The Fire District Board Cannot: Fill & Download for Free

The Curious Case of CongressThe Indian National Congress (INC) has officially not backed Sharia Court, but curiously enough hasn't condemned it either. The otherwise spirited and loquacious spokespersons have gone silent on this matter. It is clear that INC is in two minds. They know it is wrong but they don't want to lose their political capital. I take that as a tacit approval.“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends” ~Martin Luther King.When you see a house on fire, you rush to save it. You can't be a mute spectator. You can't hide behind the excuse that you didn't start the fire. It is not the question of legality but moral prudence. You may not be responsible for the fire, but can take responsibility of ending it.I dare say, INC has been found wanting. But before we jump to conclusions, we need to establish the foundation for the argument. We need to address the issues of legality, politics and above all morality of the argument.Missing the Misnomer:The entity in question is Darul Qaza, which is essentially a forum for ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution). It is set up to resolve only civil issues and is widely encouraged by Judiciary for being informal, fast and cheaper. Lok Adalats are also ADR forums. Even corporate disputes are solved through arbitration.The term Sharia Courts is been used by media because the resolution of disputes is based on Shariat ( The code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed. Under Islamic law there is no separation of church and state).Now, it has stuck and their is no way to go back.Supreme Court on Sharia Courts :In 2007, a PIL was filed in Supreme Court seeking a ban on fatwas and the Darul Qaza. The petitioner accused Islamic clerics of running a parallel judiciary in the country. In a sworn affidavit, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) stated that Darul Qazas are merely arbitration centers where parties resolve their private disputes - all the cases are strictly civil and resolutions are not binding.In its 2014 judgement, Supreme Court agreed with AIMPLB. It recognized that Darul Qaza was an informal body setup to bring amicable resolution between the parties and none of its proclamations or decrees were binding on the persons concerned - they were free to accept, ignore or reject it.Strike while the iron is hot.Darul Qaza ( Sharia Courts ) have been running in India for a while. UP has 40 such courts already. One wonders why is this an issue now. I find the timing peculiar considering the present circumstances.Last week, Rahul Gandhi reached out to Muslim intellectuals to ally their fears about the rising anti-Muslim sentiment in India. This week, AIMPLB decides to formally setup one Sharia Court per district in line with Islamic laws. This in my opinion is dirty politics. It is not illegal, but it reckless and irresponsible. It reeks of opportunism. Clearly, Muslim Board is teasing and testing INC. It does not need INC's approval, but wants INC to support this particular decision. It knows that INC is in a vulnerable position and need its support more than ever. It is hard to believe that this is business as usual for the Muslim Board - particularly in the light of increasingly assertive nature of Hindutwa politics.A dear caught in the headlights.This is a story of INC's life. They are unprepared, unsure and on the back foot. They want to support Muslim community, but without the embarrassment of being called a Muslim party. This situation has put them in an awkward position. They should have come out quickly and made their position crystal clear.The cancellation of the press conference was the proof that they didn't know how to address the problem. Finally, they came out. But the damage was already done. The cowboys of media, Goswami and Shivshanker, had by then declared INC as Islamic National Congress.Another Feature in Hindutwa Cap:This situation has given BJP a perfect opportunity to run Congress down again. The social media is already abuzz with memes portraying Congress as Sharia-friendly political party. This is a moral boost for a party whose popularity is on decline. The media houses are happily adding fuel to the fire. It is another perception battle that BJP has won without much effort.Though the law clearly states that there is no objection to Sharia Courts, I beg to differ. I don't think ADR forums should be established according to religious laws - however wonderful these laws may sound. Imagine RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal setting up its own ADR forums to resolve marital and inheritance disputes. Even Dalits would demand separate ADR forums for their own people.Though the judgement won't be legally binding, the community pressures and social prejudices would make people fall in line. The refusal to accept the religious diktats can be seen as anti-religious behavior and lead to victimization.Additionally, allowing such courts to flourish everywhere with the political blessing of one of the major national party would grant them a legitimacy.Edit, 17 July 2018 : Within two days of writing this answer, I see the news that proves my point. A cleric in UP issued fatwa against woman activist. As per the fatwa, similar action will be taken against those helping and supporting her.No medicines will be provided if she falls ill. If she dies, no one is allowed to offer 'namaz' on her 'zanaja' (funeral procession). She cannot be buried in kabristan (graveyard) after her death.[1]Coming back to question in hand, INC is not backing the Sharia Courts openly, but hiding behind the legal justifications is not a good sign . It is high time that Congress comes clean on its idea of secularism.Footnotes[1] Cleric In Uttar Pradesh Issues Fatwa Against Woman Activist

