Bush Weapons

Had a chat last night with a passenger about the weekend bush fires which claimed seven houses. He insisted the proliferation of fires in recent times is due to changing weather. ‘Well maybe’, I told him, ‘but there’s always been bush fires around Sydney. The only difference now is they’ve become ‘super-fires’ due to reduced hazard reduction’. ‘Yes, they are bigger fires’, he agreed, ‘but the weather has been too dry to back-burn. So what’s the answer ?’.

‘Well, firstly the urban building code needed to be upgraded’, I suggested, ‘to incorporate more fire-resistance measures and materials. But until we stop siting houses next to areas with heavy fuel loads, then more lives and houses will be lost’.

Ultimately though, I suspect the day is approaching when insurance companies will simply refuse to cover houses located anywhere near bushland. Their risk assessors will insist on large buffer zones of open space rather than continue paying an increasing numbers of claims.

Yet under current council regulations it seems life and property is considered less value than that of trees. Especially eucalypts, weapons of mass destruction by another name.

UPDATE : From yesterday's The Australian...Mega-fires, arsonists and the urban sprawl.

Comments

[ymmoT]

Hi Ade,

Mate, it seems that many of the fires that occurred last weekend were deliberately lit. Maybe we should try to stop that rather than removing every eucalypt tree and replacing them with dirt, gravel or concrete as you suggest. Also, to blame "reduced hazard reduction" is very popular with conservatives because it is a chance to blame the State Government for the fires, and we know how everything bad is caused by the state governments and everything good is caused by the Federal government. I don't know how true it is that "reduced hazard reduction" is actually occuring, but I have seen lots of burn-offs occuring throughout winter as I travel regularly to Canberra. It's funny how the availability of gum trees are to blame for the bushfires but the availability of guns are never to blame for shoooting murders that occur.
Oh, and of course, global warming is a leftie, greenie plot, and obviously therefore not to blame..........
Cheers,

ymmoT

[Aurelius]

Too often, "deliberately lit" is a euphemism for "we have no idea how it started".

[steve at the pub]

I hope this day comes soon. Those of us who have houses where there has never been a fire (of anything) are very very tired of paying insurance premiums on behalf of those who build tightly in amongst the combustible forests.

Another gripe is the insistence of insurance companies that there "obviously" is heating in a house. There would not be any form of house heating possibly within 1,000km of me. (Fire started by the heater is apparently the most common cause of a house burning - log fire, bar heater, whatever)

Yet I & all my neighbors must pay insurance premiums based upon the "risk" to our homes from a "heating accident".

[adrian]

Ymmot, get with the program mate. Everyone knows what really happened. The Canberra fires were the result of weather manipulation by the authorities, a form of eco-terrorism using scalar weaponry.

[fireman sam]

most bush fires are started by arsonists,and most of them are in the rural fire service also some bush fires become bigger and last longer because of poor fire fighting options by the above fire service,as for global warming what a load of hogwash look into history and you will see that thoughout the earths long history it has gone though many changes from very hot to very cold times,thats how the specis of the planet evolves we must relise just as the dinosaurs we humans are a specis that will one day be extinct with another form of life taking over our role.

[ymmoT]

Fireman sam: I think you are flogging a dead horse to try to deny global warming and climate change. Yes, everyone knows that the world has had a number of ice ages, and that temperature changes over time. That in no way means that global warming due to human activity is not happening. It is happening and almost all scientists agree. Even George Bush now concedes that human activity is causing global warming. Mate, youy just look sillier and sillier as you try to deny the reality.

Adrian, I had a look at your link. Those bloody North Koreans........... Why don't we invade North Korea? They have all the pre-requisites - weapons of mass destruction (including scalar weaponry), murderous dictator, no links to 9/11, etc, etc. Definately more of a threat than Saddam ever was, eh?

Cheers,