Of fire and fences

While we were at Jamboree, Tasmania experienced a series of devastating bushfires that wrought havoc in some small communities, razed houses, and tore across bush and farmland with damaging consequences. Fortunately no lives were lost, although there were some very close calls and some seriously scary moments.

For farmers, one of the serious outcomes of such events is the loss of fencing and the resultant risks to the security of their stock (assuming that (a) the stock survived and (b) that feed is available). One of the positive results of Victoria’s tragic 2009 bushfires was the founding of the BlazeAid organisation, where volunteers remove, repair and replace ruined fences for farmers affected by the fires (later work was done when floods hit other areas). They have started work in Tasmania (and other fire affected areas in the rest of Australia, in what has been a horrible summer), and one of the local Scout groups arranged to join with them this weekend to assist with the labour.

I could only join in today but was able to help clear a few hundred metres of 5 strand wire and barbed wire (my gloves are now somewhat the worse for wear), and then in the afternoon a team of five of us (two adults, three youth, a chainsaw and a dog) traipsed around the perimeter of a massive paddock (the chainsaw didn’t traipse; it was carried and put to occasional use), removing fallen trees that had damaged the fence. Although we couldn’t remove all the trees, as some of the trees were simply too large, our efforts will have saved the farmer so much time for when he comes to repair the breaches. When I looked out at the extent of the devastation across the rest of the countryside, I was very aware of how little we’d actually done, but it was something — and a non-trivial something — and it was appreciated.