Bush Fires

this is an article i got from yahoo,

Why did so many people die? Did people get enough warning? Should authorities have forced people to leave their homes?
These questions and many more will be asked as the full extent of Australia's worst bushfires becomes clear.
And hard questions will be asked of Victoria's Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) about whether it has done enough to manage the state's forests.
Tinder-dry forests were consumed with a fury few people have witnessed before, and many people are angry there was so much fuel to burn.
As nervous Yarra Valley residents watched smoke rise from a fire on Mount Riddell outside Healesville, they placed at least some of the blame at the feet of the "greenies".
"I don't know if it's the DSE's fault," said Badger Creek resident John Hurren.
"It's the greenies' fault for letting all the forests grow up and not letting the Government clear it."
A Healesville woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she had first-hand experience of the problem.
"I used to work with Melbourne Water back in 2002, and we wanted to clear away a lot of the fuel," she said.
"During winter when the leaves fell and you could get in and see the fuel, all we could do was bulldoze the leaves and fuel down off the side of the road.
"We wanted to clear the leaves and get rid of the forests, but the greenies think because it's on the ground it should stay."
Victoria may have faced the worst bushfire conditions in its history over the weekend. High temperatures, strong winds and low humidity produced tinder-box conditions.
But in months to come, it may emerge that more aggressive forest clearing policy could have saved lives.

Is conservation policy to blame for the bushfires? i got this from the wilderness society when i voted it was 41 no to 53 yes how ever in my postcode it was 30% no and 70% yes
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22073824-5013404,00.html

hmmm.
having large areas of forest may possibly increase the risk of bushfires, i couldn't really say though as i don't know much about it, but placing all the blame on the 'greenies' is surely not right. surely the attention should first be on evacuation policies and fire plans?

Yeah.

Also, I don't know if you guys remember the field trip to the forests? But Chris was explaining about the fire-breaks there. The government has been cutting heaps of them, and selling the wood from them, but they're actually too narrow to prevent a fire spreading. All they do is increase the oxygen accessable.

A guy I work with used to work with the CSIRO, and he says we just have to expect more big fires. He says instead of having them every 100 years, with climate change, we'll have them once every 10. ick!

the predicitons are that wores bushifres will become more and more often and it will get drie and hotter. Maybe bushifres wont increase as much as thought think about this: the forest are being burned worse and more often with less water to regrown. At one point in time they just wont grown back at all or at least a lot slower. The forest cant be burned if its dead. anyway no real prove for that theroy just speculation

Yeah, blame the greenies. Nice. 'course you'd have nothing to do with it running all your hoof-footed animals through the bush. Just a little bit of self denial going on?