‘How many more lives?’ Firey pens defiant open letter amid devastating bushfires

As bushfires continue to rage across large areas of New South Wales and Queensland, with catastrophic conditions forecast for Tuesday, the debate has turned political, with opposing parties placing blame on each other for the role their policies have played in failing to prevent the unprecedented blazes.

Richard Di Natale took aim at the Coalition on Monday, claiming their inaction on climate change was to blame for the extent of the bushfires. He said: “Every politician, lobbyist, pundit and journalist who has fought to block serious action on climate change bears responsibility for the increasing risk from a heating planet that is producing these deadly bushfires.”

However senior Nationals and members of the ALP then hit back, slamming the Greens for their opposition to controlled burning. Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said it was ­“absolutely the wrong time to be looking for political opportunity”, while NSW Deputy Premier told The Australian: “We need to do more hazard ­reduction, (burning) in national parks to manage the fuel load. Everyone knows that this is a real issue and I’ve got the guts to say it.”

Now a heartbroken volunteer rural firefighter has spoken out, slamming ‘environmental authorities’ who he says he holds “directly responsible” for the scale of the devastation, with hundreds of homes lost so far and three people confirmed dead as a result of the fires.

“How many more homes?” Tyson Smith wrote on Facebook. “How many more acres of destroyed forest and bushland? How many more lives? How much more do we need to endure until you Muppets realise you f****d up?”

Smith went on to explain that he volunteers as a rural firey in his spare time, adding: “Every time there is a fire disaster like this thousands of people like myself drop what we are doing and go to work. We put ourselves in harms way so that another family can have a house to sleep in.”

Tyson added: “The authority figures that have stood for environmental protection of the past 5+ years are directly responsible for this devastation! The fuel loading we are seeing out on the ground is ridiculous! We are looking at 5-10 years of growth, this fuel source is making these fires un-touchable, we can’t even get near them to fight them … The controlled reduction burns we do only skim the surface, they safely remove the fuel without destroying the place.

“These envio [sic] authorities that put a stop to reduction burns need to be held personally accountable for the losses people have endured. People have lost their lives as a direct result of the decisions made by the environmental authorities … Enough is enough!”

Many people agreed with Tyson, with one person commenting: “Well Bloody said mate. And you are spot on.” While another said: “Tyson, firstly I want to thank you and all the firefighters for the courage and endless commitment, but I hear your frustration loud and clear…I know the Greens and environmentalists are totally responsible for this mess, but how do these fires get started..?? I can only conclude that apart from lightning strikes, the main perpetrators are arsonists..?? and it’s so hard to listen to the stupid media promoting “catastrophic” “unprecedented” new groovy words and not directing any attention to the real problem and blaming it all on ‘climate change’.”

However others criticised his post, describing it as “ignorant finger pointing”. One person wrote: “We backburnt literally everything for kilometers [sic] the whole way around wytaliba. There appeared to be nothing left to burn. This ignorant finger pointing is a joke.”

Another said: “If there hasn’t been enough back burns it’d be because the government in power cut the funding to the fire services. The greens have no say in what the government does, all they can do is complain.”

In a piece published by The Conversation on Tuesday, Professor Ross Bradstock, who runs the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong, said there were four factors that contributed to the fires. He wrote: “A continuous expanse of fuel; extensive and continuous dryness of that fuel; weather conditions conducive to the rapid spread of fire; and ignitions, either human or lightning. These act as a set of switches, in series: all must be “on” for major fires to occur.”