To: The Sydney Morning Herald

Sent: Tuesday, 15 January 2002 2:47 PM

Subject: burn, baby, burn...

Writing amid the sound of at least five fire engines going past me on the [main road], amid smoke and the first fallout of cinders from a fire started late this morning (15-1-02) in a bush block some 800 m from our own smallholding at XXX, I'd like to offer the following candid comments. Perhaps they may help to hose down the hysteria now leading both the populace and politicians to dream up ever more misguided measures relating to bushfires.

It is all very well for laws that let fire brigades enter private lands unbidden to burn off 'protectively', or for radio campaigns to call on people to 'dob in a firebug', but what we really need is a shift in perceptions and
attitudes. In addition, property owners should not be permitted to 'benefit' from the results of an 'accidental' fire. This goes for the owners of historic city properties as well as for developers and landholders in general in the bush. If for example, we had in place legislation requiring owners of a National Trust-listed city building to rebuild the property to the status quo ante, there would be a lot fewer unexplained fires gutting such buildings.

Incidentally, today's fire is one of several that have been lit, preferably during periods of fire bans, on or near properties that forms part of land listed in a recent local development control plan as "future urban". It takes little imagination to devise ways to foil the possible circumvention of Tree Preservation Orders by way of land-clearing using bushfires.

Similarly, if the National Parks & Wildlife Service made it abundantly clear to adjoining landholders that in the event of a fire, the NPWS' first priority would be to protect the vastly more important asset of the
ecosystems to be preserved as part of the natiional estate, fewer fires would occur in our parks and state forests. From anecdotal evidence I gather that the prevalent opinion 'on the land' is that "if the NPWS isn't doing its job, we'll do it for them" - burning off, that is.

The attendant shift in perceptions that is needed is perhaps more difficult to achieve. We must learn to see the larger picture rather than focus almost exclusively on private property and its protection. A propos of which: I
better start packing a few essentials such as documents and family albums before I dash out to see why a helicopter has now joined the fire-fighting effort.

NB: Dear Mr Carr, please reconsider the decision not rpt not to buy one of the "Elvis"-type units - they might still come handy, and cheap at the price if you use them wisely... Perhaps the insurance industry will help fund or
operate them?