At the time my mother was growing up, ‘engineering student’ and by extension engineers had the following assumptions associated with them.You were academically sharp.Proficient in mathematics and logical thinking.Detail oriented and meticulous by nature.Probably a school/district/board topper.Had a bright future ahead of you, most likely in a government owned organization.Had a good command of English and were generally a well rounded human being.But then, mother was a child of the seventies, a time when engineering schools were few and far between, accessible only through merit or competitive exams. Seats were meagre, and people joining these courses actually cared about what they were doing.Two of the people in her social circle who became engineers were district toppers. Being an engineer carried a lot of social clout, not to mention serious heft in the marriage auction. People looked up to them.Then came the mid nineties, and ingeeeeniring caaliges began to sprout up like mushrooms on a dung heap.As has happened so many times in history, people confused correlation and causation.Parents, wealthy and not so wealthy, assumed that people were successful and rich because they were engineers.Wrong.People were successful and rich because they possessed the drive and the aptitude and the work ethic needed to succeed in an academically strenuous field and because their hard earned skills were rare to come by and in high demand. They had gained admission into a rigorous performance oriented program and developed skills useful in the real world.That is true for just about any field your young one gets into. They don’t need to be engineers to succeed in life.As a result of that mistaken assumption, and runaway greed and lack of effective regulation, there are now:Electrical engineering students who have never heard of Faraday.Mechanical engineering students who cannot differentiate between force and momentum.Electronics engineering students who cannot draw a simple sine function on a white board.Civil engineering students who don’t know what ‘g’ stands for in W = m.g.hComputer science students who cannot name three current operating systems, or write code in any language to add two numbers and print the results.And many more equally appalling, equally depressing examples.I have met parents who have mortgaged their ancestral lands and cattle to educate their sons, who spend their time breaking window panes and insulting teachers, becasue they have paid their fees and by the Gods it is their right to be passed in exams. I have met a freshman who could not figure out how to divide two decimal numbers. I have met students who are heartbroken that they were fed the lie that scoring high marks in the exams was the key to success, when they could have worked on a skill set that would get them an actual job four years later. I have lost count of the number of students who have just ‘given up’ inside their heads and are resigned to despair from the realization that winter is almost here and they know neither how to light a fire or to hunt or how to endure hunger. I am amazed by how utterly disconnected the curriculum often is from the realities of the industry. And the painful (and not at all clear) choice many students must make between scoring well and actually building skills (the two are not synonymous any more), I myself was presented this choice once, and made the wrong call.The private education bubble is now deflating, but an entire generation of lost souls who are now badly confused and apprehensive about their future is a direct result of the uncontrolled optimism of the previous decade.‘Engineer’ has now become a term far too often used in derision and condescension, where there was once great pride and honor, now there is almost none.

No, evidence going back decades and regarding worse fires confirms that man not nature causes the fires. It is sad that alarmists have focused on one wild fire year claiming it is evidence of climate change. This is impossible just as one cold winter is not evidence of global cooling any more than one swallow doth not a summer make.I submit the greatest error the alarmism crowd is they are too easily fooled by the randomness, complexity and chaotic non-linear climate. Hot weather is climate change and cold weather is ignored, when neither is more than noise unless data of weather is compiled over centuries or more.Climate change is any significant long-term change in the expected patterns of average weather of a region (or the whole Earth) over a significant period of time. Climate change is about abnormal variations to the climate, and the effects of these variations on other parts of the Earth. W.