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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam Search Search: Australia debates controlled burns By ROD McGUIRK,Associated Press Writer AP - Saturday, February 14 CANBERRA, Australia - In the aftermath of the most lethal wildfires in Australia's history, officials are again considering whether enough is being done to reduce the risk through controlled burns. ADVERTISEMENT Dangerous fire has threatened Australians ever since humans arrived. The indigenous Aborigines have used fire to tame the countryside for more than 40,000 years, having figured that numerous small forest fires were better than one big disaster. But the collateral damage of controlled burns can also be devastating, killing untold numbers of wild creatures. Some experts argue the death toll of last weekend's fires in Victoria state, which exceeds 180, might have been lower if the fuel load _ mostly fallen branches and other flammable debris on the forest floor _ had been torched in controlled burns. Wildfire behavior specialist Phil Cheney feels that wildfire safety in Australia has fallen victim to the growing political influence of city-based conservationists. He says all Australia's six state governments except Western Australia have buckled to pressure by reducing their forest burning programs since the 1980s. "As soon as there's a bit of smoke in the air, they are on the radio and saying what a terrible thing the department is doing, it's ravishing the countryside and killing animals," Cheney, a retired chief scientist from the Bushfire Research Unit of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Many conservationists, in fact, support controlled burning. Though David Packham, a Monash University research fellow and wildfire scientist, said that some local groups pay lip service to the practice but fight it when it comes to their own neighborhoods. "Some say a little prescribed burning is enough," Packham said, though he personally thinks the practice should be used more. Similar battles are going on in other places where forests, fires and people are coming together, such as California and Spain. Tom Harbour, director of fire and aviation for the U.S. Forest Service, says there were many similarities between fire conditions in Australia and in California. "The fundamental problem we have in many cases in our nation and around the world is where flammable vegetation and people mingle together," he said. "The proximity of the two is temporarily compressed given the climate change we've had, the vegetation that has developed, and the land management and use patterns that have developed," he said. Australia's rural demographics are changing. Farmers and loggers who have lived for generations with wildfires are being replaced by urban folk who want a leafy lifestyle closer to nature. Urban sprawl makes the problem worse by expanding the edges of cities into the scrubland. "The only thing that we can control is the fuel," Cheney warned. But Ross Bradstock, a wildfire risk expert at Wollongong University, said that for controlled burning to be effective it would have to take place on such a scale that it would be unaffordable and have a major impact on biodiversity. He said scientists such as Cheney overstate the benefits of hazard reduction burning. "It's an awful tragedy and I don't like to use strong language, but it is rather irresponsible because what it does is lead people to think there's a simplistic solution and there just isn't," Bradstock said of Cheney's comments. Bradstock said his research suggested that 15 times more controlled burning would have to be undertaken than is currently done to even halve the risk of forest fires to humans. Victoria's state government has established a powerful judicial inquiry to search for explanations to the tragedy. It will consider the effectiveness of controlled burning programs. Some scientists believe that traditional Aboriginal use of fire to destroy forest debris transformed Australian flora and fauna. The fire-hardy eucalyptus is now ubiquitous. Australia's floral emblem, the golden wattle, is a tree that cannot regenerate in a forest that never burns. Its seeds need fire to germinate. A national newspaper on Thursday attacked a municipal council on the fringe of the fires for making a submission to the federal environment department in 2007 that controlled burning is a threat to biodiversity. "When it comes to safety, put possums before people," The Australian's front-page headline read. But Australian National University forestry expert Peter Kanoski said blaming Victoria's forest management was an over simplification of the tragedy. The forests that erupted in extreme conditions last weekend were too dense and moist to be ignited with a fire that could be safely controlled. "It is unlikely, in the general sense, that more fuel burning would have been possible," Kanoski said. Australian governments have rejected criticism of their forest management policies. Some of those who saw the blazes up terrifyingly close said they did not believe more controlled burns would have helped. "Controlled burn is a complex issue in terms of when to do it _ what sort of time frame, the window of opportunity," said Lindsay McHugh, a volunteer fire fighter of 35 years based near the heart of the disaster in the town of Whittlesea. "If you burn too hot, you damage the environment, if you don't burn well enough you don't necessarily reduce the fuel," he said. "It's not the whole answer." "This fire, it didn't follow the rules anyway," he said. "It was extreme conditions; the ferocity of the fire, the rate it spread, the way the fire traveled, how hot the day was, how hot the fire was, the fuel had been preheated, the wind. It was the worst fire I've ever seen." World Wildlife Fund spokesman Ray Nias said the disaster should renew debate about forest management, but ultimately decisions about safety should be left to fire authorities. "Victorian authorities are amongst the most competent in the world in dealing with fire and the environment," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "They deserve our support and respect and our policy would be to support the scientific study and analysis conducted by those agencies." ____ Associated Press Writers Tanalee Smith in Wittlesea, Australia, and Carley Petech in New York contributed to this report. 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