Bush Fires

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
15 Feb 2009

As a youngster growing up in country Victoria sixty years ago I remember the family talking about the bushfires of Black Friday in 1939.  The tone was similar to that used discussing the Japanese prisoner of war camps.  Deaths and suffering had come to our community.

Victoria has the worst bushfire country in the world with California and Southern France close behind.  Parts of South Australia and our own state of New South Wales are also bad.

As I write the bush fires had not been extinguished and now is not yet the time for a systematic evaluation of the lead up to the fires, how they were fought and how people were helped during the crisis and afterwards.

This will be done by the Royal Commission which the Victorian Government has promised and it needs to be done thoroughly, with an explicit recognition of the priority of human needs over both property as well as flora and fauna.  One head line captured this well "People are more important than possums"; and, one might add, properties.  Such a principle has consequences for hazard reduction burning and for the siting and design of homes.

All things considered the Victorian authorities have done well since the tragedy, despite some bureaucratic obstruction and victims being prevented for some days from returning to their homes.  The community has rallied, as always, and the victims did not feel abandoned.  Public sympathy was real and generally effective.

It would be comforting, but an illusion, if we believed that planning will be able to prevent awful bushfires in the future.  Better practice and more efficient warning systems should be able to reduce and often eliminate human deaths.  But this is as much as we might hope to deliver.

Bush fires have been part of Australian life from time immemorial; long enough for evolutionary patterns to produce seeds that only germinate after a bushfire.  This is astonishing.

The evidence since European settlement also validates this evolutionary development.  Batman and Fawkner founded Melbourne in 1835 and in 1851, the year this sparsely populated country south of the Murray River separated from New South Wales as the colony of Victoria, the Black Thursday bushfires burnt out several million hectares.  I have heard one expert claim that one third of Victoria was destroyed!

During last weekend probably 300,000 hectares went, much less than the 1.5 million hectares of Black Friday 1939, but more than 1983's 230,000 hectares.  Tragically the number of deaths this year exceeded the total fatalities of both 1939 and 1983 combined.

We must acknowledge the bravery of the firefighters, most of them volunteers.  Coping with the grief and wounds of the survivors, physical and psychological, will also be a great challenge.  The Churches and service agencies will be busy here and with the funeral rituals: even for those whose bodies cannot be identified.