A Future in Flames

by Danielle Clode

Fire has shaped the Australian landscape and the lives of Australians for thousands of years--and will continue to do so as the climate changes. For all our advances in prevention and prediction, planning and communication, bushfires keep claiming our lives and our homes. How can we avoid another Ash Wednesday or Black Saturday? Danielle Clode has lived in the bushfire danger zone and studied the past and recent history of fire management and fire-fighting. Here she tells the complex story of Australia's relationship with fire, from indigenous practices to country fire brigades and royal commissions--as well as her own story of living with the threat of fire. A Future in Flames is a vivid history, a sombre reflection and an invaluable guide for living and dealing with fire.

Genres: Nonfiction

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Danielle is the author of several narrative non-fiction books including Voyages to the South Seas, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize for nonfiction in 2007 and The Wasp and the Orchid which was shortlisted for the National Biography Award in 2018. She has also written books on Australian palaeontology, killer whales, bushfires and museums as well as publishing essays and academic papers.
Her latest book, Koala, was published internationally in Australia by Black Inc and in the US/UK by WW Norton. It won a Whitley Award for Popular Ecology.
Danielle grew up on a boat and studied zoology at university, giving her an abiding interest in natural history and the environment, which is apparent in all her writing.

Reviews

[Oli Aloha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Danielle Clode's A Future in Flames is elegantly written and extensively researched. It's a stunning examination of the history and future of bushfires in Australia and how, if possible their impact can be minimalised in the future. Her research forces us to take responsibility. Danielle is no armchair critic as she lives in a high risk fire precinct severely destroyed by the Black Saturday bushfires in February, 2009. Anyone who lives in one of these zones, whether in Australia or overseas would learn a great deal from reading this.

[Judd Street · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A Future in Flames" is an interesting overview of Australian bushfire. Its strengths and weaknesses come from the same source: the fact that Clode is not an expert on wildfire, but exploring the topic as somewhere between an interested member of the public and a quasi-journalist. This allows for Clode to ask provocative and helpful questions that are often somewhat taboo among experts, but also limits the utility at points by not always knowing where to look for the critical critiques, and by backing off the insights she's offered into more tepid hedging.

One such provocative and helpful question is the recurring theme of are we actually learning anything from the ongoing fires? As famed Australian historian Tom Griffiths noted, "There is a perennial question in human affairs that is given real edge and urgency by fire: do we learn from history?" (as quoted on p. 8) Clode responds with the biting: "Two centuries is surely long enough to learn the lessons of our environment. And yet we have not. We are still unprepared."

(Here's an example of one of my frustrations with the book: Clode offers this great critique, and then immediately undercuts it in the next paragraph by offering that some fires are "exceptions" where "shit happens" and we couldn't possibly be prepared (p. 8-9). But, that undermines the entire casting of responsibility laid out in the previous paragraph, rendering it much less courageous than mere sentences before. Which is it?)

This also interacts well with her critiques of those who believed tragedy fires couldn't happen again after Ash Wednesday (p. 112, 117), and with her discussion of 'predictable surprises' (p. 186-187). And, Clode again comes back biting later on, pointing out that

"Year after year, the same recommendations seem to be made, for better communication, better coordination, more local knowledge, more community education. So why, after so many inquiries and Royal Commissions, do we still have so many deaths from bushfires? Is there ay reason to expect, given these past failures, that the Royal Commission into the black Saturday fires will be likely to deliver any improvements on the past? Having watched at least the initial stage of the Royal Commission proceedings, I don't hold out much hope for any profound conclusions being reached." (p. 268)

Clode continues with some helpful consideration of the ways that Commissions and inquiries, thorough being quasi-legal in nature, are unlikely to render the necessary expertise to make real change. I'm not sure that this is where the real problem lies though (aren't they engaging those subject matter experts?), but in any event, the insights here then taper off to more hedging about 'well, who really owns the problem anyways, it's a mess.'

I also appreciate Clode's explicit rejection of attempts to create unified, continental stories of past bushfire regimes ("...there is no single 'Australian landscape' any more than there is a uniform representative form of either 'Aboriginal burning' or European burning. The impact of burning can only be assessed in relation to each ecosystem, each region, each culture and each community." p. 51).

Overall, there are some great insights in here! I wish they weren't hedged as much as they often are, because I think it often introduces murkiness to the original insight. But, for an informed reader, it can offer helpful perspective, even if it's not the 'introductory' book on wildfire challenges I'd suggest for someone looking to learn about the subject.