It is only November, but 2019/20 is already shaping up as Australia’s worst bushfire season since 2009. The horrible fires in NSW have captured the headlines to date, but only the most foolish observer would suggest they will not be followed soon enough by more big, damaging bushfires in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and possibly Western Australia. These follow-on from the roll-call of shocking fires in eastern and south-western Australia over the last 15 years.
Bushfire management in Australia reached its peak of effectiveness and efficency between about 1975-1990. But despite all the technical innovations since then, the huge expenditure on water bombers and the vast armies of firefighters with their wondrous equipment, the bushfire situation (especially in the eastern states) has regressed to the situation that prevailed in the 1950s. Whenever bad fire weather occurs in conjunction with drought, unstoppable fires ravage the bush. In other words, it’s a typical Third World scenario: almost nothing is done about repetitive and wholly predictable disasters … until after they strike.
How this situation has arisen in a naturally bushfire-prone country like Australia is mystifying, Yes, our political leadership has been gutless and ineffective, cow-towing to pressure groups, putting the winning of elections in front of looking after the country. But worse than that is the prevailing community ignorance about bushfire science, the failure to study centuries of history and human experience, and the way in which green ideology has infiltrated our government agencies and poisoned government policies.
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See Also:
(1) While Australia burns, the world watches our credibility go up in smoke
(2) 16-year-old taken in for questioning over bushfires as fourth person found dead
(3) Australia Enters Era Of Catastrophic Fires
(5) Australia in ‘uncharted territory’ with bushfire risk this summer, with the worst yet to come
