Dry weather doesn’t usually lead to more bushfires but it does increase the size, ferocity and danger of the fires we do have.
In my part of Queensland as I write this article, it is very, very dry, certainly the driest in living memory and it may be as dry as the infamous ‘Federation Drought’ of 1898 to 1903.
As a Rural Fire Brigade member I get to see some big fires.
Horrendous hot fires
In this part of Southern Queensland, we tend not to see the horrendous fires Victoria and South Australia have, nor do we often see the fires which cause so much destruction in the Royal National Park or the Wiseman’s Ferry regions of New South Wales, not often anyway.
The fires west of Bundaberg earlier in the year were truly frightening and much blame has been placed on the State Government’s tree clearing and fire break legislation for the fire being so hard to bring under control.
Hazard reduction is difficult when legislation prevents better management options but I’m not going down the path of blaming anyone, fires are a natural part of the Australian environment and as Captain James Cook wrote in his diary in 1770 as he sailed north along the Australian coast,
“and a point or head land, on which were fires that Caused a great Quantity of smoke, which occasioned my giving it the name of Smokey Cape.”
Local fires
Recently I’ve attended some larger fires in the Cullendore area on the Queensland/NSW border south-east of Warwick and another not too far away in the Girraween National Park north of Wallangarra. Both were brought under control by back-burns but posed some serious situations until fire crews had worked their ‘magic.’
Hot fires like those seen recently in Victoria and Central Queensland do a lot of damage, not only to homes and infrastructure, but to the natural environment as well.
The natural environment
The excessive heat burns into the soil where roots and seeds lie waiting for rain and destroys them. Worms, grubs and their eggs are also lost to the heat whereas cold-burn fires in the cooler months, the ones we use for hazard reduction, don’t do anywhere near the same damageunderground.
Some native tree species like ironbark which is common where I live and the many eucalypt varieties, come back very quickly after a normal fire but an intense fire will kill or burn out many of those trees to the stage where they die.
It is however, wonderful to walk through a burnt-out area and see how the new growth emerges from the tree trunks, shrubs and soil.
New life
The new grass fascinates me as it struggles up to the surface and green shoots appear everywhere. New life returns to the bush, soon there are insects, lizards, birds and the smaller native animals, not long after comes the possums, koalas and kangaroos too.
The grass draws my attention as new life emerges. It reminds me how our life can change dramatically after we accept Jesus into our lives, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 22-24 (ESV), “ to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
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John Skinner is a retired journalist who has written nine biographies on famous campdrafting competitors. He was an Australian infantry soldier wounded in Vietnam, served six years as a Police Officer, was CEO of the then Australian Rough Riders Assn (Pro-Rodeo based in Warwick, Qld). He and his wife Marion retired to a small farm 25km south of Warwick 20 years ago. They have three children and now seven grandchildren.
John Skinner served as an infantry soldier in Vietnam then the Tasmanian Police before taking up the position of CEO of the Australian Rough Riders Association (professional rodeo based in Warwick Qld). Before retirement to his small farm, he was a photo-journalist for 25 years. He is married with 3 children and 7 grandchildren.