“Climate change is as remote from our experience as the world of atomic movements, and we are just as unable to see or experience it directly in our daily lives. But that is because climate is too large and slow to see, rather than too small and quick…When you look out the window, the weather you see is not climate. As with atoms and molecules, you can only get some idea of it through indirect means. There may be palm trees or their maybe snow outside to give you a clue, but you cannot actually see climate itself with your own eyes. Our knowledge and experience of it is fundamentally indirect, accumulated from years of experience or from the prevailing plant life. We often defer to elders and look at records accumulated over generations to get a sense of it.”Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy, and Politics of Global Warmingby Christopher Essex (Author), Ross McKitrick (Author)It is beyond absurd to jump on the wild fires of 2019 as relevant to any trend of the earth’s climate for many reasons including the fact humans are the cause of the fires directly or indirectly.The terrible loss of life from the Black Friday wild fires of 1939 spurred the Australian federal government to commission a royal inquiry to see what caused the ferocious inferno and how to prevent future fires. There is a lot of historical data in the Report relevant to the Quora question.“(f) Immediate Causes.—Almost all fires are caused by man. Lightning.— Infrequent, as generally followed by rain. Of these classes settlers, miners and graziers are the most prolific fire causing agents. The percentage of fires caused by them far exceeds that of any other class. Their firing is generally deliberate. All other firing is, generally, due to carelessness.”[Emphasis added]ref. REPORT of the ROYAL COMMISSION to inquire into The Causes of and Measures Taken to Prevent the Bush Fires of January, 1939, and to Protect Life and Property…It is true that most Australia wild fires are caused by humans directly or indirectly. There is a long history of these natural wild fires and how to overcome the devastation. The fires have been a reality for thousands of years before European settlement and the pre-history proves that controlled burn of the large contiguous accumulation of fuel is the most important action to prevent the kind of fires witness this year.Because history is the touch stone of understanding climate it most relevant to look back of the record of wild fires in Australia.There is a very relevant analysis and answer to your question from the Stretton Royal Commission report after the deadly BLACK FRIDAY BUSH FIRE OF 1939.REF.Don Mooney saved to Australia's Worst BushfiresBushfires: South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia updatesThe study shows INTHE BLACK FRIDAY FIRES humans not climate change are the culprits here, particularly “the amount of burning that was done was ridiculously inadequate” quoting from the final report.INTRODUCTION.—PART I. In the State of Victoria, the month of January of the year 1939 came towards the end of a long drought which had been aggravated by a severe hot, dry summer season. For more than twenty years the State of Victoria had not seen its countryside and forests in such travail. Creeks, and springs ceased to run. Water storages were depleted. Provincial towns were facing the probability of cessation of water supply. In Melbourne more than a million inhabitants were subjected to restrictions upon the use of water. Throughout the countryside, the farmers were carting water, if such was available, for their stock and for themselves. The rich plains, denied their beneficient [sic] rains lay bare and baking, and the forests from the foothills to the alpine­heights, were tinder. The soft carpet of the forest floor was gone; the bone­dry litter crackled underfoot; dry heat and hot dry winds worked upon a land already dry, to suck from it the last, least drop of moisture. Men who had lived their lives in the bush went their ways in the shadow of dread expectancy. But though they felt the imminence of danger they could not tell that it was to be far greater than they could imagine. They had not lived long enough. The experience of the past could not guide them to an understanding of what might, and did, happen. And so it was that, when millions of acres of the forest were invaded by bushfires which were almost State­wide, there happened, because of great loss of life and property, the most disastrous forest calamity the State of Victoria has known. These fires were lit by the hand of man. Seventy­one lives were lost. Sixty­nine mills were burned. Millions of acres of fine forest, of almost incalculable value, were destroyed or badly damaged. Townships were obliterated in a few minutes. Mills, houses, bridges, tramways, machinery, were burned to the ground; men, cattle, horses, sheep, were devoured by the fires or asphyxiated by the scorching debilitated air. Generally, the numerous fires which during December, in many parts of Victoria, had been burning separately, as they do in any summer, either “under control” as it is falsely and dangerously called, or entirely untended, reached the climax of their intensity and joined forces in a devastating confluence of flame on Friday, the 13th of January. On that day it appeared that the whole State was alight. At midday, in many places, it was dark as night. Men carrying hurricane lamps, worked to make safe their