
Annie Kruger was a firekeeper in a long line of people who were trained to use fire to take care of the land. (Don Gayton)
In the last several years we’ve witnessed growing intensity of fires around the world.
In the post below, Mourning a Disappearing World as Australia Burns, Jessica Friedmann in The Globe and Mail, January 2, 2020, writes:
“There is no doubt that the fires are growing more ferocious.
“Even without the changing climate, it would be inevitable; 250 years of land mismanagement have changed the way in which Australia’s bushland reacts to a spark.
“Before colonization, fire was managed with cultural burning, sometimes called fire-stick farming, which prevented vegetation build-up, germinated seed pods and regenerated the trees and grasses that need fire to grow new shoots.
“These burns rotated through a mosaic pattern, staggering the growth of eucalyptus and enriching the soil. These burns were slow, allowing time for animals to relocate and, most importantly, they were controlled.