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Alright, guys! How's it going?

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Welcome to this fact episode of Aussie English.

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Now, today, I had stumbled upon a cartoon and poem by Michael Leunig and it was a good poem about bushfires in summer.

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So, I thought I would start the episode with this poem, ok?

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"G'day! Beg your pardon!

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I am here to wreck your garden.

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Tongue is cracked. Claws are hot.

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I've got prickles in my bot.

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On my back some nasty fires caused by snapped electric wires.

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Eyes like newly broken bottles, lips are dead and twisted wattles.

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I breathe blowflies.

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What a bummer. Hey, g'day, I am summer."

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So, hopefully, guys, if you've spent any time in Australia, especially here during summer, that poem will resonate with you in terms of how hot it is and especially things like the fires and the blow flies that we have in summer.

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My god, are they annoying?

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So, today I wanted to talk to you about a number of different things going on with the bushfires aside from them themselves, right?

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So, last week we talked a bit more about the bushfires that were going on in Australia, but this week, I wanted to talk to you about things like wildlife, the traditional burning done by Aboriginals, as well as what's going on with climate change and the politics that's going on in the media.

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So, for as long as the continent of Australia has existed, fire has been a crucial part of its environments.

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Many species of Australian flora and fauna have in fact evolved to survive, thrive and even promote frequent bushfires.

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Eucalypt species are prime examples, where most of the eucalypt species in Australia have evolved survival strategies like epicormic shoots, these little buds that lay below the bark on a tree, which then sprout into branches and leaves, following being burnt by a bushfire.

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Things like lignotubers, which are woody growths at or below the level of the ground at the base of trunks of trees in which food reserves are stored and from which buds emerge following a bushfire.

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And then the eucalypts own oil that is found in its leaves is actually highly flammable, and is thought to have evolved to cause the fire to burn hotter and faster, which ultimately saves the tree from being completely burned to death, but also by killing off the surrounding competition, which is often less fire tolerant plants.

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And many species of Banksia actually require the smoke and the intense heat to trigger its seed pods to open and drop the seeds and then for the seeds to germinate.

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And this is because after fires, it's actually the perfect time for these plants to drop their seeds, for their seeds to germinate and put down roots, because all the competition has been burned away and the soil is covered in a fresh layer of ash, which acts like a fertiliser.

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So, in recent years, it was discovered, too, that native animals are also adept at surviving bushfires and even manipulating bushfires to their advantage.

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So, the first recorded example of fire being used by animals was recorded in the summer of 2017 and 18, when three different species of Australian birds of prey, including Black Kites, Whistling Kites and Brown Falcons were seen carrying burning twigs away from a bushfire and dropping them into grassy areas elsewhere in order to ignite new fires and flush out potential prey items, like lizards, rodents and insects.

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And it's actually really interesting to see, if you guys do a search on YouTube for Birds of Prey Bushfire Australia, you will see these videos of bushfires taking place in grasslands and hundreds and hundreds of birds of prey flying in front of where the fire is moving and capturing a lot of different animals to eat, you know, they're very clever at this and they're using the bushfires to their advantage.

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So, fire in Aboriginal Australia.

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Aboriginals would have first arrived in Australia, bringing fire with them as one of their most important tools, like humans all across the globe for millennia.

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These first people of Australia used it for things like warmth, communication, ceremonies, cooking and warfare.

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However, at some point in their history, they began to use fire as a unique and more complex land management tool throughout their lands.

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They adapted the heat and intensity of fire to specific environments where they used it to burn off grass and bush, clear undergrowth, keep trails clear, promote new growth that, in turn would attract prey for them to hunt, like kangaroos and wallabies, and to also drive and corral animals towards other waiting hunters, just like those birds were doing.

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As these practices developed and spread across the continent, these controlled burns began to alter Australian ecosystems, favouring the survival and spread of more fire resistant plant species like eucalypts and generating vast open grassy woodlands.

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Frequent burning of the land, reduce the fuel load of dead leaves, grasses and branches on the ground and as a result lessen the intensity of each fire, whether caused by nature or man.

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When Europeans first arrived for good in Australia on the First Fleet in 1788, these fire practices began to change.

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European settlers had their own ways with fire and had no understanding of the sunburnt Australian landscape and its relationship with fire.

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And the average settler and convict was in fact afraid of bushfires.

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In the beginning, they used intense fires not as a way of reducing the fuel load or hunting animals, but as a way to clear the land of all vegetation in order to then put up fences and buildings, raise crops and increase their herds.

