reading, listening, thinking…
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009(this is a copy of a message I wrote today to a local yahoo group, since I actually wrote something I think I should use it as much as possible!)
I’ve been reading, listening and thinking about our own personal situation wrt to bushfires as we live in Selby near the top of a north facing hill. Not the best place to be on a total fire ban day with a strong north wind!
I am an fan of the radio program Late Night Live but am usually a week or so behind (I’m a “poddy” not a “glady”). Last Wendesday (22nd july) Philip Adams had Robert Manne and Frank Campbell as guests in a discussion titled “Black Saturday: Bushfire strategy in ruins”.
The two guests are both of the view that the CFA, Police and others failed badly and that the whole idea of leave early or stay and defend is outdated and dangerous. I found the discussion to be quite good but left me feeling uneasy and not really agreeing with them. The two things that worried me most were:
- it seemed to be a case of 20/20 hindsight
- There was no real conclusion. If you don’t leave early or stay and defend, what do you do?
They made the point that there were warnings of how bad the conditions were going to be, but I feel that we get those sort of “dire” warnings all summer. Which do you believe and which not? Do you leave home every time there is going to be a total fire ban day? If I thought I needed to do that then I shouldn’t be living there in the first place. (there were 9, 8, 10, 11 and 10 TFB days for the 2003-2004 to 2007-2008 seasons)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2632244.htm
I’ve also been reading Paul Collins’ excellent book “Burn” over the past few weeks. Highly recommended if you haven’t already read it.
http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/book/burn-the-epic-story-of-the-bushfire-in-australia/5786997/
Other things I have been reading about and looking at are bushfire sprinkler systems for the house and fire bunkers but more on that later.