22/02/2009

Today, Australia has been celebrating a day of mourning for the dead. Recent disastrous bushfires in Australia’s Victoria state, the worst ever, have killed more than 200 people and shocked the nation.

With extreme ferocity and speed, exploding eucalyptus trees and flaming grass raced across the rolling landscape, killing all in their path—people and animals—and reducing human habitation to smoking ruins.

Now the Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, old enough to know better, has pledged solemnly that the razed towns and settlements will be rebuilt, brick by brick and street by street.

The song says that “There is no place like home.” Perhaps that emotional response in the population and in the government has forced the leader to make such a ludicrous commitment to a ludicrous idea. It is certainly not a logical response.

Another saying well says, “Those who play with matches get their fingers burned.” If you insist in building your house under explosive gum trees in a country where bush fires are normal, regular and devastating, and the temperature is steadily rising, you will be burned to the ground one day.

Australians love living in the bush, but it is the death of them. If they must live there, why not declare every town a total firebreak, with no trees and no grass within a wide circle, and install automatic sprinklers on every roof and outhouse to quench flying embers?

Better still, they should walk away from places like Marysville and Kinglake and find safer places for their towns.