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As a result, any uncontrolled burning was considered a significant threat to life and property.

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And it was only nine years after colonisation, in the year 1797, when the new colony in Sydney first experienced bushfires.

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In their settling of the land, the colonists had driven Aboriginal people off the land, and with them went their regime of low intensity fire management, meaning the bushfires would become more prevalent and extreme.

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It became a positive feedback loop.

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When the Governor, Governor Hunter, sought to limit and control the use of fire as an agricultural tool by both Aboriginal and settler alike.

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And the Duke of Portland back in England sent Governor Hunter a letter in 1798 that said the following:.

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"To remedy so alarming and evil, it will be proper to oblige all persons holding farms, adjoining waste and uncultivated land to keep plowed up so much, as shall be adjudged sufficient to stop the progress of the fire.'.

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So I think there, he's saying that anyone who had uncultivated land, so forest, wild, wild forest adjacent to that land needed to plough up as much of it as possible between the forest and their land to stop the fire from spreading if it took place.

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So, although European colonisation disrupted fire regimes in many parts of Australia, there are still numerous parts of the country, especially in the north, where traditional Aboriginal management techniques are still used today.

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So, how is the tradition practiced?

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When the practice is undertaken under indigenous custodianship, burning is focussed on non-pastoral, relatively high rainfall areas.

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Traditionally, burning is done in the early to mid-dry season in northern Australia and this is in order to keep fuel loads low by using frequent low impact fires.

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When these practices aren't carried out, fuel loads increase and fires take place by lightning strike.

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And these lead to more frequent, larger, hotter and subsequently more dangerous wildfires.

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As you'll have seen in the media recently, these fires have not only led to the deaths of a handful of people and the destruction of many buildings and homes, but also to the devastation of native wildlife, particularly koalas.

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One touching story is that of Lewis, the koala, who was spotted wandering out of the burning forest, crossing the road and walking straight back into the fire.

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Talk about out of the oven and into the fry pan, right?

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However, Lewis, the koala had the good fortune of being saved by an Aussie nanna, who ran out into the fire, ripped off her shirt, wrapped the koala up in it and poured water on his fur and his burns to cool him down before taking him to safety.

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Like hundreds and hundreds of other koalas in these fires, tragically, Lewis succumbed to his burns days later.

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And here's a little about that story from Channel 9 News Australia.

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Let's have a listen.

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Weeks of flames and smoke, and then this: a koala burned and dying of thirst, escaping flames only to cross the road into another blaze.

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Tony, a grandmother, rips off his shirt to pull him off a tree.

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He's clearly in a bad way.

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It was a moment that stole hearts here and around the world.

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Tony Doherty spotted him from her car, ran over, pulled the koala to safety.

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Tony took him to Port Macquarie Koala Hospital.

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.

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How is Lewis doing? You're a legend!

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Give us a hug. Thank you.

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They named him Lewis.

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Donations flooded in.

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He looked on the mend, but this afternoon, the hospital posted his burns had got worse and were not going to get better.

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And the reluctant decision was made to euthanise him.

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It's estimated 300 koalas in the region have died in the fires, but it was just one, Lewis, you showed us that when a bushfire strikes, survival for our native animals is such a battle.

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Also, in recent years politicians have been playing the blame game for the recent bushfires.

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Politicians across the board, you know, Greens, Labour, Liberals and Independents have all been slinging mud and insults at one another, in an attempt to blame the fires on someone else and win votes.

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Let's have a quick listen to this story that I found from Channel Nine News.

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The Greens and the National Party are accused of playing with fire for waging an ideological war over the emergency.

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The Greens want to pin the fires on the government's climate policies.

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You are no better than a bunch of arsonists.

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And Barnaby Joyce stumbled into trouble while arguing that conservationists had fuelled the fires by limiting hazard reduction burning.

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And I noticed that the two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green Party.

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So, I'm not going to start attacking them, that's the last thing I want to do.

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How does he know who they voted for?

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And why does it matter? They're dead.

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They died in a bushfire.

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Isn't that enough?

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So, whilst the Greens and Labour are pushing climate change as an underlying mitigating factor behind these fires, the Liberal and independent politicians are rejecting that idea.

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And let's have a quick listen here to Koshi from the program Sunrise, who is interviewing former New South Wales Fire and Rescue Commissioner Greg Mullins.

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We keep hearing that these conditions are unprecedented.

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You've had 40 plus years in firefighting.

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What about you?

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Look, Koshi, no.

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And my father was a firefighter from the early 50s.

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He'd never seen anything like it either.

