Last week I discussed designing for bushfires in three parts: the bush, the building, and the protection. Much of the discussion at the Sustainability Summit focused on the first part, in which we might term the black-and-white views of the bush.

The white view, the right wingers, which I call ‘crimsons’ – the opposite of greens – call for more hazard reduction, more logging and more land clearing to alleviate bushfires. That is, managing the bush for fire. Which, as many pointed out, has been much better handled by the indigenous ‘fire-stick’ processes.

There has been a huge increase in interest about indigenous fire management for cropping, food and safety. A book by one of the indigenous experts, Victor Steffenson, called Fire Country, How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia, continues a recent run of books on indigenous practices that have captured the imagination of us Gubbahs, (see Marcia Langton’s Welcome to Country, Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu or Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth). All part of a change in fortune for indigenous design and culture.

It will be fascinating to see how some of the right-wing proponents for activities such as hazard burning square the circle of their interests with those that hold the traditional knowledge. It puts me in mind of a quote attributed to Ishi, the last of the American Plains Indians. When asked what he thought of the white man, he reputedly said, "He thought of them as children, smart but not wise."

The clearing, the logging, the tree thinning, and the hazard reduction all seem very smart, but at the same time, they lack the wisdom that comes from thousands of years of indigenous practice. That is changing.

Dick Clark, whom every attendee over the last ten years of Summits would know, spoke about his work with Country Needs People and their work on indigenous burns. Dick’s comments that over 50% of Australia’s land mass was now under indigenous management or control met with incredulity and appreciation.

The other area of discussion focused on the difficulties of regulations, including codes for three things which we might call security, sprinklers and shelters.

AS 3959 covers the design of buildings, including the Bushfire Attack Levels (BAL), detailing how to make a building secure against bushfire. AS 5414 is for bushfire external water spray systems, covering the use of sprinklers to wet buildings, essential for the protection of existing buildings that cannot reach AS 3959. Thirdly, the ABCB has issued a performance standard for private bushfire shelters and has amended the BCA for these ‘refuges’ or ‘bunkers’.

Designing building codes is a difficult and tricky business relying on modelling and estimates. Testing to destruction is rarely financially feasible. We are now going to see ‘test results’ for many of the code assumptions made, seeing how buildings designed to those codes stood up to these severest of bushfires.

We now have a huge number of buildings of different designs and qualities that are burnt, some made to code and many not. There will be ample scope for the CSIRO and universities to investigate the performance of buildings against these codes so we may improve the standards for all buildings, both new buildings and retrofits of the old.

The extreme bushfires will herald a massive change in Australia's politics and delivery of services: a greater recognition of indigenous wisdom; a greater appreciation and support for local communities; greater support for the operations of local councils; better codes for safety and survival; properly funded volunteer organisations; and a recognition that having outsourced compassion and cash to philanthropic organisations, they are doing a better job than the government did or could.

Cross-Sections are Friday musings from Tone Wheeler, formerly of Tone on Tuesday. Amateurs draw plans; professionals draw sections – never at cross purposes.

Tone Wheeler

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