It’s 9:15pm and it’s still warm. Not hot, just pleasantly warm. The pile of paperwork clamoring for my attention on my return to Melbourne was topped by a letter requiring that we meet the specifications pertaining to the “Wildfire Management Overlay”(WMO) which covers our beachside property. This means that we must calculate a “Bushfire Attack Level” rating for our property and provide adequate information outlining building infrastructure and property management strategies to ensure that, in the case of a bushfire, we can guarantee:
- Water supply
- Appropriate access to emergency vehicles and
- An ongoing approach vegetation management that reduces risk.
It’s a far cry from the cold and wet of Stockholm, where water is everywhere and it's ok to luxuriate under the shower for more than our regulation four minutes.
My first, somewhat negative thoughts, were that this is was product of a risk averse “Bureaucratic Management Overlay”, but then the terrors of Black Saturday February 7th 2009 were triggered in my memory. Preparation and planning cannot always contain the rage of mother nature, but early warning systems and timely evacuations may have saved lives on that hot and wildly windy day last year.
We hope that we will never have cause to call on:
- “A minimum of 10,000 litres on-site static water storage maintained solely for fire fighting,”
So as I pore over my “Applicant’s Kit” I’m trying to be respectful of the origins of this legislation, philosophical about the paperwork, not cynical about other adjacent and unprepared properties that were built before the introduction of the WMO and optimistic about the building of a dream.
The optimistic bit isn’t hard. I’m imagining a barbeque on the deck whilst the cacophony of native bird-calls fades and the setting sun colours the sky a riot of beautiful fire-palette golds and reds.
But in order to realise the dream, I really need to get back to demonstrating my compliance with Permit Conditions for Option One.
In the suburbs of Perth, water management isn't about tanks; we have this thing known as "the retic," short for "reticulation." No one stands around watering anything with a hose (except me). No one bothers to bucket their laundry rinse water onto the garden (except me). I am odd because I come from Melbourne where after all those years of drought, I can't bear to see grey water wasted. I still feel quite guilty when I connect the hose to the tap and start spraying - it's been illegal for so long in Melbourne, except for a couple of hours a week in the early hours of the morning when only the fanatical are out of bed.
ReplyDeleteToday I planted twelve tiny native plants in my own and the neighbours' garden. They are all supposed to survive in sandy soil and full sun. They will get half a bucket of laundry rinse water each for their first year, and then they will be on their own. I will continue to administer Osmocote fertiliser for native plants. But the mysteries of the black piping that winds through the garden beds, and the strange bits of black tubing that pop up occasionally, and the digital programmable timer that lives in the electricity control box near the front door - I will leave these for the Perth natives (the human ones, not the plants). The retic is not for me.