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This is climate change.

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It's a warming climate, it's drying out the fuels, critically dry.

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We've burnt more land in New South Wales in the first month of the fire season than the last three fire seasons put together.

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That's got to tell people something and it's certainly telling me something.

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Alright. This is quite controversial at the moment.

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A lot of people saying, hey, it's too early.

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It's being...

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you shouldn't be bringing up climate change while people are losing their houses and we're having such a catastrophe at the moment.

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But just explain, why is it climate change?

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So, just a one degree rise in temperature over night and day throughout the year and it makes extremes far more extreme like we saw yesterday.

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So, we keep hearing unprecedented.

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September the 6th, the same thing Queensland, say weather conditions we've never experienced.

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And I've just come back from California, the Santa Rosa fire, same thing, unprecedented.

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This is what climate change does, it superchargers the weather systems.

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We have pyro-convective activity, so, fires making their own thunderstorms.

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This is a major problem.

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We need to talk about it now, not later.

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But then other people would say, hey, restrictions on hazard reduction during winter has a reduction during...

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in national parks, that's been building up the fuel and that's the reason for it.

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So, I'll just run through the fuel now.

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There's fuel all around me.

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If it rains, it won't burn.

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If it's not too warm, it'll burn, but not too fiercely.

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Days like yesterday, this would be a firestorm that million hectares, some of it was grassland, you can't hazard reduced set because it grows back.

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This is a furphy. You're not allowed to talk about climate change supercharging fires, but let's blame the greenies and say it's all national parks or whatever.

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We can't burn because the fire seasons are so much longer.

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Around here, I'm now a volunteer firefighter.

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We just can't get the burns in because it's either too wet or it's too dangerous and it get away from us.

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So, that's the fuel problem.

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People need to recognise it is climate change.

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Climate scientists are saying the evidence is pretty clear when it comes to the impact of climate change on the continent and what it means for bushfire frequency and intensity.

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After all, Australia is a continent already characterised by droughts and extreme heat.

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As climate change continues, droughts become longer, heatwaves and dry weather become more frequent, as do severe storms.

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So, what you're left with is a great deal more fuel built up, fewer chances to do back-burning in order to reduce this fuel due to the high temperatures and drier weather and then more storms that can spark fires through lightning strikes, let alone all of the fires that are caused by arsonists or accidents or technical malfunctions.

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For further context, this year's fires have been unprecedented and I want to let you have a little bit of a listen to this story I found on Sky News where they were talking about this.

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Firstly, the bushfires are unprecedented, not in scale, but for the time of year.

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So far, the bushfires this November have killed four people.

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The three worst bushfires in Australia's history were Black Saturday, which killed 173 people.

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Ash Wednesday, which killed 75 and Black Tuesday, which killed 62.

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All three of these took place in early to mid-February.

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So, why the outbreak of bushfires in November?

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Geoscience Australia says bushfires can originate from both human activity and natural causes, with lightning, the predominant natural source accounting for about half of all ignitions in Australia, fires of human origin, it continues, currently account for the remainder and a classified as accidental or deliberate.

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Fire experts say the current bushfires other result of lightning carelessness and arson.

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What we've now seen is that fires are burning in places that are very hard to get to.

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So, the cause of those fires we now seeing due to something known as dry lightning strikes.

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I've had 39 years of Tasmania Fire Service and I didn't see too many dry lightning strikes earlier on in my career, but now and due to climate change, we're seeing this as a regular event.

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Australia is also tinder dry with 99.4%

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of New South Wales and 66.1%

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of Queensland in drought.

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Then there's the issue of hazard reduction burns, where fire prone areas have burnt ahead of time to reduce the risk of fuel if a fire were to break out.

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Control burns. Now, speaking to people from the Environment Department and they say, well, they won't go on the record, they say it's just so bureaucratic.

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Hazard reduction burns clearly have a role to play in mitigating the risk of fires, but climate change could also be a factor for these ravenous blazes.

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A 2018 IPCC report predicts climate change will reduce opportunities for controlled burning and extend fire season length.

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It also forecasts the number of days with very high and extreme fire weather will increase in a changing climate.

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The greatest changes, the IPCC report said, will be in areas where fire is dependent on weather rather than the presence of fuel sources.

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A warming climate would also boost the risk of fire by shrinking the temperature needed for a fire to ignite.

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For example, if a blade of grass ignites at 100 degrees Celsius and temperatures have increased, the heat from an ignition source like lightning doesn't have to raise the temperature of grass as high to catch alight.

