Ugly Sign

I parked today in in Gembrook's main street, as I often do, to buy something at the local IGA or go to the post office newsagency There, right in front of me, planted in the strip between the road and the footpath is a large sign telling me of the bushfire rating of the day. It's in the form say, of a fuel gauge on your car dashboard, but instead of a needle that indicates the level of fuel in your tank from empty left, to right to full, this one goes from low, green, through to red with black stripes for Code Red. In between are the ratings, moderate, high, severe, extreme.

Today the sign indicated that that the fire risk today was low. Tell me something I didn't know! of course it has shown me this every day for July, and for all of June, and all of May, and most of April. Before that I don't recall, I guess that for March, Feb, Jan and Dec, the needle moved around from low through to extreme, someone would have manually moved it when necessary as it has no automated ability to move according to the weather conditions.

Gembrook is not alone with this sign. I have seen them situated in just about every country town the length and breadth of Victoria. I have often wondered about the total cost of this and who pays for it, although I'm sure that ultimately it's the tax payer.

My point is this - it's a total waste of money, besides being an ugly affliction to the streetscape.

Do I really need to be told today that today was a low bushfire rating? And when it is a hot day come December and the wind picks up, do I really need to be told that the bushfire rating is high? And what if it's 45C with a howler gale? Do I need the sign to tell me it is extreme? And if there's smoke in the nostrils and ash dropping, the code red indicator may be a little late!

Every man woman and child should be well aware of fire danger without the need of a sign to tell us. There's something terribly wrong if we need to go see a sign to tell us. And all this stuff about bushfire strategy plans is very suspect. The instinctive thing is to not be downwind in bush land on a hot windy day, and if there's the smell of smoke or sign of smoke in the distance, get the hell away from timbered areas and into cleared farmland, or the concrete jungle.

It's seems simple to me. No need for the ugly expensive signs. And no need for all the in-fighting we've seen with the CFA and the unions and government policy. The common enemy is the bushfire and it needs united effort of the highest management quality of all resources. All this bickering makes me sick. It's silly squabbling over the spoils of the war chest, the multi billion dollar war on bushfire, most of which is wasted money. I don't care who's in charge so long as the chain of command and the intelligence is the best possible.

It should be automatic that all of us are watching the horizon and smelling the air on a hot day and make sure we are not in the path of a potential fire storm.

No need for those silly bloody ugly signs.