The one lesson we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. Was it Confucius that claimed someone was always to blame? This time it's fires.
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As the stress levels rose the offenders increased; raving lunatics, climate change, greenies, the Labor Party, hazard reducers, fire stick farmers, lack of aircraft and even the suns magnetic field got a run? The only thing not mentioned was the weather.
The lesson I learnt was: at 10 per cent relative humidity, given an ignition source, everything burns.
The Glen Innes mayor is reported to have said "the air was burning".
At 10 per cent RH, volatile gasses from eucalypts, smoke and carbon particles ignite, everything burns.
Humans love to be 'in control' and when we are not, it is cataclysmic. Our little furry critters are rarely in control, it's eat or be eaten out there and we fear being eaten.
The RFS, even with their $400 million budget, can't seem to get a grip on it because nature can be a cruel master.
When one goes down it tosses another at us. We are all in it till the end, whether we like it or not and I'm not sure it will get many likes.
So I thought I might add a herring in the debate. NSW is 809,444 square kilometres, that is 81 million hectares. National Parks are 7 million hectares and state forests are another 2 million hectares; 9 million hectares.
Who owns the other 72 million hectares?
There are lakes, dams, roads, local and state government areas and commonwealth land but I think most of the rest is owned or leased by us. We the people.
Let's be realistic, nature is a brutal master, these cataclysmic weather events happen a couple of times a decade in our wide blackened land, mid 70s Goulburn, Black Saturday, Ash Wednesday, Canberra 90s, Sydney 90s?, Blue Mountains every decade or so and Watkin Tench in 1792.
We should prepare, have our plan, fight like the devil and when that day comes, sometimes, just sometimes, there is nothing we can do but preserve life, look after and lookout for each other and wait.
At the moment I have no answers.
Thanks to the RFS, CFA, police, pilots, aircrew and others in the fight.
I think and it may seem strange to some, we need to glimpse beauty for a few minutes, so please, when it is safe to leave the dust and smoke, go to your art gallery and immerse yourself in something that reminds us of who we are and what we are about.
