“IT is too late to leave, you need to take shelter in your home and actively defend it.”
That’s part of a government warning issued today to residents in the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River in south western Western Australia. Twenty homes have already been lost.
Roger Underwood, Chairman of The Bushfire Inc, an organization devoted to improving the standard of bushfire management in Australia, has been warning of potential disaster for many years. At the organisation’s website, Underwood explains:
“For a 25 year period after the 1961 Dwellingup fire there was a comprehensive fuel reduction program in WA forests that gave us a very high level of protection from serious bushfires. Up until about 1985 the majority of the jarrah forest, for example, was burned by low intensity fires every 5-7 years to keep fuel loads down. After that time, the fuel reduction burning program fell away badly and the area of bushfires began to rise. Now, about half the forest area will support an uncontrollable crown fire – a tragic situation.
“There is a similar situation on private land in the South West of the State. For about 25 years the Bush Fires Board and volunteer brigades carried out a vigorous fuel management program, which maintained low fuel loads in rural areas. When the functions of the Bush Fires Board were taken over by FESA, this program also fell away, as FESA’s prime focus is fire suppression, not fuel management.”
The Australian landscapes needs to be actively managed to keep it safe and biologically diverse. This reality is not understood by many of those currently responsible for the development and implementation of land management policy, not just in Western Australia, but across Australia. This reflects a broader myth within the Australia community that when people are excluded from landscapes they will revert to a natural state, a natural order. But none exists.