David Packham

A case study in folly #7: an avoidable inferno – the 2015 Wye River fire

2 January 2026 / 4 Comments

How many disasters must we have, and how much public and private money needs to be spent, before we stop accepting a situation that can and should be avoided?

Professor Mark Adams, landowner at Separation Creek

Introduction

Christmas should be a time of family, rest, and renewal. For the small coastal communities of Wye River and Separation Creek on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, Christmas Day 2015 brought devastation instead.

A case study in folly #6 – the day the sun never rose at Mallacoota

5 December 2025 / 8 Comments

What has happened in the last few days is the consequence of years of neglect of the bushfire threat in the national park, which in this area is tantamount to malpractice by fire agencies and the land manager.

– Denis O’Bryan on the Mallacoota fire.

On New Year’s Eve 2019, Mallacoota was engulfed in a strange, frightening darkness.

What does a forester do? (Part 2)

16 January 2023 / 7 Comments

Because the forestry profession is far from simple and the work highly variable, I have tried to describe what a forester does by outlining the development of the profession in Australia. In Part 1, I outlined the broad principles of forestry and the development of the forestry profession up until WWII.… Read more

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A Charred landscape

1 July 2021 / 11 Comments

“The dead ash forests reach starkly towards the sky like sentinels bearing witness to the holocaust just past, and those who love the bush are heavy hearted because this may be only the beginning of what is yet to come.” David Treasure, 2007^[1]

Since 1939, the high-country forests in Victoria were relatively free of devastating wildfires.… Read more

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