I hope Hobart people will pause to spare a thought for the numerous householders who have plantations planted 20-50 metres away from their residences.

Advice from a researcher this week:
“..plantations are more vulnerable to fire. The reasons - among them is that old-growth trees are bigger, and much more resistent to fire than new growth. (A seventy five year old tree can be new growth in this sense.) So log an old-grownth forest and replace it with mono-culture, and you have created a vast tinder farm. Whereas in a biodiverese old-growth forest the old trees keep all but the fiercest fires from spreading very quickly. (What prevents the fiercest fires in a natural forest are occasional smaller fires that burn off brush and other tinder. Forests that are logged but managed responsibly (i.e not clear cut for a start) can be maintained through brush clearing or even small controlled burns. I will add that while large mono-culture plantaions are the worst, small loggers can be pretty rough ecologically. It is not actually that common for any type of modern logger to be particularly ecologically responsible…”

See my backyard at:
http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/ForestryBurnoffs.html