Australia’s current bushfires have nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with fuel-loads, according to scientist and bushfire expert, David Packham AO.
Five years ago, Mr Packham, a former bushfire researcher at CSIRO, warned that unless there is a drastic increase in annual fuel reduction burnings “a massive bushfire disaster will occur”.
According to Mr Packham’s predictions, “The forest and alpine environment will decay and be damaged possibly beyond repair and home and people [will be] incinerated.”
Fuel levels are at their highest since European settlement and that’s something Mr Packham attributed to “misguided green ideology”, vested interests, political failure and mismanagement.
In a November interview with Andrew Bolt on Sky News, Mr Packham said there are four groups that profit from our current situation, which may give “clues” as to why fuel reduction burns have been neglected:
First, the Greens, who are using it to further their Global Warming narrative; second, the fire agencies, who can ask for increased funding; third, the politicians who can exploit the victims for a photo-op; and fourth, the media who report on the tragedy.
Last month, Mr Packham told 2GB’s Jane Marwick that he was shocked to hear that former state fire chiefs were attributing the current bushfires to climate change instead of record fuel-loads.
“I was terribly surprised when they put out this line that the fires are due to climate change when everybody who knows anything about the principles and a little bit of the science of bushfire behaviour knows that is not the case. It is… the fuel,” he said.
“I was terribly surprised because they are very experienced people. They’re right at the top of the tree and to hear what came from them… has left me absolutely startled that people who– if that is what they really believe, you can’t imagine why they are in the position they are in.
“And I can’t believe that they’re saying things they didn’t believe just to push a sort of semi-religious myth about climate change,” he added.
According to Packham, the science is undeniable. The ferocity of the fire is determined by the amount of fuel and the amount of fuel determines the rate at which the fire moves. Since fuel levels have climbed to their most dangerous level in thousands of years, a blaze of this magnitude is to be expected.