The vast majority of people will be shocked and a little frightened by the events of the past few days in the southern states. Of all the natural disasters, fire must be the worst. It destroys all in its path and as has been so tragically demonstrated in the Canberra region, unless adequate firebreaks are in force there is relentlessness to its progress.

Members of Friends of Fraser Island have long been critical of the Fire Management or lack of it on Fraser Island. It seems that in spite of all the best advice and experience the current management practices on Fraser Island do not include sensible hazard reduction at an appropriate time of the year. Volunteers from the various Bush Fire Brigades on Fraser Island live in constant threat of having to be called out to fight a runaway fire. There have been several outbreaks in the time the Island has been managed by the current regime. These outbreaks have caused immense damage and it is only by luck that loss of life has not occurred.

Fraser Island was placed on the World Heritage register for its diversity of flora and fauna but these wildfires that have occurred and there is one on the Island at the moment, are destroying the very reason for the registration. By closing tracks and not frequently patrolling all areas on Fraser Island the management is leaving Fraser Island open to a similar conflagration that has taken place in Southern Australia.

There is an urgent need for the Management of Fraser Island to do two things as a matter of urgency. Firstly, they must unlock all the gates currently denying vehicular traffic to mainly the northern end of the Island and thus open up those areas to regular scrutiny and secondly, they must institute a hazard reduction program as soon as the cooler weather takes hold. The times they do undertake some burning is usually too late in the year and the result is the destruction of the very habitat they claim to be protecting. A hot fire in spring or a wild fire in summer, as we have now, destroys all in its path and biodiversity goes out the window.

With no adequate hazard reduction program in place many visitors and residents of Fraser Island are left in a dangerous position and if a wild fire got going where would the walker going along the much publicised inland walking track hide?