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Black Saturday firefighters battling flames in Victoria. When we laud fire fighters as heroes, we fail to acknowledge the ongoing impact of the fires. AAP Image/Andrew Brownbill

‘I can still picture the faces’: Black Saturday firefighters want you to listen to them, not call them ‘heroes’

In commemorating firefighters as heroes, we can fall into the danger of overstating their ability to control fires, absolving ourselves of responsibility.
Victorian Governor Linda Dessau places a flower on a model of Victoria at a memorial service for the ten-year anniversary of the 2009 Victorian bushfires. David Crosling/AAP

What has Australia learned from Black Saturday?

The Black Saturday fires transformed the way Australia responds to bushfires.
Poorly resourced small towns like Marysville often struggle to recover from disasters like the Black Saturday bushfires. Andrew Brownbill/AAP

We can learn a lot from disasters, and we now know some areas don’t recover

Rebuilding small communities on the same site in the same way seldom works. It’s not about getting back to where you were, but rather grasping the opportunity to create a more resilient place.
Large bushfires occur in the mallee shrublands and woodlands of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Lauren Brown

Percentage targets for planned burning are blunt tools that don’t work

Controlling bushfire risk by burning a set percentage of land every year sounds sensible - but a more sophisticated approach is needed to truly safeguard both humans and wildlife in rural areas.
Five years on, the bush and people are recovering well from the Black Saturday fires. AAP Image/Joe Castro

Five years on from Black Saturday, most survivors are doing OK

Five years on from the devastating Black Saturday fires that swept through central Victoria in February 2009, research shows that people and communities are largely recovering well. In the first major…
Forests logged in the past two decades burned more severely the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. AAP Image/Andrew Brownbill

Victoria’s logged landscapes are at increased risk of bushfire

Victoria’s forest management policies need to be urgently reviewed in response to the discovery that logging can contribute to the severity of bushfires in wet forests, like the devastating fires on Black…
Firefighters battle a bushfire close to homes in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, in October this year. AAP/Dan Himbrechts

Climate Council’s Code Red bushfire warning

Australians have always had to live with bushfires - but climate change is driving that fire danger even higher. And we’re not talking about a distant threat to future generations. According to real observations…
Firefighters have plenty of ideas about disaster management - so why don’t we listen? AAP/Dan Himbrechts

What firefighters say about climate change

You do not find many climate change sceptics on the end of [fire] hoses anymore… They are dealing with increasing numbers of fires, increasing rainfall events, increasing storm events. – A senior Victorian…
Jeannie Blackburn was the victim of horrific domestic violence from a man commended for heroism. AAP/Julian Smith

The ethics of bravery: why a Black Saturday ‘hero’ lost his award

Last week, I received an email with the subject line: “Bravery award for baby killer.” It urged readers to sign a Change.org petition calling on the Royal Humane Society of Australia to rescind a bravery…

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