families and belongings. Travellers on the highways were trapped by fires or blazing fallen trees, and perished. Throughout the land there was daytime darkness. At one mill, desperate but futile efforts were made to clear of inflammable scrub the borders of the mill and mill settlement. All but one person, at that mill, were burned to death, many of them while trying to burrow to imagined safety in the sawdust heap. Horses were found, still harnessed, in their stalls, dead, their limbs fantastically contorted. The full story of the killing of this small community is one of unpreparedness, because of apathy and ignorance and perhaps of something worse. Steel girders and machinery were twisted by heat as if they had been of fine wire. Sleepers of heavy durable timber, set in the soil, their upper surfaces flush with the ground, were burnt through. Other heavy wood work disappeared, leaving no trace. Where the fire was most intense the soil was burnt and destroyed to such a depth that it may be many years before it shall have been restored by the slow chemistry of Nature. Acres upon acres of the soil itself can be retained only by the effort of man in a fight against natural erosive forces. The speed of the fires was appalling. They leaped from mountain peak to mountain peak, or far out into the lower country, lighting the forests 6 or 7 miles in advance of the main fires. Blown by a wind of great force, they roared as they travelled. Balls of crackling fire sped at a great pace in advance of the fires, consuming with a roaring, explosive noise, all that they touched. Houses of brick were seen and heard to leap into a roar of flame before the fires had reached them. Some men of science hold the view that the fires generated and were preceded by inflammable gases which became alight. Great pieces of burning bark were carried by the wind to set in raging flame regions not yet reached by the fires. Such was the force of the wind hat [sic], in many places, hundreds of trees of great size were blown clear of the earth, tons of soil, with embedded masses of rock, still adhering to the roots; for mile upon mile the former forest monarchs were laid in confusion, burnt, torn from the earth, and piled one upon another as matches strewn by a giant hand. 6 There had been no force to equal these in destructivenessThere had been no force to equal these in destructiveness or intensity in the history of settlement of this State, except perhaps the fires of 1851, which, too, came at the culmination of a long drought. Some impression, then, of the unusual antecedents of the fires and of their extreme and unprecedented severity may be gained. It will, it is hoped, be apparent that the experience of men in Victoria was such as to leave them unprepared for disaster on such a scale. It is with such facts in mind and with the belief that this facile wisdom which comes after an event is not wisdom, but foolishness, that your commissioner proceeds to report upon the matters into which, to his great honour, he has been appointed by Royal Commission to inquire. ————————————————— INTRODUCTION.—PART II. On the 27th day of January, 1939, a Royal Commission was issued and entered in the Register of Patents. Its terms require your Commissioner, thereby appointed, to inquire into and report upon:— 1. The causes and origins of the serious bush fires which burned in various parts of Victoria during the month of January, 1939. 2. The measures taken to prevent the outbreak and spread of such fires and the measures taken to prevent the destruction of life and public property. 3. The measures which are necessary or desirable to be taken by any and what persons, corporations, or bodies to prevent the outbreak of bushfires in Victoria, or to prevent the spreading of such fires; and 4. The measures which are necessary or desirable to be taken by any and what persons, corporations, or bodies to protect life and private and public property in the event of bush fires burning in Victoria. The first sitting of the Commission so constituted was held at Melbourne on the 31st day of January, 1939. The last public sitting was held on the 17th day of April, 1939. Between those dates the Commission sat daily, continuously, except for one or two short intermissions which were granted to meet the convenience of parties. Sittings were held in the country, also, at many places which were thought to be most easily accessible to witnesses from the surrounding district. The Commission did not attempt to sit at every place affected by the fires. It chose for its sittings places which it considered were centres of country which, because of its physical features, its experience of the fires and other circumstances was likely to be typical of much larger areas. The Commission is satisfied that by this method it has heard classes of evidence which are representative in principle of every class of evidence which could have been given. The Commission, further, inspected areas thought to be typical of all the classes of forest country n the State, widely diverse as they are. It was found that although different kinds of country have problems of fire prevention and suppression which differ in some degree, one from the other, nevertheless the general principles which are thought by informed people to govern these matters are of almost