to pile all our eggs in the suppression basket.

For any of this to happen our political leaders need to hear from the people whose lives and assets have been sacrificed or recklessly put at risk by the failed policies of the past. It is essential that the people who have suffered demand systemic change, not just window dressing, more helicopters and overseas firefighters. Unless they speak up, there is no chance they will be heard. Politicians will take the political way out. [13]

I think we can say that the environmentalist approach to bushfire management, including reliance on aerial firefighting, has been given a very fair go. It has had a good test. Regrettably, and predictably, the results reveal that it has been a failure [14]. The excuses put forward, especially that fires are unstoppable because of global warming, are simply that: excuses. They do not allow for the capacity of intelligent humans to foresee a threat and to forestall it.

To conclude. The choices before us are straight-forward: do Australians, and especially Victorians, want our bushfire and land management planning done by professionals with front-line experience, or by campus intellectuals and ideologists? Is it smarter to manage bushfire fuels by burning them at times of our own choosing when conditions are mild, or to stand back, do nothing and risk being engulfed by fire at the worst possible time? If fires are inevitable, which is preferable: a controlled or a feral fire? And do we see humans as part of the ecosystem and plan accordingly, or do we see them as interlopers, as illegal immigrants in the Australian bush?

Do we opt for Wisdom or for Folly?

ON February 11, 2007, an article headed Face The Burning Question co-written by Dick Williams, Ross Bradstock and Bruce Esplin appeared in The Age.

It's been reviewed many times but I want to revisit it in the light of the tragic events of Black Saturday. My comments in bold.

THE large fires burning in eastern Victoria, thankfully, have been contained at last. Many believe that these fires are unnatural, disasters for the environment, and they wouldn't have happened if national parks hadn't been locked up and cattlemen kicked out of the high country. Are these views a sober appreciation of the facts? What do history and science tell us about bushfires?

Thankfully? Why thankfully when they are trying to make a case that these fires are natural and necessary?

In fact, while large areas of national park were affected, the bulk of the 2006-07 fires started in and burned through other types of land such as state forests. History shows that occasional large fires in south-eastern Australia are the norm. More than a million hectares were burnt in 2003, 1939, and 1851.

State Forest is now managed by Parks Victoria...so what's the difference? They say occasional large fires are the norm. Does occasionally mean three times in six years? You see, they had go back 152 years to find three fires that totalled 3 million hectares. Writing in March 2006 I only have to go back six years. Are these "occasional large fires " now regular or even frequent? If so, with what effect on our environment?

Large fires occur in south-eastern Australia because forests are flammable, the terrain is rugged, and most importantly because ignition, severe fire weather and intense drought conditions occasionally coincide.

Since when is the co-incidence of ignition, "severe fire weather" and intense drought more important than fuel? In 2009 we'd had drought for longer than in 2003 and 2006/07 and far more "severe fire weather" yet this year fire burnt about one third of the area burnt in each of the two previous fires? What does this tell us?

Are ecosystems destroyed by large fires? No, they are burnt and they regenerate. And they do not burn with uniform high intensity; some patches are roasted, others are lightly scorched.

Eco-systems are changed comprehensively by what has become known as "feral fire." This is a form of fire that is alien to the environment it burns in. It favours the regeneration of fire prone species.

And they do not burn with uniform high intensity; some patches are roasted, others are lightly scorched.

This is rather different from their claims about alpine grazing. In 2006 Williams et al claimed there was no difference between bushfire occurrence and severity on grazed and ungrazed land in the Bogong High Plains.

The regeneration capacity of local ecosystems is enormous. The Australian flora and fauna, from the Alps to the desert, have mechanisms that allow them to cope with, and even prosper, after large fires, provided they are not too frequent. Plants re-sprout and re-seed. Animals migrate, switch diet, and continue reproducing.

This is plainly wrong - a re-write of Australian fire ecology. Large fires on the scale of Black Saturday in dry schlerophyll forests did not occur pre-settlement. We know from historical records and Aboriginal tradition that indigenous Australians practiced regular burning across the landscape. Reports suggest that Williams himself is at present objecting to Aboriginal burning practices in northern Australia.Dry schlerophyll forest in Victoria was burnt regularly in low scale cool burns and the flora and fauna is adapted to that. Large fires were "occasional" and mainly limited to forests of Mountain Ash which burns on average one or twice a century for regeneration. These fires are "hot" due to the fact that they are occasional providing time for the build-up of massive fuel burdens. They did not spread from the mountain ash environment, however, due to the fact that the surrounding dry forests were burnt regularly in cool burns which were not hot enough to ignite the moister conditions in the wet forests. Of course it's a different story today.

This capacity has been hardened over millions of years of evolution on a flammable continent. However, the ability of Australian ecosystems to cope with occasional major fires has been compromised by clearing, ferals, fragmentation, logging and grazing.

