Six shades of fire-lighters in Australia; The good, the bad, and the one causing all the wildfires.

American Thinker ^ | 01/23/2020 | Viv Forbes

[SeekAndFind]

Australian fire-lighters come in six colors — yellow, black, white, blood red, dark green, and light green. All are relevant to bushfires and forest management.

"Yellow" is the fire-lighter that has been with us forever. It is the yellow flash of lightning, which has always ignited the Australian bush. We're dreaming to think we can lock yellow fire out of parks, forests, and heritage areas. But good forest management can reduce the ferocity and destruction of lightning-strike fires.

"Black" fire-lighters came with the first Australians. Without matches or tinder boxes, they probably captured the fire genie from a lightning fire. Or they carried it here on clay hearths on the floor of their canoes. They valued this magic tool for warmth, cooking, insect control, vegetation clearing, animal-trapping, and fighting enemies. Some also learned how to light fires using heat generated by friction, but this was a slow, laborious process, and it was far easier to preserve and carry fire in a burning fire-stick. To keep these sticks alight or to light a new one as they traveled, nomadic parties on the plains and deserts renewed them periodically by setting fire to a clump of dry vegetation. Then they moved on. They lit fires for many reasons, anywhere at any time. They tried to keep out of the way of fires and were known to redirect mild grassland fires but never tried to put them out. This continual mosaic of small fires created the magnificent grasslands and open forests that Europeans admired when they first arrived. Aboriginal fire management followed no central plan, but it worked, making most lives and forests safer.

"White" fire-lighters were introduced by the next wave of settlers — the British, bringing matches, flints, and tinder boxes. They marveled at the grasslands and open forests they found.

[SeekAndFind]

Australia was infected with the “dark green” Fire-lighter — an imported tool that almost never works. Deep greens keep their lighters permanently in their pockets and never light anything except for token fires in small areas and to light tofu-burger barbecues or their pretentious Earth Day candles.

Their attempt to lock out all fire creates a huge load of forest fuel, with dead wood, leaves, bark, and weeds on the ground and vines and suckers between the trees — and neighbors living in fear of the inevitable fire-storm.

[LibWhacker]

She forgot the seventh shade, brown Mohammadan nut, distinct from the typical blood red vandal whose sick pyromania doesn't usually extend to chopping off heads.

[Tax-chick]

Good piece.

[golux]

A good article which explains why “conservationists” like us understand that each ecoregion has it’s own set of rules for the preservation of natural heritage, native species, and ecological balance...

Something tree-hugging lefties never understood and never will.

[null and void]

We should follow this advise here as well.