universal application and readily admit of modification according to the exigencies of local peculiarities. It will be found that this Report, in the main, is concerned with generalizations. In few cases will it be found to particularize. For instance under paragraph I. of the terms of the Commission (supra) no attempt was made to discover whether Mr. “A” lit a fire which burnt his district, nor was it regarded of paramount importance whether, in another district, the lighting was deliberate or accidental. It was left to the detectives and the coroner to elicit, in their own spheres, such evidence of this sort as they could. Again, it will be noticed that there does not appear in this Report under, for instance, paragraph 4 of the Commission, any suggestion as to the manner in which, for example, Noojee may be best protected or Omeo made safe. Rather it will appear that the Report suggests methods of control and organization of fire fighting forces, of awakening of public appreciation of the danger of the misuse of fire, of deciding upon, effectuating and enforcing fire prevention schemes, of amendment of the law by repeal or alteration where at present it stands in the way of the safeguarding of our property and our people. The principal parties who appeared before the Commission were:— Those classes of the rural population whose work or interests lie in or near forest areas and who consisted chiefly of farmers, graziers, timber­workers, and saw­millers; the Forests Commission; The Victorian Foresters' Association; The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works; The Country Bush Fire Brigades Association; the Lands Department; the Hardwood Millers' Association; the Forests League; expert witnesses from within and without the Public Service; and various persons who desired to express their views upon the matters for inquiry.The truth was hard to find. Accordingly, your Commissioner sometimes sought it (as he was entitled to do) in places other than the witness box. Much of the evidence was coloured by self interest. Much of it was quite false. Little of it was wholly truthful. The timberworkers were afraid that if they gave evidence they would not be given future employment in the mills. It is difficult to imagine a sufficient reason for the absence of representation of these men before the Commission of Inquiry. Some of them, disregarding advice, gave evidence, which was clearly truthful. The Forest Officers were, in the main, youngish men of very good character. Mostly, they were afraid that if they were too outspoken, their future advancement in the Forests Commission’s employ would be endangered. Some of them had become too friendly with the millers; whose activities they were set to direct and check. It was regrettable that some of the saw­millers and some of the Forestry Officers were loud in praise of one another, when, to the knowledge of both each had neglected many obligations in the matter of fire prevention and suppression. Of the Forests Commission, the Chairman, Mr Alfred Vernon Galbraith, alone was called to speak for the Commission. He found himself in the embarrassing position of being the truthful sponsor of what he thought was a bad case. He is a man of moral integrity. If he were freed from the preoccupations attendant upon a life of enforced mendicancy on behalf of his Department, and if his Commission were placed beyond the reach of the sort of political authority to which he and his department have for some time past been subjected, he would be of greater value to the State and would be able to devote himself more closely to (inter alia) what should be the first consideration of every forester, the problems of fire prevention and suppression. Reference has been made to certain of the foregoing matters for the purpose of showing some of the difficulties with which the commission was confronted and to explain why methods a little unorthodox, but sound, were employed in the search for truth. Some of what has already been set down will, when later expanded, serve to explain, if not to excuse entirely, what appears to have been the mistakes and the failures of persons whose past conduct will be later discussed. This Report will be somewhat inconclusive as to many matters which might have been appropriately examined but which, while being technically relevant, upon a consideration of realities fell, for practical purposes, outside the ambit of the Inquiry. The several classes of people who gave evidence pressed for the preferment of their personal or departmental interests. To enable a report of full effect to be made, it would be necessary to inquire into and resolve the preliminary problem of the co­ordination of control of forest lands by, and recognition and preservation of the rights of, the various persons and departments whose interests are rooted in the soil of the forests ; to inquire into the constitution and administration of some of these departments ; to expose and scotch the foolish enmities which mar the management of the forests by public departments, who, being our servants, have become so much our masters that in some respects they lose sight of our interests in the promotion of their mutual animosities. Nevertheless what will be suggested, should it be thought to be of value, can without insuperable difficulty