I want to commend to your attention a piece published at Pat Lang’s place by an Australian member of his “committee of correspondence”. Here’s a snippet:
I am a member of august clubs and societies around the world but the membership I most treasure is that of a volunteer fire fighter in the local brigade. To be judged worthy of a place on the fire ground is, to me, the child of immigrants, a pearl beyond price precisely because it is awarded, not by the great and good, but by tradesman, farmers, shopkeepers – the least in society who have judged me capable of serving the community. I am so proud. A month ago I was part of a strike team sent to Northern New South Wales for a week to grapple with their fires, I even got a lift home in a C17 Globemaster.
We are currently facing bushfires near us affecting five times the size of last years California blazes – 500,000 Hectares, 1.2 million acres across the Northeast of Victoria and into New South Wales. Our truck was called out to join a strike team of five tankers at seven am on New Years Eve to go about a hundred miles north to grapple with the edge of the monster which we did, leaving our tanker for a changeover crew early on New Years day.
Read the whole thing. On reading it my wife, two of whose uncles and whose brother are retired firefighters and one of whose nephews is a firefighter, said “Thank you for that (second to) last paragraph”.
Eucalyptus trees are fuel, and food for Koala bears, too cute for their own good. If they did controlled burns, public pressure would require bear relocation first. Irreconcilable.