The story behind bushfires

Disasters of bushfires around Australia hit the headlines at this time almost every year. The story untold seems to be that these disasters are exacerbated by our management of the bush.

This explained in a recent book by Bill Gammage "The Biggest Estate on Earth - How Aborigines made Australia". According to Bill, aborigines managed the bush with clever use of fire.

http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781742377483

This explanation is supported by a couple of stories from old-timers before the bush was cleared for farming. In the South Stirlings area, "you could drive your ute anywhere through the bush" when farm blocks were first allocated in the late 1950s. This would have been something like a Holden ute - not a Land Rover.

Also, the story west of Kojonup was that you could originally gallop a horse through the bush. Both anecdotes would be explained by regular burning.

A sign at Tambellup gives a similar picture, with the history of the first description of white sighting of the district. "In January 1832 ...(the view of Ensign Dale from Mount Toolbrunup).... was obscured by native fires".

It would be difficult to know how to use regular burning to minimise bushfire damage, especially if we are also trying to conserve healthy bush. If we do hope to conserve the bush, it raises the question of whether this would be the bush as it was pre-1832, pre-aboriginal settlement, or some other balance.