be later fitted to any change of forest lands control. There is one fundamental policy of fire prevention and of protection against fire. There is only one basis upon which that policy can safely rest, namely, the full recognition by each person or department who has dominion over the right to enter the forests of the paramount duty to safeguard the property and rights of others. It would be found in the forests, as it is in all places outside the forests, that such a policy is the surest safeguard of the rights and property of each one concerned. No person or department can be allowed to use the forest in such a way as to create a state of danger to others. If conformity of this rule cannot be brought about, the offender must be put out of the forest, or, in the case of a public department, its authority curtailed or enlarged, so that the rule may be enforced or voluntarily observed as the case may require. Education of children and adults in this matter is vitally necessary. As no scheme of prevention or safeguards can be brought to a state effectiveness in this State without education, goodwill and the expenditure of money and patient labour, the day is yet distant when we may be able to say that we have, not a condition of perfect safety, but at least a working plan and the knowledge that the plan has the approval of the rural populace. Without their approval and goodwill there can be no real plan because it is man who causes the fires in all years, as he caused the fires of 1939. A law which is not acceptable to the many is made to be broken. It is therefore with some misgivings as to immediate betterment that the recommendations of this Report are made. For much that will be suggested will rest, for its effectuation, upon the voluntary co­operation of those whom it is designed to protect. A little of it will rely upon the stern and swift punishment of the few who, failing to be convinced, cannot be cajouled. That punishment, it is suggested, should take the form of deprivation of rights, rather than, but not to the exclusion of, fine or imprisonment.CHAPTER II. THE CAUSES AND ORIGINS OF THE SERIOUS BUSH FIRES WHICH BURNED IN VARIOUS PARTS OF VICTORIA DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY, 1939. The first paragraph of the Commission of Inquiry has been used as the title to this Chapter. It is not intended that what follows under this head should be thoroughly exhaustive. The matter is best restricted to those things which have been found to be of practical and real importance. Except that the summer of 1938­39 was unusually dry and that it followed what already had been a period of drought, the causes of the 1939 bushfires were no different from those of any other summer. There were, as there always have been, immediate and remote causes. Upon examination, which is not now undertaken, it will appear that no one cause may properly be said to have been the sole cause. The major, over­riding cause, which comprises all others, is the indifference with which forest fires, as a menace to the interests of us all, have been regarded. They have been considered to be matters of individual interest, for treatment by individuals. As a great deal of what might be said under this heading will be said expressly or by implication later in this Report, it is thought that this chapter may well be compressed. 11 The causes, of the fires under discussion are set out as follows :—a) Dry Season and Dry Forests.— Further elaboration is unnecessary.(b) The Condition of the Forests.— When the early settlers came to what is now this State, they found for the greater part a clean forest. Apparently for many years before their arrival, the forest had not been scourged by fire. They were in their natural state. Their canopies had prevented the growth of scrub and bracken to any wide extent. They were open and traversible by men, beasts and wagons. Compared with their present condition, they were safe. But the white men introduce fire to the forests. They burned the floor to promote the growth of grass and to clear it of scrub which had grown where, for whatever reason, the balance of nature had broken down. The fire stimulated grass growth, but it encouraged scrub growth far more. Thus was begun the cycle of destruction which can not be arrested in our day. The scrub grew and flourished, fire was used to clear it, the scrub grew faster and thicker, bush fires, caused by the careless or designing hand of man, ravaged the forests; the canopy was impaired, more scrub grew and prospered, and again the cleansing agent, fire, was used. And so to­day, in places where our forefathers rode, driving their herds and flocks before them, the wombat and wallaby are hard put to it to find passage through the bush.(c) Various Interests.—It is in these forests which are in the condition described, that various people have followed their various interests and have been permitted to adopt various and conflicting methods or no methods of fire protection.(d) Land Utilization Control.—It has already been shown by example that the absence of any method of co­ordinating the interests and duties of Public Departments and other forest users has been a contributory cause.(e) Permanent Fire Authority.—There has been none.(f) Immediate Causes.