OZtralia.tv Blog

By: Phoenix Arrien

Autumn is ‘burning-off’ season in southern Australia. The idea is that you burn the grass and ground cover during the cooler months with the possibility of rain stamping out any stray burns. That way, in Summer there is less fuel for bushfires.

We were sipping a coffee in the main street of a mountain village recently, when nine fire trucks screamed past. They were on their way out to an out-of-control burn just up the road. The National Parks and Forest Reserve staff who often conduct the burn-offs don’t always read the weather right and one burn-off had gone out of control.

A thick plume of smoke emerged a little distance away and all we could hope was that it wouldn’t come our way. It didn’t. The boys in the red trucks did their thing and then the rain came.

Many bushfires get started by someone throwing a cigarette out of a car window and it takes merely a spark in warm weather conditions to begin a fire that can eat up thousands of kilometres of country, destroy homes and kill.

Keep those ciggies in the car. A rubbish bag. Your pocket.