Thread by @GarthGodsman

The captain of the Kurrajong Heights brigade, a man with over 50-years of firefighting experience makes it quite clear - the situation in NSW has been 20-years in the making, as catastrophic fuel loads have been allowed to build up
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires

Brian Williams, the captain of the Kurrajong Heights brigade, is quite clear - the intensity of the fires in NSW is directly related to a failure - over 20 years or more - to properly conduct hazard reduction burns.
#auspol #bushfires

Williams notes that successive governments have failed to learn the lessons of previous fires and have allowed fuel loads to increase, especially in national parks
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires

And Williams makes an important point - land management would have prevented the catastrophic nature of the fires in NSW.
#auspol #bushfires

Plus, we know the Andrews government in Victoria ignored the royal commission recommendation on hazard reduction following the Black Saturday fires.
#auspol #bushfires

I'm happy to allow that in recent years the window of opportunity to perform cool hazard reduction burns may have narrowed due to climate change, but Williams makes clear that the failure to do so in NSW goes back decades.
#auspol #bushfires

Williams says that at the current rate of prescribed burning carried out in NSW, it would take a hundred years to reduce fuel loads in at risk forests there, and that isn't because of climate change ...
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires

... it is because successive governments have given in to the greens and locked up national parks and done little of the required prescribed burning, allowed fire trails to become overgrown etc
#auspol #bushfires

Williams says they have the people with the knowledge to fix the system, but they're the people the government won't listen to
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

Brian Williams, the captain of the Kurrajong Heights brigade, and his volunteers have been fighting the Gospers Mountain fire for nine weeks now
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

'The fires we're facing now are much more dangerous than they need to be.'
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

"I'll talk about fuel loads, this fire has been building for the last 20 years. We've been burning in NSW less than 1% [a year?] of our bushfire-prone land ... so every year the fuel loads just continue to build."
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

Much of the country before it became national parks was well managed by the timber industry, because they had a direct stake in it - much of the hazard reduction burning was done by them and they maintained the fire trails.
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

But once converted into national parks, burning rates dropped and fire trails allowed to become overgrown.
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

Re climate change, Williams says you could cool the planet by 2 degrees tomorrow and it would make no difference to these fires, because it is the fuel load - built up over 20 years - that is making them so intense.
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

"If you compare the intensity of a fire in 15-year-old fuels, say compared to 4-year-old fuels, the intensity of the fire, given the same conditions, in the 15-year-old fuels will be [17? - can't quite make it out] times hotter"
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

"That's why we can't control [the fires]"
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

"At the rate we are doing hazard reduction burning it will take us more than a hundred years to treat the bushfire prone lands in [NSW] once."
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

I said a while back that given the intensity of these fires, there had to be a fuel load aspect - doesn't matter how hot and dry it is, if there's no fuel, there's no fire - but it was all 'IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE CHANGE!"
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

And you have to wonder, is climate change a convenient excuse for those responsible for running the RFS and managing bushfire prone areas and who dropped the ball on hazard reduction?
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

Does saying it's climate change allow past and present governments of both Victoria and NSW to avoid inconvenient questions about their failure to carry out enough prescribed burning, fund services properly etc?
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

And this is not to say that climate change hasn't played a part in this year's bushfires, but it is quite clear that it is simplistic to say 'this is climate change in action' or whatever.
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020

Yes, there's a challenge for @abcnews and @SBSNews - get Brian Williams on and have him talk about the lack of proper hazard reduction burning in NSW going back 20 years
2gb.com/podcast/must-l…
#auspol #bushfires #auspol2020