The Volunteer Firefighters Association (VFFA), the body representing the Voice of Volunteer Rural Firefighters in New South Wales, refutes the claim by green alarmists that climate change is the cause of the recent bushfires in New South Wales.
"It’s ridiculous to blame climate change when we know there has been far worse bushfires stretching back to the earliest days of European settlement in Australia including the Black Saturday Victoria 2009, NSW Bushfires 1994, Ash Wednesday Victoria 1983, Blue Mountains NSW 1968, Black Tuesday Hobart 1967 and Black Friday Victoria 1939," said Peter Cannon, President of the VFFA.
The VFFA is angered by comments from the green lobby groups that tackling climate change was more important than prescribed burning of forest fuels to reduce bushfire risk. The real blame rests with the greens and their ideology as they continue to oppose and undermine our efforts to conduct hazard reduction in the cooler months and to prevent private landowners from clearing their lands to reduce bushfire risk.
Hazard reduction is the only proven management tool rural firefighters have to reduce the intensity and spread of bushfires and this has been recognised in numerous bushfire enquires since the Stretton enquiry into the 1939 Victorian bushfires.
"The amount of ‘green tape’ we have to go through to get a burn approved is beyond frustrating," says Peter Cannon.
The VFFA is calling on the NSW State Government to reduce the amount of green tape involved in planning and conducting hazard reductions, so that our Volunteer Firefighters can get on with the job of conducting fire prevention works in the cooler months to prevent the inevitable summer bushfire disasters that are now becoming a more regular feature.
The NSW State Government must also provide sufficient funding for bushfire hazard reduction works on a planned and sustained basis, including the creation of asset protection zones and upgrades of all fire trails in high bushfire risk areas.
"Remember that it’s far more cost effective, say around 66 to 100 times more cost efficient, to prevent wild fires through hazard reduction than it is to have reactionary fire response, which is what we have at the moment. With the great number of lost homes and decreasing property values through these wild fires, what then will the total fiscal amount be… when it could have all been prevented by effective Hazard reduction."
Mr Cannon says, "The area treated by prescribed burning on bushfire prone lands needs to be increased from the current level of less than 1% per annum to a minimum of 5% per annum, as recommended by the Victorian Royal Commission and many leading bushfire experts."
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This is a media release from the VFFA made on October, 30, 2013.
Luke,
Green viewpoint influenced by external greens. Either way it doesn't really matter which they were, by withdrawing support we couldn't burn as we couldn't guarantee that their property would not be burnt. Topography is important in these things.
Come the height of summer, a lightening storm started a fire in the area in question and the whole lot went up. The most vocal of the whingers was the green who withdrew his support. His block went up with the uphill run of the fire. No one had any sympathy for the fool.
Stewie, seems like yer local council has the guvuhmint master-servant relationship
topsy-turvey, fergittin' who funds them. Tsk!
Well yes Robert,
That's correct.
Forestry, timber collection, grazing, slashing, grading, camping and recreational use etc have all been systematically demonised and banned around large swathes of the Murrumbidgee Valley....so no one who would have made sure that fire breaks, fuel loads, fire trails etc were being responsibly maintained are allowed in these areas anymore because as Luke claims....whatever the dreadful emergency was back then .... it was all their ignoramus, redneck fault....and our 'green betters' as you call them....had to take over!
They're now moving into the phase of 'crying 'poor mouth' when in reality most of these tasks can be adequately and responsibly carried out by the people who actually have 'skin in the game' and who actually know what needs to be done and who actually understand when those seasonal windows are open and who actually have the mindset, experience and equipment to get it done on time!!!!
It would a fabulous material for a 'Yes Minister' script, but it isn't just ridiculously ironic, it's bloody dangerous!
In my district there are two aboriginal communities and every year the land around them is burnt. The forest has green grass and beautiful patches of grasstrees. I don't know whether they get permits or not but they burn off every year.
Deb, in the spirit of reconciliation I'd urge you to be more understanding of Greens. They are known to have difficulty detecting heat and humidity, even in extreme conditions on the UHIs which they mainly inhabit. Many can be seen wearing scarves in midsummer, especially the males.
On a less compassionate note, while green thinking is the excuse and underpinning, much inaction is due to the lack of funds, resources, profit imperative, as well as fragmentation of responsibility. Fire trails become relics once you have no timber trucks. I have forest all around me, mostly regrowth with some nice seeders and choice inaccessible pockets. While our local authorities aren't too bad and we have a terrific hippie fire brigade, we actually have to rely on some local arson to make buffers. Yet if a good fire regime was combined with shooting and baiting of wild dogs and cats our forests - while never being "natural" or "pristine" - could become wonderful places for native animals and humans. (I'm told that the fire abatement as practised by aborigines in the north is funded and considered an emissions reduction. Wouldn't know or care about that, but great to see the murris doing their thing.)
Anyway, the cost and trouble will be enormous, and good conditions for control burning, as Deb points out, can be very brief. Still, if we pulled the subsidies on whirlygigs and burgled that silly Direct Action fund...