Hazard reduction

This ABC Factcheck article on the matter of hazard reduction burns for bushfires is pretty detailed, and (as I would have expected) strongly indicative that there is not a fundamental problem of Greenies gone berserk and ruining all attempts at hazard reduction under the current system.

Why would I say "as I would have expected"?   Because, in case you hadn't noticed, it is primarily politicians on the Right, and their culture war warrior commentator supporters, who immediately start complaining about it whenever bushfires start.   It's remarkable, in fact, how conservative commentators who rarely get out of the city are suddenly armchair experts on how much fuel has been left in the forests and how bad those damn Greenies have let it get.   (They appear to have found one case of small scale environmental protest that interfered with one hazard control burn in the last couple of years, as far as I can tell.  From that, they just know that it's all about Greenies interference.)

Seems to me, using my common sense, that if it were a serious issue, the experts in the field (metaphorically, not literally) and the people who manage forests and hazard reduction would be the ones complaining about it.   By and large, they aren't.

Update:   a useful Twitter thread to read by someone with clear knowledge of the system.

Also - Jack the Insider also disputes the "Greenies caused all of this" fake excuse.

While there are environmental groups who campaign to restrict hazard reduction burns, in terms of political representation, there are 1273 councillors in New South Wales. Only 58 of them are Greens. There are no Greens on my local council and not one in the state government. In the Shire of Wingecaribbee, it’s a raft of independents, many National Party aligned, pock-marked with the odd property developer. It is hardly Leichhardt at 600 metres above sea level.

While I can’t speak for the rest of the country, I decided to go to the source, the local RFS, who tell me the real difficulty in hazard reduction burns is the country is so dry. Two consecutive winters with rainfall well below average make hazard reductions well, hazardous.

There was a furore in April 2018 when NSW Fire & Rescue performed a controlled burn in Hornsby which threatened homes as far south as Curl Curl and blanketed Sydney in smoke haze. Do people not remember this?

And let's not forget Graham Readfearn's earlier Factcheck article in The Guardian which I had previously linked to, containing quotes such as:

A former NSW fire and rescue commissioner, Greg Mullins, has written this week that the hotter and drier conditions, and the higher fire danger ratings, were preventing agencies from carrying out prescribed burning.

He said: “Blaming ‘greenies’ for stopping these important measures is a familiar, populist, but basically untrue claim.”