Patent nonsense. No thinking person believes that fire in forests is affected by land that has been cleared of forest. As for forest industry, what happens after a forest is logged is the preserve of government agencies which are influenced by people like Williams, Bradstock and Esplin. If they become fire prone and suffer a loss of biodiversity that is the fault of those charged with supervising their recovery from disturbance.

We now have a major new challenge - climate change. Research, here and overseas, suggests that major fires will happen more often because of this. With this prospect in mind, we must do everything we can to protect people, property and the environment.

We already know what a lot of nonsense that is. Major fires will happen more frequently because forests carry heavy fuel burdens so obviously the threat from warmer conditions (if they arrive) will be dependent on how we manage our forests. If we manage them as William, Bradstock and Esplin advocate no one will be able to live near them safely, irrespective of climate change.

But can we eliminate these sorts of fires? Science indicates this is highly unlikely, so we need to know how to lower the risks large fires pose to the things that we value - people, property, and the natural environment. Research and experience shows this is a complicated business. It involves informed compromise and trade-offs, and the adaptation of solutions to suit local circumstances.

Don't you love it? Science indicates it is unlikely that we can eliminate major fires. What science? Their science? It seems that science is a very inexact science when it comes to fire. There's a whole body of bushfire science that is opposed to the ideas of Williams, Bradstock and Esplin. In fact, we can safely say the majority of "the science" is opposed to them. Their assertion here depends greatly on what they call "major fire" and they will change what they say constitutes major fire whenever it suits them.

Fires respond to many influences: weather, terrain, fuel and human behaviour. Our options for managing these influences are limited. We can't change the weather, at least in the short-term, but we can alter the behaviour of people and some fuels.

The first of these is fuel. Remember the equation - fire equals available fuel. We can control fuel so that the effect of the weather is more or less under control. Unfortunately, we can't control the behaviour of arsonists so we have to treat them as yet another ignition factor. And, it seems we can't control the behaviour of people like William, Bradstock and Esplin either so we have to take their lobbying into account as well.

Lowering risk may involve more cleverly targeted and increased fuel reduction burning in some forest areas - as recommended in the Victorian bushfire inquiry and Council of Australian Governments' inquiry. However, in other areas, such as alpine landscapes, frequent prescribed burning is not justified because of increased risk of environmental damage. Reducing risk may also require changes to the way we suppress fires, and how we equip the community to cope before, during and after major events.

Mountain Cattlemen have never advocated prescribed burning in alpine landscapes and the implication to be drawn from that comment is entirely wrong. Nor did we ever burn the alpine landscape. As I stated in my submission to the Senate Committee Enquiry into National Parks the real threat to the alpine landscape is wildfire emerging from the surrounding dry schlerophyll forests.

Some fuel treatments, such as grazing the high country, are simply ineffective. Grazing did not "reduce blazing" during the 2003 fires, or in 1939. After fire, stock eat the "green pick", and this hinders the natural regeneration of flora and fauna after the fires.

More lies. Grazing is effective at reducing blazing. But the simple truth is this - less grazing has a a lesser effect and it is this fact that rendered William's study on this issue pointless and dishonest. As I have said before this ploy is like batting Bradman at number 9 and complaining that he didn't hit a century. You can't say something doesn't work if you're not truly doing it. In addition, after the 2003 fires stock were not left to continue grazing alpine areas and so did not hinder any regeneration.

One thing is certain: playing histrionic blame games is pointless. It discourages us from gaining the understanding needed to solve a highly complex and poorly understood problem. Getting fire management right, rather, needs hard thought and informed choices about when and where to act.

Warning people of the outcome of the policies of these people is said by them to be the "playing of histrionic blame games." Let me remind you that this article originally appeared on 11 February 2007, almost two years to the day before Black Saturday. If warnings had been heeded then 210 Victorians may still be alive today. Nero fiddled while Rome burned and two years ago we had Williams, Esplin and Bradstock telling us that we needed to get fire management right. We had two more years of their management and what happened? Have another look at the video below!

THE fires of 2003, 2006-07 and 2009 do not come under the heading of tragic act of nature.

These were manufactured fires, born of a cynical manipulation of the natural environment where neglect does the job demanded of it by radical greens.

Manufactured fire is all about fuel. It was easy for green land managers to accomplish heavy fuel loads in our forests and they did that by implementing a program of totally inadequate fuel reduction burning.

It wasn't so easy on private farmland but the intent is plain to see. Native vegetation offsets are not about preserving native flora but about providing fuel for flames on private farmland assisted by laws and regulations against clearing fallen timber and other environmental waste.

Black Saturday was for the green movement the culmination of manufactured fire. Whilst we are not claiming that their agenda actually requires the deaths of innocent people we don't believe they won't care if it causes tragedy. It's all grist for the green mill.

