Hindsight suggests the bushfires that are threatening the Scenic Rim could have been greatly slowed in their progress and made less difficult to control.
But, as they say, it’s easy to know the right thing to do after something has happened.
That’s not quite true, though, of fire control which depends as much on foresight as anything else.
Obviously, firefighters learn from hindsight or experience. Then they put that experience to use when planning for approaching fire seasons.
And they know that the winter clearing of national park trails choked with scrub, bulldozing strategic firebreaks, and burning off to reduce the fuel hazard posed by dead vegetation and trees, are sound fire control practices.
Easy to say, but not so easy to do. For starters our volunteer and urban firies have no say in the management of any fire control measures in our national parks - where many of our regional fires begin.
That is the role of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS), which is tasked with protecting the environment of the parks; a duty that apparently precludes sufficient hazard burn-offs.
It would be unfair to blame QPWS officers for this department policy. They do a fine job within their prescribed limitations and their numbers on the ground. And this current, alarmingly early fire season, is an unprecedented, now verging on catastrophic, event.
As a result, though, hundreds, possibly thousands of wild animals, large and small, have been killed by fires that were fuelled by the jungled aridity of the very environment the QPWS strives to protect.
The likelihood is that hundreds more will die before these fires end - many, many more than might have been killed in controlled burn-offs.
Admittedly, the extreme ferocity of the winds and heat that have combined to blowtorch our mountains and valleys is the worst in recorded history.
Even so, had there been more burn-offs and other fire mitigation methods adopted in national parks earlier in recent years, firefighting now would almost certainly have been less difficult - though not necessarily easier.
Preceded by warnings, Queensland’s and New South Wales’ ‘inferno’ season began in September, almost three months before the official start of summer.
At the weekend, Queensland fire authorities said it had sparked 2,000 bushfires that had destroyed almost 100,000 hectares and 19 homes.
Those statistics probably do not include the fire that topped Mt Castle and took 40 minutes to sear through to the cattle country at Tarome last Friday afternoon. It was estimated to have burnt out more than 2,000 hectares of country that day.
But it was only a small part in a virtual pyroclastic flow of fire that is still torching many east coast districts of Queensland and New South Wales and posing a threat to Sydney.
The death and destruction it has left in its wake, along with the heroic stories of lives and properties saved by the determination of firefighters, have been well reported on news media which understandably skimp on detail for rural areas of the Scenic Rim.
With grateful thanks to the local firefighters and their families who have taken the time to speak with us, this newspaper has covered the situation in our Facebook pages, which have carried daily reports on fire conditions and current photos of our regional fires, together with reports of more local fire fronts and road and other closures.
Strangely, one of these reports was for the long advocated closure of Mount French National Park, from Tuesday, November 5 to last Monday, November 11. The closure has since been extended until Tuesday, November 19. (The closure due to fire danger has also been extended for Mt Greville National Park.)
The closing of National Parks cannot be an easy decision at the best of times but should be simple common sense in the worst of times - and those worst of times - drought combined with a dangerous fire season - are with us now until we receive drought-breaking rain. Yet the powers-that-be within the QPWS rallowed a short closure of the park in September and then re-opened it while disastrous fires were still burning at Canungra and Binna Burra. And another fire over the Main Range in Glen Rock State Forest was poised ready to spew a smoke-and-ash cloud over Mount French.
So, once again, we wonder:
Why would the QPWS continue to make such arguably error-prone decisions that pose potential risks for visitors to Mount French National Park?
Why didn’t it put more resources into protecting this firetrap of a national park with a full-scale program of fire management control in more recent years?
And, in the interests of national park flora and fauna, will it ease its rigid conservation policy and be more proactive on fire management control in the future in this and other national parks in our region?
What we are suggesting that the QPWS should do, to help prevent or at least ease the severity of future bushfires, is not radical. The Boy Scouts have a phrase for it: Be prepared.
