‘Tree changers’ face greater bushfire risk: researcher
‘Tree changers’ face greater bushfire risk: researcher
22 January 2008
published by www.abc.net.au
Australia — A researcher says people who have moved from the city to the New South Wales far south coast are at a greater risk of losing their house in a bushfire than longer-term residents.
Douglas Goudie from the centre of disaster studies at the James Cook University in Queensland has been looking at fire prone areas in the Bega Valley.
He says those new to the bush are oblivious of a fire’s destructiveness.
“It is a challenge, the so-called ‘tree changers’ or sea changers, and also the people who come, say from Sydney for the Christmas holiday and those who might be camped down amongst the gums and paperbarks and so on, they need to accept that they are in a hazard zone and they need to take [it] most seriously if they get any warnings,” he said.
