A Tale of Two Cities !

 The summer of 2020 was a fire scene Australia will not forget.  A lot of people lost their homes and there were considerable numbers of lost lives.  Raging fires overwhelmed country towns and in many cases people had to wade into the sea or a nearby lake to shelter from the flames.

That was a Time when evacuation orders were broadcast and many homeowners needed to make a decision.  " Flee, or stay and try and defend their home ".  It was not an easy decision and those that decided to flee often found escape blocked by burning trees falling across access roads

It was a time of deadly chaos.  It hampered the movement of the thousands of fire trucks fighting the fires and brought the scene of long lines of cars stalled on state highways, sometimes for days at a time.  This was a fire season that started earlier than usual and lingered into early autumn.

The aftermath has been a slow recovery. Many victims are still living in caravans or sheds and the rebuilding is proceeding slowly, but thought is turning to the future.  That is the sort of fire season we can expect in the future  because of global warming. It is interesting to compare the actions taken by two of the east coast states which bore the brunt of those 2020 fires.

Victoria acted decisively and ordered that trees be removed to create  a forty metre clear area on both sides of its road system.  This was swiftly achieved and it is now unlikely that future fires will cause road closures.  Roads in Victoria now present a firebreak which make bushfires easier to locate and control and there is the added bonus for drivers of better sight lines and general visability.  The hazard of trees close to a road as the point of impact in an accident have been removed.

In New South Wales exactly the same procedure was ordered by the Transport Minister, but the only outcome was a few fire damaged trees cut and removed.  On most roads, mature trees remain as close as a metre from the road surface, with branches sometimes protruding over the roadway.

The civil servant responsible for carrying out the minister's orders got the sack and is claiming that the state lacks the legal power to clear land on both sides of every highway under its control.   In many cases this was privately owned land and there was the issue of protected animals  which needed to cross freely to maintain healthy bloodlines.

The sheer volume of land to be cleared was also seen as an obstacle..  To clear a forty metre area on each side of the NSW road system would involved an area of 104,000 hectares.  Putting that to terms a layman could understand, it would be the equivalent of 145,000 football fields.

What the people of eastern Australia need to understand is that one state bit the bullet and overcame these claimed problems.  As a consequence, their roads are safer from bushfires and a lot safer for general motoring.

In New South Wales nothing positive has been achieved and the issue is simply bogged down in recriminations.  Whether we will ever see that clear area on each side of the road system is now a moot point.