—Almost all fires are caused by man. The experience of the past shows that the persons who caused the 1939 fires are to be found among the following classes which are set forth in a descending scale of frequency of responsibility for fire; the manner in and reason for which they cause fire is shortly indicated:—i) Settlers.—Burning off for growth, clearing or protection.Graziers.—Burning to promote grass growth.Miners and Prospectors.—Clearing to facilitate operations.(ii) Sportsmen.—Neglect of camp­fires, billy fires.Tourists.—Lighted matches for smoking. Campers.—Burning, to facilitate passage through the bush.(iii) Forest Workers.—Misuse of fire used for mill operations and for domestic purposes. (iv) Persons using roads.—Neglect of billyfires ; lighted matches; and burning obstructing logs on roadway.(v) Road and Railway Work Gangs.—Billy and camp fires ; careless burning off on railway property.(vi) Locomotives.—Defective spark arresters.(vii) Lightning.— Infrequent, as generally followed by rain. Of these classes settlers, miners and graziers are the most prolific fire causing agents. The percentage of fires caused by them far exceeds that of any other class. Their firing is generally deliberate. All other firing is, generally, due to carelessness. [Emphasis added](g) Laws Relating to Fire Prevention in Reserved and Protected Forests.—The relevant provisions of law which govern the matters of prevention are not here set out. They are to be found in Section 20, Police Offences Act 1928, and Sections 68, 69 and 70 of the Forests Act 1928. It is a strange fact that the law designed for the prevention of fires has, by the unsuitability of its specific terms and the ill­considered use of the power of proclamation conferred by it been a fruitful cause of bush fires. The reasons for the failure of the law are to be found within the law. (i) It imposes penalties in respect of the lighting of fires (unless by authority of a Forest Officer) during November, December, January, February, and March within any reserved forest or half a mile of its boundary or within any portions of protected forests specified by Order of the Governor­inCouncil. (No areas of protected forests have been so specified.)ii) When the Commission reports to the Minister that there is serious danger of fire in any part or parts of Victoria the Governor­in­Council may declare, by proclamation, any specified period to be a “proclaimed period” and any specified area to be a proclaimed area. (iii) A proclaimed area may include any Crown or private land not situate in a city, town or township of more than one thousand inhabitants. The lighting or permitting of the lighting of any fire in the open air in a proclaimed area and during a proclaimed period is, except under the conditions specified in the proclamation, punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. One of the conditions generally specified in the proclamation is that a permit to light such a fire must be obtained from a Forest Officer. (iv) It has been the practice to make one proclamation covering one period for all parts of Victoria which it has been desired to make “proclaimed areas.” This manner of exercising the power of proclamation has also proved to be unacceptable to the rural populace partly because it is quite inappropriate. (h) Reasons for the Failure of the Law.—It is trite to say that no flat rule can be applied with justice to the activities of all mankind or any large class of people. The law relating to the prevention of fires has failed because it is not fitting for the widely diverse conditions and circumstances which obtain in Victoria. Furthermore, it has failed because the people have neither understood nor been instructed in it; (i) In the reserved and protected forests exists a wide range of topographical and climatic conditions. In many years, in places of high altitude, it may be impossible throughout the whole of a summer or for the greater part of summer to promote fire. In other and lower altitudes the rainfall may be so heavy that the same difficulty of burning may be encountered. Settlers and others find it necessary to burn scrub to keep their land clear that their property may be protected from fire, to promote growth or to clear their land for agricultural and pastoral purposes generally. In many cases, fire being the cheapest agent to hand, they must use it. Both under the Section and the Proclamation it is found impracticable to burn in the permitted periods. (ii) Many settlers have not known that the permission of the Forest Officer may be sought. (iii) Many have found that the permission will not be granted as the Forests Officer frequently shuns the responsibility of granting permission or refuses permission at times when experienced people feel that it is safe to burn. (iv) Acting in this state of ignorance or discouragement the settler decides to burn in defiance of the law and, not wishing to be detected in the act, leaves the fire untended, either to die out or to rage across the countryside. (v) The law is so notoriously unpopular, because it is unreasonable and inflexible, that there is no public opinion to check an intending law­breaker. (vi) There has been no effective system of policing the law. (vii) People have learned from their childhood to treat it with contempt. (viii) Many persons charged with the enforcement of the law are