What the green agenda does require is that people become so frightened or disenchanted by life in rural areas that they pack up and move back to town and the deaths of the more than 200 people who died on Black Saturday will be used as a means to end.

Even though of us who keep banging on about the dangers of the neglected bush play in the hands of green fanatics. We scare people too, even though it's not our intent.

We need to reassure people that our forests, managed as they should be, are a stable and safe environment.

There have long been fears that bushfire may become a weapon for terrorists and now it is though not in the way most would have expected. Fire has become the primary weapon of the environmental terrorists who have infiltrated our bureaucracies and control organisations such as the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA). These are the people who "stack the woodshed" and wait for a fortuitous lightning strike, a fallen powerline or even a mad pyromaniac to set our country alight.

It's interesting that the VNPA only last year recommended that native vegetation offsets on private land be doubled. What has farmland got to do with a national parks lobby group? In brief, offsets are a requirement to replace one tree with more. If you have a problem tree affecting power lines or a fence, for example, and you want to remove it then under present regulations you have to plant 30 to offset the loss of the one you removed.

In the 2008 Land Health and Biodiversity White Paper the VNPA proposed that offsets be substantially increased. These new offsets were apparently to be set by science. However, no scientific evidence was presented in support of the proposal and the cost, of course, was to be borne by landowners. That is compelling evidence of a scheme to import manufactured fire to farmland

Depending on the findings of the Royal Commission there could be a case for the laying of charges of criminal negligence and conspiracy against senior conservation bureaucrats and other leading green activists over the Black Saturday fires. I know for a fact that Melbourne lawyers have discussed the potential for the laying of such charges.

The wilderness aspirations of the green movement, the subsequent lack of fuel reduction burning and other fuel reduction strategies and the imposition of native vegetation laws on farmers and other landowners is all evidence that manufactured fire is the weapon the green movement is using to try and remove human presence from our bushland.

PARKS Victoria called today with a complaint about cattle in the Alpine National Park. They didn't get any satisfaction.

They were told that in view of their part in the tragedy of Black Saturday, now was not a good time to make veiled threats about impounding cattle or taking people to court.

Of course, it wasn't the ranger's fault. He's really not a bad bloke. It's the bureacracy that directs him that we have a problem with.

Parks Victoria needs to know that there is nothing mountain cattlemen would like right now more than to issue sunpoenas to senior parks and DSE bureacrats already have dates organised with the Teague Royal Commission.

Don't forget how our fences got burned gentlemen.

I'll be very surprised if these dictatorial green bureacrats have to guts to try and impound a few cows or issue charges. But if they do, I'll be delighted.

We've met them in court before and they would do well to remember the results. Meanwhile, they should forget their obsession with a few cows wandering around the Alpine National Park and do something to make the country safe for the sake of the environment and the people who live there. The truth is that these blokes have nothing better to do with their time than annoy the locals.

Parks Vic at Omeo have responsibilty for the country right through to the NSW border but it seems they spend the majority of their time in the Bundarrah Valley. At least the cattle are doing something useful - reducing the fire hazard - which is more than Parks Victoria has ever done.

I heard yesterday from an impeccable source that the man in the fire tower on Mt Gordon near Marysville provided his superiors with a good hour's warning of the approaching holocaust. It seems they didn't act on it nor pass the warning on to residents. Make of that what you will.

THE political storm over whether Victorians received sufficient warning of the potential for catastrophic fires on Black Saturday is missing the most important point.

That is why were warnings not backed up with action? And why were they not official?

Does the Premier actually believe that dropping a few informal sentences here and there as he did constitutes a real warning?

And were the few words Rob Hulls spoke in Parliament a real warning? I don't think so.

Victorians were not officially warned by the state government that Saturday February 7 had the potential to be the worst fire day in our history and that represents a serious failure - an official warning would have demanded to be taken seriously and to my mind would have saved lives.

It is alarming that Royal Commissioner Bernard Teague has already called the unofficial warnings impressive.

Brumby says: "I don't think there has been any circumstance that has been more publicised than the weather conditions on Saturday, February 7. I don't think we could have done more."

On the Thursday preceding the fires Deputy Premier Rob Hulls told Parliament: "Experienced fire chiefs have said that the conditions predicted, especially on Saturday, will be the worst they have seen in Victoria's history."

On the Friday morning before Black Saturday Brumby said: "I've been briefed on the latest weather forecast for tomorrow and it's going to be, probably by a long way, the worst day ever in the history of the state in terms of the temperatures and the winds."

It's not as if Brumby is God and everyone stops to listen when he makes a few informal comments on radio or television. On the other hand most people would stop and listen to a serious and official warning from the State Government.

