Old McDonald
Member
- Location
- Harray, Orkney
One wonders what would be the motivation for arson? Simple hooliganism or extremist greens trying to prove a point?
It is not necessarily arson. When I farmed in NSW I was, like all other landholders (and their emplyees), a member of the local fire brigade. I was involved in fighting three fires only, but two were accidentally started by humans, and the third was thought to be by someone discarding a cigarette end from their car window. This was in a National Park and it took us two weeks to extinguish it.
I twice saw a tree struck by lightning during dry storms and neither started a fire. I have never known a fire start from lightning and dry storms were more frequent than any thunderstorms I ever encountered in the UK or here. I am very dubious that many fires are started by lightning strikes.
The Greens (and I am most definitely not one of them) are in favour of controlled cool season burns whereas the other parties appear not to have any policy regarding controlled burns. Consequently it is unlikely to be genuine arson by one of their members. The problem has been that for two or three years, the length of time depending on the part of Australia concerned, conditions have been too dry to have the number of burns generally required.