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Monday, January 23, 2006
Victorian Fires Claim Three Lives A BLACKENED and charred Victoria has begun counting the cost of this week's fires as the statewide blaze tragically claimed three lives yesterday. News of the deaths was as predictable as it is tragic. And with extreme weather conditions forecast for later in the week the worst may still be to come. A father and his 13 year old son were burned to death near Moyston in the Grampians when they were overtaken by flames after their vehicle ran off the road and a firefighter was killed when his truck overturned near Yea. And, in confirmation of a story I wrote for the Save Our Snowy blog on Sunday the Country Fire Authority has warned that the Glenburn fire is threatening Melbourne's water catchment. While Victorian Premier Steve (Fire) Bracks mouthed empty and hackneyed stock phrases about the bravery of firefighters he has had nothing to say about the future management of public land. The events near Pomononal make a harrowing story. The victims were incinerated after their attempt to outrun the blaze was ended when their white Magna sedan ran off the road, the driver's eyes probably blinded by smoke. They laid back the seats and hoped in vain as the fire swept over them from behind. No one can imagine what they endured in those final moments. This calamity takes my mind back to Ash Wednesday in 1983 when I sat out the fires at Avonsleigh in The Dandenongs looking down on Cockatoo as fireballs swept over the township. I was a young reporter for the ABC at the time and I saw the aftermath the next day when the bodies of 13 firefighters were found at Upper Beaconsfield. You hope against hope that it never happens again, but it does, and one doesn't need prophetic abilities to predict the outcome of green management policies. It is inevitable. A coronial inquest will be held into yesterday's deaths and let's hope that public land managers will finally be held to proper account. These fires have already burned more than 136,000 ha and killed an estimated 5000 sheep and 1000 cattle. Victoria's bushland in high summer is a dangerous place at the best of times but locked up and left to its own devices it is a critically explosive environment and a constantly menacing threat to country communities. Steve (Fire) Bracks and John (Twitter) Thwaites must now acknowledge the deadly nature of their management policies and implement a regime that puts as much effort into preventing bushfires as it does into fighting them. Fire suppression is not successful when the fuel load is extreme and that fact has been demonstrated time and time again. Have no doubt, however, that nothing will change. The Labor government will trot out its usual coterie of green scientific advisors who will conduct field studies and experiments galore all aimed at proving that the blackened and charred landscape of Victoria only looks like it was burned but really wasn't. Philip Maguire blogs at Bundarrah Days http://bundarrahdays.blogspirit.com Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Great Divide at 1:51 PM |
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