highly offended if you suggest for one moment that they have outlawed hazard reduction burning. For them to actually outlaw something would imply taking an overt action and thus taking responsibility for something. Instead, we have a claim that hazard reduction is perfectly legal -- you just need a permit. Private landowners are (obviously enough) never allowed to get a permit to remove trees that they might consider a fire hazard. The local Rural Fire Service are able to get permits for backburning but they find it very difficult. A burn may only commence when an alignment occurs between a whole row of government departments, from local right up to state level, any office may veto the process and then it starts again. You can see where this is going -- difficult means expensive. The Rural Fire Service are volunteer. Suppose they get all their gear together for a day (schedule time off work, buy fuel, make lots of phonecalls, etc) then at the last minute they can't get the go ahead and have to call it all off. This is money and time out of those people's private pockets. Then a real bushfire comes through in the middle of summer and people die, rather than admit blame, they point the finger at Global Warming and nod sagely. Follow that link (your own choice of reference material), I'll quote from it: Click on the links of some of those compounds that are now banned in the US. Note how many