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It would also mean fire spread easier and faster, as the former fire chief said.

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Fires literally off the scale of fire danger in this warming planet.

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So, there's something going on.

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And certainly climate change is exacerbating the very, very dry conditions that we're all experiencing.

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Bushfires are a symptom of climate change.

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Ultimately, the unprecedented fires engulfing Australia are likely the culmination of climate change, the decisions of governments, constraints on preventative measures and either human error or arsonists.

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So, there you go, guys. That's what it is sort of been like this year with the fires.

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Summer hasn't even started yet and four people have already died, hundreds of homes have been burnt down and untold damage has been done to our wildlife.

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Whatever happens in the future with us addressing climate change or not, bushfires are going to be with us for the long haul and they'll be a big part of the Australian environment.

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Politicians and lawmakers, though, definitely need to take a look at traditional Aboriginal use of fire.

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If we're going to protect both the flora and fauna of this beautiful country as well as its residents.

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And to finish up, guys, I saw a really nice clip from SBS Insight, from SBS Insight.

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This is a great TV show where a panel of people is interviewed or discuss a certain topic.

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So, on this episode, indigenous fire practitioner Victor Steffensen talks about his views on how indigenous practices could help prevent bushfires.

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What do you do? How is what you do different to the way the rest of the firefighting...threats?

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Completely different. It's totally opposite to what everyone's doing here.

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Like everyone's talking about the aftermath and it's always the way Western, you know, society works is really based on the aftermath of things and always acting when things are too late.

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Whereas all the work that I do is in the prevention of that and is really about putting fires and not to save your house, just your house, but to save the bushland, look after the environment as a whole, and above all, teach people what they should know about the country in terms of understanding fire properly when you light a fire.

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How is that fire different to say to traditional back-burning?

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Firstly, the biggest problem in this country is that everyone's confused and that is that's being done by different groups.

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Some people would go, ah, you know, like, um, we call this a fire for hazard reduction.

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And then they'll say, this is a fire for biodiversity.

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This is a fire for traditional burning that indigenous people do when in fact there's only one fire.

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And that is the right fire and fire for your country, your environment, and a fire that is there more or more frequently.

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And what I do with the burns that I do, I teach people in nine regions to read the country, understand the land, and they have to see the indicators and the signs on how to manage the countries, so we prevent wild fires.

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Explain to us what fire circles are?

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When we light fires, we just don't light fires anyway.

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When I teach someone about burning the land, we'll go to the ignition point on that country.

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And there's a lot of reasons why the ignition points there and we burn out and so the fire burns like a circle outwards.

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And when it does that, it's a single point and a fire goes in a 360 degrees radius.

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Everything can smell that smoke and everything can escape from 360 degrees.

182
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So, it protects the animals.

183
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That's right. That is the primary thing that we need to be doing is protecting the environment, because we can't keep doing what we're doing.

184
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We can't continue to sit back and watch hundreds of kilometres of land being annihilated and yet to sit down and just think about ourselves, but in due respect, we need to be looking after our residents and we need to be looking after houses, but what's the point of doing that if we're not looking after the land?

185
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What was interesting for me watching that footage was the trees weren't burning and the canopy wasn't burning.

186
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That's right. Those are very fire prone trees, but we burnt at the right time and of the year and to make sure that they are protected.

187
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Those trees need fire.

188
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We live in a country that needs fire.

189
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And what's happened is that we've stopped evolving with fire.

190
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Our fire culture in Australia is totally flawed to nothing, whereas before even if you go back 100 years, pastoralists and you know, people who are historically a part of land can tell you themselves, there used to be fires all the time and even indigenous people were working with them and burn country regularly.

191
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But we've backed up to a point of regulations, land tenures.

192
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So, how often are you going around doing that kind of work?

193
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Full time. I've been doing it for nearly 20 years.

194
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So there you go, guys, I hope you enjoy this episode.

195
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I hope that you haven't been affected by these bushfires and I look forward to chatting to you in the next episode, guys.

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And if you want to check out any of the clips from Channel 7, Channel Nine, SkyNews and SBS that I've included in this episode today, guys, they will be up on the website, they'll be linked in the transcript so that you can go to the website and you can see the full videos.

197
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Remember, guys, if you want to get access to all of the other Aussie English Fact episodes like this one, join the Aussie English Academy where you can go through all of these in a course.

198
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You can go through the English Dialogue Course you can go through the English Conversations Course and all of the expression episodes.

199
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Anyway, with that, guys, thanks for joining me.

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And I'll chat to you soon. See ya.