Strengthening commitments to change by seeking greater analysis and collaboration

People throughout Australian society in various ways have gone through the events of Black Saturday fires earlier this year. This has become a very important area for reflection for those who want to accompany the less fortunate of the world in more meaningful and practical ways.

Reviewing how people came to experience and know of the growing disaster and how a society coped and responded moves our minds and hearts. We might ask what we would do in this situation focusing our reflection on our self and imagining a possible repeat event and our responses. We might consider what our chances of survival would have been and feel a sense of the fragility of the human in the path of 1000ºC fire. On the other hand we might open up the whole question of, why are we subject to such disasters? How do we share responsibility in seeking that such events to the best of our ability do not occur again? How do we, and the society we live in, become more grounded and know best what to do, and how to care?

Reliving that event can help us establish more clearly what happened during this period. Second, the reports may help us not only analyze the event but understand future social awareness and preparedness. Third, a certain reworking of the human psychic and spirit has occurred through what has been internalized from these fires in local society. People have learned to live with or put the situation to rest knowing they will possibly consider factors differently and move differently in the future. Fourth, for many people it is also important to both rationally and emotionally interrelate all of the feeling and information of this time with the daily life and come to a greater awareness and depth of faith and action in the world. Is this a point in our life - a life shattering event - which so affects us that we need to check out with greater depth the meaning of how we live? And how we relate with God, with neighbour and with the environment? Photos: The Big Picture, Bostom.com

Included here is a compilation of some of the including:

• The newspaper coverage and basic response analysis
• The history of bushfires and wildfires in Australia
• The facts of the fires and the losses in Victoria
• The reasons why it was so bad: climatic, social and political
• The existing policies and policy analysis
• The aftermath, rebuilding, litigation and the Royal Commission
• The social and faith reflections, theological comments