Candice and list,

Since I live in Narrabri, New South Wales, and stay in the Blue Mountains
outside Sydney when visiting my university, the University of Western Sydney,
at the foothills of these mountains, both places where fires are now burning,
I will try to give some background and non sensational reports.

But first, if you will excuse me I simply have to get something off my chest.
I simply cannot find the words to describe how disgusted I am with the State
Government's opportunistic use of these fires for their own electioneering
purposes. To scapegoat teenage kids in the way they have, implying the main
blame for these fires rest with them, has to be called child abuse. Now all
teenagers are by implication smeared with the same innuendo or suspicion of
arson. I simply cannot say how angry I now am. I am sure I am not the only
resident of the State to feel this way.

As for bombs being recovered from the so-called arson sites all I can think
of is the fires in army artillery ranges where there are unexploded bombs,
such as Jervis Bay, south of Sydney. The army uses the native bushland around
Sydney for target practice, so to speak. It is not uncommon for this target
practice to start bush fires, either.

Everyone I know in the Mountains is safe and will be evacuated if needed. The
same goes for anyone else in fire affected areas. There is a fire burning
some 15 miles to my west but I am not in the least concerned nor in any
danger. According to last reports this fire is contained but further flair
ups are expected. A hundred yards to my east is the river, which floods from
time to time, too. I am not concerned about floods, either. The last one was
some 14 months ago now. Just as people who live with blizzards generally know
what to do so do people who live with fires and floods know what to do. It is
a normal part of life. This raises the question of the sensational horror and
terror reports which the media is apparently so fond of reporting and is in
part one of the reasons I consider this reportage to be socially
irresponsible. I'll return to this point, later, except to say, don't be
conned by media reports.

I have just heard that friends in Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains may see
the fire close up. I am sure they will be alright and I have little need to
worry. They are packed and ready to evacuate further up the Mountains if need
be. I have also received an email from the Vice Chancellor of my university
granting leave to all staff who are affected by or fighting the fires so
there is no need for them to return to work. This is normal procedure. [Back
soon, my Pee Wee chicks need to be fed...] To update again: the fires near my
friends have abated and the containment lines should hold the fires off from
getting to them although there are fears that some houses in the next lower
village, Woodford, may be lost, according to media reports.

As for the wildlife the devastation is not as bad as media reports may
suggest. The wallabies, kangaroos, possums and birds will survive the fires.
Sure, some will be lost but nowhere near the sort of total devastation that
occurs with the clear felling of old growth forests merely to satisfy a wood
chip market to make paper when cannabis fibre crops for paper and cloth could
be grown on farmland on the black soil plans in this region to more then
satisfy demand, not to mention the clearing of gum and box forest some 120
miles north of here for what will very soon become salt affected and
unproductive farmlands. There is already more then enough cleared farmland in
Australia to satisfy the needs of not only Australia but also the world
market. Compared to this sort of vandal like land clearing of native forests
the fires mean nothing. The burnt feet of a ring tail possum or a mother
possum carrying twins on her back will survive bush fires but will they
survive the wholesale destruction of what is left of Australian forests?

Now to explain why these fires are so fierce you need to know how the weather
works here in terms of long term cycles. Since the last big fires in 1994
there has been a seven year period of above average rain. We are now, it
appears, going into a period of below average rain or drought conditions.
During the high rain fall years the forests grow very quickly. When a period
of lower rainfall happens as it has this summer the trees drop leaves onto
the ground which already has a thick covering of dry leaves and twigs from
the good growth years and the leaves they keep get more oily to protect
themselves from the hot dry weather. Also, the summer storms which usually
bring rain only bring a few drops along with thunder and lightening. Then the
fires start and burn out the dried leaves on the ground and the oily drier
leaves in the canopy. This is what is happening now. So even without the
deliberate lighting of fires this would still be a good season for fire. It
is a part of the longer term seasonal cycles in Australia. Years of good rain
followed by years of drought with fires occurring most fiercly just after
periods of good rain followed by a hot dry period.

To finish on the media reporting. Dr Virginia Nightengale, as part of the
Affect and Communication research group at UWS is doing research into the
sort of horror and terror style reporting of events such as these fires, for
example. This sort of reporting far exceeds the actual fear that any
responsible person need have about the events. What it appears to do is
terrify the population and work as a sort of social control mechanism which
as I said above is used opportunistically by governments prior to an election
campaign. I have yet to see the results of Virginia's research but this
critique of media coverage which acts to terrorise a population needs to be
urgently done. It is irresponsible on all sorts of scales. Just a personal
example. When I got up just after Christmas and watched the Today program on
morning TV I got the impression that the whole southern side of the Blue
Mountains was about to be burnt out. Concerned I phoned my friends to see if
they were okay. For them it was just another day and they were going about
usual tasks. when I told them what I had heard on the TV they became anxious
and I more or less had to calm them down and tell them how to prepare should
the fire come as claimed. As it turned out this report was grossly
exaggerated and caused distress to my friends and myself which was not
warranted. This was happening on a mass scale and the distress caused became
clearly socially irresponsible. Of course, I can't blame the individual
journalists, knowing how difficult it is to work in journalism in NSW and
what happens to any journalist who tries to do some investigative reporting.
The best I can do and media theorists like Virginia can do is get the word
out that this is happening and to understand how this is happening so as to
diffuse the opportunistic use of affect that cynical governments are only too
willing to use.

Anyway, hope that fills you in some more on what is really happening. There
is more I could say but that would require a long feature article which I
don't have the strength for right now.

best wishes

Chris Jones.

[PS... I live in an isolated rural area and do not have good internet access,
only a single phone line which I cannot afford to tie up with internet use so
am limited to one or two connections a day. So I can't respond quickly to any
queries. Just to let you know... as for cable... according to the
telecommunication companies it will never happen in this area.]







On Thursday 03 January 2002 07:54, you wrote:
> CNN (for what it's worth) just reported that A 9-year-old was among the 21
> people arrested so far and that police have recovered bombs from the arson
> sites, which suggests something more than kidstuff and closer to terrorism,
> assuming it's true--the media everywhere being equally dubious, as far as
> I'm concerned--Candice