Thousands blind to Australia bushfire threat, says campaigner
By MALCOLM BROWN, September 18, 2009 FREDDI MARTIN, who has often been a lone voice warning about fire catastrophe, looks out from her balcony across the East Killara bushland and despairs of the prospects of the Ku-ring-gai area getting through the next long, hot summer. For years Ms Martin has sat as the community representative on the Planning for Bushfire Protection committee for the Rural Fire Service and Planning NSW, and has taken her campaign to the NSW Government, local government, emergency services and the Land and Environment Court. She sees thousands of householders sit on wooden balconies overlooking the rugged slopes and bushland, oblivious to the dangers of fires that could sweep rapidly towards them, burning those balconies and the wood stored underneath many of them. Facing Ku-ring-gai Chase, Garigal and Lane Cove national parks, she says, are about 9000 houses. A further 14,000 are within 100 metres of the parks’ boundaries. Many thousands live in areas where there is only one single egress in the event of fire, and, in many cases, one way in for a fire brigade, with no turning circle. The Rural Fire Service warned yesterday that, with the El Nino effect predicted to bring low humidity and high temperatures this spring, conditions across the state would be difficult over the next few months. The Assistant Rural Fire Commissioner, Rob Rogers, said: ”I think that, combined with the fact that 55 per cent of the state is drought-declared, does not augur well for the summer.” …
