I would like to comment on the letter written by W Hamilton from Legume in Freetimes 18/10/12. I agree the permit system in a lot of cases is not really helping people do hazard reduction. With bureaucracy making fire officers become paranoid, a lot of people are being frightened and will not burn off.
In the Stanthorpe area, I think the officers are not paid but, with the cost of the damages and man power required by bushfires in the summer, I think there should be a highly trained group of people that are well paid to work through the months of July and August to do hazard reduction. The fire officers doing it now mostly have day jobs and there is no way they can put the time required into the task for a district, as in most cases they have to stay on duty well into the night to safely accomplish their task.
My father always had a fire burning on the farm wherever he was working when the conditions were right, in the cold months of winter, to keep our farm safe. He had the experience of seeing a fire raze a neighbouring property, with only a rabbit getting out alive. Some of the problem is caused by ignorant greenies who think burning off is really bad because of the destruction it causes. In a lot of cases their influence has caused changes to people’s attitudes to burning off; they are therefore responsible for the utter devastation that W Hamilton refers to. Their good intentions doing totally the opposite. A slow fire in the cold months in Stanthorpe allows most of the flora and fauna to survive.
R Johnson
The Summit
