Thinking Allowed: Fireworks

Summer is in force out here, which means that things are starting to burn. Sadly, the year began with one of the most popular vacation spots for Melbourners - the Great Ocean Road - uncontrollably ablaze. Over a hundred houses were consumed over Christmas, along with 60,000 sheep and one koala. All those poor burning gifts and sad children. Not to mention all the evacuation, destruction, and loss of koala.

Our plan was to go to this exact location this week. I still thought it was an ok plan. Likely all the booked accommodations were now available and the locals would be thankful for some brave tourists. But Jakob is a voice of reason and here we are in the Grampians where the fire danger is only very high (low on the scale) while Great Ocean Road is not so great.

Fires are surprisingly common here. Every summer vast tracts of land are charred. Yet, despite all the fires, fire warnings, fire education, fire bans some Australians just still don't get it. Half a dozen new fires had to be put out yesterday in the Great Ocean Road area due to fireworks. Who lights illegal fireworks in an area that is already on fire? In Tasmania we stayed near Leven Canyon and on a hot windy day with severe fire warnings one clever picnicker decided to start a bonfire not in one of the many barbecue pits but in the grass directly under a highly flammable tea tree. And for this reason we think we now understand the fire rating scale here.

Canada has a reasonable danger scale for forest fires: low, moderate, high, or extreme. In Australia, the scale goes low-moderate, high, very high, severe, extreme, catastrophic red alert. Someone really went out of their way to label these levels in a way that will make it clear that there is always danger of fire. Two thirds of the potential categories are scary sounding. But somehow all the dire synonyms and bright red warnings still seem insignificant when compared with a night of camping with no open fire and no charred meat. When we came to Australia we were a bit worried about being eaten by sharks, bitten by snakes or spiders, stung by jellyfish or being severely sunburned. Now we know a way bigger risk out here is death by fire. So we will be be taking on the more minor risks (spiders and snakes and sun) out here in the craggy Grampians these next few days.