Black Saturday – should 'stay or go' policy be overturned? Guest post by John Davidson
John Davidson is a process engineer who lived in various locations around Australia while working in the construction and mining industries. For two years his responsibilities included emergency services for the Groote Eylandt mine and township. He was on Groote [...]
Black Saturday: What are state governments good for?
The latest controversy to emerge from the inquiry into the Victorian bushfires revolves around Christine Nixon going off for dinner in the middle of the conflagration. The usual partisan football stuff, you might think. Guy Rundle disagrees. In a powerful [...]
Missing maps and treeless treechange towns
The bushfire royal commission has now discovered that, apparently, the dog ate CFA boss Russell Rees and his deputy’s homework – or, more precisely, the “mud maps” that they drew on Black Saturday have gone missing: On Thursday the Royal [...]
Bushfire Royal Commission interim report
The Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission has released an interim report. The commission hasn’t made any recommendations on fuel reduction issues so far. However, it’s had quite a lot to say about warnings and the “stay or go” policy. In a [...]
Cyclone Hamish reaches category 5
News has just come in that cyclone Hamish has just intensified to become a category 5 with winds in excess of 280 kph. The outer edge of the massive storm, already 40km/h faster than Cyclone Larry which smashed Innisfail in [...]
Issues from the fires
It appears that the final death toll from the Victorian bushfires will not reach some of the the earlier estimates of around 300. Good news as this is, a loss of 208 lives and thousands of homes obviously justifies the [...]
Victorian bushfire memorial and appeal event map
The Victorian government is using google map technology to enable people at community level to organise memorials and fundraisers related to the bushfires in their local area. Check it out here.
Fire disaster appeal
A number of commenters on a previous post raised the good idea of a dedicated fire disaster donations appeal thread. As I reminded folks on that thread, I posted a link on Tuesday to John Quiggin’s appeal. His thread is [...]
More fire updates…
While the temperature down here in Melbourne has been considerably more hospitable – in fact, it’s been quite chilly – some gusty winds have continued to fan the bushfires that haven’t been controlled yet. Healesville, the home of one of [...]
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