Laws are perhaps best left to areas where there are victims but intrusions into what one can consider private occur. Say with an issue such as banning lighters there are victims so that type of rule making would seem ok ...such a law may simply make it illegal to carry a lighter in public or even to restricted areas...no lighters in National Parks would seem reasonable for example during total fire bans.
Will it help? A little maybe...but if you have some drunken campers how good would it be to know you could arrest them if they had a lighter...
But there must be other ideas just as radical as banning lighters in National Parks during total fire bans.
As with all things any idea or approach needs thought and consideration as to who will be effected and how that new law must fit the current law.
I'm sorry, but banning lighters is not radical. It is impractical and downright silly.
A camper or bushwalker can start the same fire with a piece of glass, a match, a stick and some dry leaves and a rock, a fire can be started by one spark when the conditions are as they are now - two rocks struck together with force can start a fire if there's a spark... Just as a person who lives near bushland can start a massive bushfire if they mow their lawn and they nick a rock with the mower blade, causing a spark.. Are you going to arrest people for mowing their lawn too? Which would be insane as during fire season is quite essential if you live near bushland to reduce the fire load surrounding your property..
I have had a great deal of experience with fires, enough to know they are not a recent invention, and that what is needed first up is a better back burn system.
The one in 1994 was the worst...unbelievable ... Burnt everything...We had to live on my boat while it was threating the houses and what looked like bare rock cliffs were on fire..at least every little clump of grass or tree...and one would fall and the fire would follow until everything was burnt to the water line. We were lucky as the fire reached our community at night with no wind and we saved the place with a cleared path one meter wide running the length of where the houses were.. if it came during the day everything would be gone.
And witnessed a three hundred foot diameter fire ball rotating such that it looked to be alive ... And funny twelve months later everything had regrown.
Much of Australian bush does not mind a fire.
I'm going to stop you right there.. You have kept referring back to the 1994 fires as though they were the absolute worst, while being somewhat dismissive of the current bushfires we are experiencing.. Because 1994, "
heck, that was a fire" huh? As though the current horror we are experiencing is not that bad.
You keep saying the
1994 fires were the worst?
The 1994 Eastern seaboard fires were bushfires in New South Wales, Australia between August 1993 and 16 January 1994 were widespread along the NSW coast from Bega to the Queensland border and inland as far as Bathurst. Also Over 80 separate fires encouraged by extreme hot dry and windy conditions threatened many areas including the major cities of Newcastle and Sydney. The fires killed four people and burnt out over 800,000 hectares (2,000,000 acres). The fires across the state destroyed 225 homes in total
The 1994 fires burned for around 5 months. 2 million acres lost, 225 homes lost in total in NSW. 4 people killed. They were horrendous.
The current bushfires in
NSW alone:
As of 18 November, 1,650,000 ha (4,100,000 acres) has been burnt, more than the past 3 fire seasons in total. 476 homes have been destroyed since the start of the bushfire season.
The fires in NSW started in September.. So just over 2 months.. It has burnt twice as much forest and land, destroyed twice as many houses. And it has killed 6 people. And that's just for NSW. QLD is also burning.
The problem we now face is that the fire season is now much longer. For us in QLD and Northern NSW, it's starting in August. Usually, August through to October is when they do back burning to reduce the risk of these fires being what they are now. But they can no longer do that, because conditions have changed so drastically.
And you say the Australian bush does not mind a fire? Down south, sure. Rainforests can take 100 years to recover.. And what we have lost, will most likely never be the same again in my part of the world.
