Now, if we asked you to name your top five things you associate with an Aussie summer, what would you come up with? Of course, at the top of everyone's list is plenty of 4WDing, then there is the cricket, maybe the late-arvo BBQ, those bloody blowflies and last but not least, bushfires.
 
Yep, bushfires are about as Aussie to most of us as the good old meat pie. Every summer we see terrible images on the telly of lives and property being lost to bushfires, and the scary part is that with each passing summer, we are seeing more and more bad fire days impacting on suburban areas.
 
Several key factors can contribute to the ferocity of a bushfire. Some of those are beyond our control (such as the weather), but some are well within our means to keep in check. Let's take a look at two very simple areas in which 4WDers can help reduce the risks of a bushfire becoming catastrophic, if only they would let us.
 
THE HAZARD REDUCTION ISSUE
 
One of the hot topics (pardon the pun) when it comes to bushfires is hazard reduction. Hazard reduction is a term used to describe the controlled burning off of leaf litter and other potential fuel for a bushfire. It is widely accepted among the firefighting fraternity that hazard reduction is a proven method in the prevention of out-of-control bushfires.
 
So, if hazard reduction is such a great method for helping prevent bushfires becoming a threat to life and property, why don't our fire brigades conduct more of it? There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, our firefighters are being made to sift through more and more bureaucratic red tape on a variety of levels in order to get the green light to go ahead and carry out this vital work.
 
Secondly, since our country's land managers (National Parks, State Forests and local councils) have been locking 4WDers out of more and more areas of the bush, the fire trails have become so overgrown that they are either too difficult and unsafe for our firefighters to navigate, or in many cases they have simply grown over and have been reclaimed by the bush altogether.
 
Let's hope that minority politically aligned groups are not pulling the strings and controlling the decisions that affect the lives of those living in high risk areas, and just as importantly, those who risk their own lives to protect the public and their property.
 
You don't need to be an Oxford scholar to work out that by allowing traffic (ie, recreational 4WDers and the like) to access this network of fire trails, the tracks will remain clear and free of potentially lethal leaf litter and overgrowth.
 
FIRE TRAILS
 
We have all heard of fire trails, but what exactly is a fire trail? All across the country there is a network of trails cut through strategic areas of bushland that firefighters can use to carry out important hazard reduction as mentioned earlier, and in some cases fire trails can be used for accessing areas of bushland for the actual fighting of fires.
 
The practice of using these trails for fighting fires directly is not an option our firefighters like to use in this day and age, and on high-risk fire days, they will not use these trails at all. But even on the days when the risk is minimal, firefighters don't like to use fire trails to fight fires. This is because, once again, these trails are largely not maintained at all, and are often overgrown to the point of being impassable.