ONCE again rural communities are being devastated by bushfires that the firefighting authorities are powerless to control. Yet the strategies employed reflect the resistance of entrenched bureaucracies to modern methods and the unwillingness of governments to fund them.
Over decades, a volunteer army has been deployed in what have nearly always been lost wars. Thousands of buildings have been destroyed -- some, like Mount Stromlo, national treasures; hundreds have died; there has been huge cost to government, insurance companies, communities and individuals. Yet every fire season, the generals commanding this army order their troops "over the top" in fruitless charges against the enemy -- crown fires in volatile eucalypt forest in inaccessible country.
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