country­bred and feel no special zeal for the task of upholding a law which they feel to be just.You can access this 36 page government report here free - http://www.voltscommissar.net/docs/Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdfThe Australian Aborigines used control burn going back thousands of years.The Australian soil is enhanced with grass fires from time immemorial and in fact Aborigines have used fire sticks for this purpose. Sometimes controlled burns get out of control.Aboriginal burn practices again used on countryA recent burn conducted at a bush reserve near Wedderburn held significance beyond being a land management tool.Members of the Dja Dja Wurrung community applied the burning practices of their ancestors to Bush Heritage Australia’s Nardoo Hills Reserve, a parcel of land set aside for bush regeneration and conservation.“Our fire management practice, which we call Djandak Wii, is an obligation we have to the land, and we love to see the greater biodiversity it brings, and the gradual return to health it brings to country,” Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Rodney Carter said.Arson, mischief and recklessness: 87 per cent of fires are man-madeByPaul ReadNovember 18, 2019 — 12.00amBUSHFIRESThere are, on average, 62,000 fires in Australia every year. Only a very small number strike far from populated areas and satellite studies tell us that lightning is responsible for only 13 per cent. Not so the current fires threatening to engulf Queensland and NSW. There were no lightning strikes on most of the days when the fires first started in September. Although there have been since, these fires – joining up to create a new form of mega-fire – are almost all man-made.About 40 per cent of fires are deliberately lit ... The Hillville fire that destroyed homes last week.CREDIT:NICK MOIRA 2015 satellite analysis of 113,000 fires from 1997-2009 confirmed what we had known for some time – 40 per cent of fires are deliberately lit, another 47 per cent accidental. This generally matches previous data published a decade earlier that about half of all fires were suspected or deliberate arson, and 37 per cent accidental. Combined, they reach the same conclusion: 87 per cent are man-made.Arson, mischief and recklessness: 87 per cent of fires are man-madeToo much fuel causes extreme bush fires, not climate changeWhat was Australia’s Environment Minister thinking?Melissa Price succumbs to pagan witchcraft:“There’s no doubt that there’s many people who have suffered over this summer. We talk about the Victorian bushfires; (in) my home state of Western Australia we’ve also got fires there,” [Melissa Price] told Sky News this morning. “There’s no doubt that climate change is having an impact on us. There’s no denying that.”LWALet’s look at her home state. After 67 years of fire management in the giant, hot, dry state of WA, the trend is clear — the more prescribed area we burn, the less wildfire does. In the graph below the prescribed burns declined for forty years and wildfires increased for thirty. After the Dwelling up Fire in 1961 the state ramped up the preventative burns, and reduced wildfires.As the BushFireFront team say:“We can’t control the weather but we can control the fuel loads“Tough call — what do we do, redesign our energy system, pay billions, change our cars, our houses and our light globes in the hope that bush fires will be nicer, or do we just go back to doing what we used to do that worked?As prescribed fire reduction declined, Wildfires increased in South West Australia.Thanks to Roger Underwood and the BFF team who told us how to prevent megafires in April 2009, fully ten years ago.Avoiding Megafires in AustraliaLarge wildfires can only occur when there is a combination, at the same time, of three things:an ignition source,severe fire weather and,a large contiguous accumulation of fuel.Remove any of these three and you cannot have a large wildfire (= megafire).We obviously can’t control the weather, nor can we hope to eliminate all possible avenues of ignition. The only factor we can control is the large contiguous accumulations of fuel. Therefore, broadscale fuel reduction burning is the only defence we have against large wildfires. This will not prevent fires occurring, but it will ensure fires are less intense, are easier and safer to control and will do less damage.Does it work? Yes it does, as has been shown many times, over many years, by the experience of Western Australian forest managers. The “proof of the pudding” is the incidence of large wildfires in Western Australian forests over the last 50 years.Or we could put up some windmills and solar panels to “stop the flames”.h/t George and PatRating: 9.7/10 (96 votes cast)Too much fuel causes extreme bush fires, not climate change, 9.7 out of 10 based on 96 ratingsThe short killer summary: The Skeptics Handbook. The most deadly point: The Missing Hot Spot.March 6th, 2019 | Tags: Evidence, Fires, Western Australia (WA) | Category: Global Warming |Print This Post |Email This Post |219 comments to Too much fuel causes extreme bush fires, not climate change#JustinMarch 6, 2019 at 5:26 amNo no, they have it all wrong. We CAN control the weather, just give them a few dollars and they will prove it to you!Too much fuel causes extreme bush fires, not climate change