Another great week at the office

This week I had the pleasure of spending time with an international visitor, Ron Steffens, from the United States, who is a fellow Board Member of the International Association of Wildland Fire. Ron has a strong interest in education and natural resource management.

I had the pleasure of taking Ron out to the areas affected but the Black Saturday fires to see the recovery of some of the worst affected places. It had been some time since I had visited areas around Marysville and Lake Mountain, and the changes are quite dramatic. The area is still very obviously devastated by the fires, with a many blocks still undeveloped, but the vegetation is bouncing back with a vengeance; the widespread resprouting of the eucalypts and the dense understory of wattles and eucalypt seedlings are amazing. It is a true testament to the resilience of Australian flora.

We took the chance to also look at the areas around Kinglake and St Andrews, where similar levels of regrowth is visible. One thing that really struck me was the almost total lack of any grass growth in the hottest areas. This is three and a half years after the fires.

Ron was over here for the Bushfire CRC and AFAC conference and for the upcoming IAWF Safety Summit in Sydney.