To sum up the government claims it warned people what the conditions were going to be like. It did not. There was NO official government warning. Why were people not told their lives would be at risk if they stayed in bushfire prone areas that day?

Why wasn't a decision made to advise people to evacuate in advance of the shocking conditions? Why were there no refuges provided in safe places where people could have spent the day? And why were the warnings concerned only with the weather conditions? This government FAILED in its duty of care.

There's a very simple equation to consider here. If there is no fuel the heat and winds do not create deadly fire conditions. Fire equals available fuel.

So why were there no warnings given of the diabolical conditions of the forests which hadn't been burnt in either 2003 or 2006-07? Why were people not told that the unprecedented fuel loads combined with the weather had created a risk unlike Victorians had ever faced before.

To advise people to simply enact their fire plan on a day like Black Saturday considering the state of of our forests translates, as I've said before, as "prepare to die."

Let's review Brumby's statement again. "....it's going to be, probably by a long way, the worst day ever in the history of the state in terms of the temperatures and the winds." But not in terms of the dreadfully neglected state of our forests and the massive fuel burden, Mr Brumby?

Where was the official warning that could and should have told it as it really was:

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL WARNING FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF VICTORIA. THE FORECAST WEATHER CONDITIONS FOR THIS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, COMBINED WITH A HEAVY FUEL BURDEN IN OUR FORESTS MAY RESULT IN THE THE MOST DANGEROUS FIRE DAY IN THE HISTORY OF VICTORIA. IF YOU LIVE IN AN AREA PRONE TO BUSHFIRE THEN WE URGE YOU TO STRONGLY CONSIDER EVACUATING AS SOON AS PRACTICABLE. YOUR LIFE MAY BE AT RISK IF YOU DO NOT EVACUATE.

IT is believed that one in five people in my old town of Marysville are dead.

SATURDAY, February 7, 2009, will be remembered in Australian history as a day of the greatest infamy - a day that dwarfed the preceding bushfire tragedies of Black Thursday, 1851, Black Friday, 1939 and Ash Wednesday 1983.

The Victorian environment is no longer a game board for political greens and expediency minded politicians with votes on their minds.

It is a killing field where Victorians have been sacrificed on the altar of green environmentalism - a religion that was sold to them as a saviour and turned out to be an executioner.

For eight years I conducted horse tours in the bush around Marysville and I knew it better than most because I didn't stick to tracks - wherever possible I took people directly through the bush, interpreting it and educating them in its ways.

I knew very well that those forests were about to burn and what a terrible toll they would take when they did. So I tried, but obviously not well enough, to change things.

About six years ago I was a shortlived committee member of Marysville Tourism. I resigned because the group adopted an anti-logging stance and aligned itself with a radical green group which later organised a logging blockade in the area. At the time the group president was the manager of a well known guest house which now lies a burnt out ruin in the main street. At least one guest died there.

Around that time I also wrote an article for the local district newsheet, The Triangle, going into the background of the fire regime in Victoria's forests and how it had changed dangerously.

What little things I could do, I did. So did my friends - people like Bob Richardson of Push For The Bush, Graeme and Wendy Stoney, Charlie Lovick and Doug and Christa Treasure.

I put my cattle back on the high plains in defiance of Bracks and Thwaites. I told whoever would listen of the danger. I still have cattle in the Alpine National Park because I am not going to surrender to the negligent malfeasants who have cost us the lives of so many people.

What I and my friends did was not enough. We should have barnstormed Victorian towns and spread the message far and wide. We failed. I promise you we won't fail again.

First on my list is Bruce Esplin, Victoria's disaster commissioner whom I labelled on this blog as Victoria's Commissioner for Future Disasters. Could I have bestowed on him a more accurate title?

His head has to roll along with the decision making bureacrats in Parks Victoria and DSE. They should be charged with criminal negligence.

It's not as if no one knew of the rapidly growing and deadly peril. Anyone with experience of the Victorian bush was aware of the danger that was growing in our forests.

Scientists like David Packham, Athol Hodgson and Peter Attiwill did their utmost to help Victoria avoid last Saturday but the government wasn't listening.

In the final analysis this tragedy has not come without a lesson. Where are the massive fires one would expect to be burning right across the forests of the Victorian High Country right now. There was no lack of ignition factors, particularly on a day that reached 47C and featured heavy northerly winds.

That the vast majority of country that was burned in 2003 and 2006-07 is not burning now is not a matter of luck. It's because there is a reduced fuel load.

Australians have been lied to consistently by radical greens and their political friends. Now, it's no longer a matter of debate over forest management - it's a question of justice for all those who have died and every family who has lost a loved one.

Tomorrow Bundarrah Days will review warnings we have written over the years leading up to Saturday's disaster and invite readers of this blog to contribute to a submission to the coming Royal Commission.