Australia is a land of deserts, droughts, floods, bushfires, flammable forests and fire-prone grasslands.  These conditions have developed since the start of the Holocene Warm Era, about twelve thousand years ago. All previous Australian bushies, both black and white, have recognized the key principle of fire management in Australia: you can have many small, managed "cool" fires in early spring or a few unplanned, disastrous "hot" fires, consuming a heavy fuel load in hot dry winds in late spring.  (Arsonists have other priorities and light their fires at these most dangerous times.) Every generation of Australians sees its fire disasters, and the worst ones get names — "Black Thursday" in 1851; "Black Friday" in 1939; "Ash Wednesday" in 1983; and the worst to date, "Black Saturday" in 2009.  Not even an armada of expensive water bombers will stop these bushfires — at that stage, fire can only...(Read Full Post)