[m i a o w] the cat

There has been a pall of smoke hanging over Hervey Bay for the past four days. It is floating over from the World Heritage Listed Fraser Island. From the top of my street, it looks as if a previously undiscovered volcano is on the point of erupting - there is a huge plume of smoke rising up. Because Fraser Island is world heritage listed, I was very suprised not to see anything in the newspapers about it burning to a crisp. For the first few days, the smoke was just something to see, hanging over the island, but the last two mornings, I’ve got up to see it hovering over the garden and the street.

So I went over to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services site, and besides not being able to spell the word ‘island’ it says that tracks are closed ‘due to QPWS burning operations’. Now I find this quite interesting, as I am working on prescribed fire at the moment. For a lot of reasons it is a good thing - for many years (particularly in the US) fires were suppressed as soon as they happened, which meant that a lot of fuel built up and up and up, to a point where, when a fire occurred - it couldn’t be put out and would morph into a huge ‘catastrophic’ fire. However, doing prescribed burns isn’t easy - lots of environmentalists don’t like it, there are health concerns from smoke and airborne ash and (the BIG ‘and’) the fires can get out of control - destroying not only government property, but private property as well - creating very sticky legal situations.

I am now wondering, as I breathe in lungfuls of World Heritage Listed smoke soaked air, whether things have got out of control over on Fraser Island. It’s been at least four days. Surely there must have been public complaints? Not to mention lots of money lost from the tourists that don’t want to go and try to see the pristine freshwater creeks and lakes through the haze - or to negotiate the 4WD tracks, which are difficult even without impaired visibility. It seems an odd time to burn off - many recent forecasts have warned of high fire danger, and there are/have been a lot of bushfires in South East Queensland over the past few weeks. On the other hand, maybe they’re trying to get on to it now in case the weather conditions get worse. My washing smells like I’ve spent the last month cooking over an open fire.