Living with the fires - an Australian dilemma

Tim Moore lost all of his possessions in the fires near Margaret River in Western Australia last spring. Picture / Kathy Marks

Small blazes are seen as a way of controlling the big ones ... but sometimes it goes wrong

While visiting Australia in 1836, a young Charles Darwin rode across the Blue Mountains and was struck by the scars in the landscape. He wrote in his diary: "I scarcely saw a place, without the marks of fire, whether these may be more or less recent, whether the stumps are more or less black, is the greatest change, which breaks the universal monotony."

Ever since Europeans colonised the world's most fire-prone country, they have been arguing about how to live safely alongside fire. In recent decades, the main tool has been "controlled burning" - incinerating forest undergrowth to reduce the spread and intensity of wildfires. But the practice has always been controversial, and a burn which blazed out of control last spring near Margaret River, in Western Australia, destroying 41 properties, has re-ignited the debate.

Last week, a public inquiry into the fire in the tourism and winery region concluded that the state's Department of Conservation (DEC) - which carried out the burn - had underestimated the risks.

Locals such as Tim Moore, who lost all of his possessions, were unimpressed. Compensation offered by the Government would "fall way short of replacement for the goods and homes people have lost", he said.

Moore's teenage daughter, Amber, was at home in Gnarabup, a coastal hamlet west of Margaret River, on the day of the fire. As the flames approached, she joined a convoy of residents evacuated by police.

Moore, 50, who had been out of town, was stopped at a roadblock and - to his frustration - prevented from returning home.

"I've got stacks of fire knowledge, and my house was very easily defendable," he said.

The civil and structural engineer led the way through a series of blighted rooms where molten lumps - a hairdryer, a bicycle frame - hinted at snuffed-out domesticity. "This was my computer," he said, crouching in the rubble. "I was waiting for a technician to come and pick it up and give it a service."

He crunched across his scorched back lawn. "That was a passionfruit and tomato plant. The passionfruit was just starting to climb the trellis."

One of Moore's neighbours, Chris Selby, sought refuge on the beach, where 50 or so residents huddled under the boat ramp, wet towels over their heads. The fire roared past them metres away, singeing the dunes and skimming the carpark behind.

"You could feel the intense heat, and the smoke was quite overwhelming," said Selby, whose house was saved by water-bombers.

While controlled burns rarely escape quite so spectacularly, some scientists question whether the practice reduces the danger of catastrophic fires significantly.

Kevin Tolhurst, senior lecturer in fire ecology and management at the University of Melbourne, says the effects of "fuel reduction" are mainly apparent in mild weather, rather than in the severe conditions characteristic of the biggest fires.

Tolhurst also says over-emphasis on burning can distract from the need for better planning, house design and communications.

Controlled burning also has the aim of maintaining the health of plants and animals which have evolved with fire, and in some cases require it to reproduce. Proponents say that frequent, low-intensity burns emulate the fire regimes of Aborigines before colonisation.

But environmentalists believe they harm biodiversity, arguing that many species cannot tolerate the forest being burnt so often.

After the 2009 Victorian bushfires, some pointed the finger at environmentalists, who were described as "eco-terrorists waging jihad" against controlled burning.

The Royal Commission urged the state to burn far more of its public land - national parks, state forests and conservation reserves.

The call was applauded by David Packham, former principal bushfire scientist with the CSIRO, the federal Government's scientific agency, who says controlled burning is "the only effective way of managing fire".

The Bush Fire Front, set up by a group of retired senior WA foresters, also wants a "greatly expanded" burning programme. Its chairman, Roger Underwood, deplores the backlash against Department of Conservation staff, who have been hissed at and abused in Margaret River shops.

"DEC's been looking after their fire safety for years, doing all the dirty work," he said. "They make one mistake and are crucified for it."

As Gnarabup was burning, another, far bigger fire - also an escape from a controlled burn - was blazing to the east of Margaret River.

By the time it died down, 55,000ha of national park and state forest had been razed, and a farm worker lay in an induced coma in Royal Perth Hospital.

Stewart Scott, a share farmer from Palmerston North, was about to start the afternoon's milking when he saw flames sweeping towards the homestead of his property.

Scott and his wife, Alison, whose four children were home, were dismayed that they were not warned the fire was heading their way.

"She came in so hot and fast, we got out just in time. We could quite easily have been roasted right there," said Scott, 49, who lost up to A$300,000 ($386,500) worth of vehicles and machinery.

The blaze was contained near the property of Barbara Dunnet, a fourth-generation beef farmer. Despite the close shave, Dunnet favours more controlled burning - and she complained that red tape was strangling her efforts to burn off coastal scrub.

"Before, if the day was right, we'd light it up; now we have to wait for permission."

Both sides of the debate advocate stricter planning controls to prevent houses being built in fire-prone areas.

David Bowman, professor of forest ecology at the University of Tasmania, says of the Australian bush: "These are flame forests. Do you really want to live there?"