Yesterday’s blog attacked the greenies for their militant prohibition of backburning. While my heart goes out to Victorians who lost lives and homes, I have to say that if you build a treehouse you should not be surprised if the branch supporting the house breaks and crashes to the ground.

While watching the terrible scenes of the bushfire disaster on TV I could not help but notice how many brick chimneys were the only parts of the houses left standing.

So I support any move by councils and other authorities which will not allow timber homes to be built in areas susceptible to bushfires, unless genuinely fireproofed.

It’s all very well to want to have a log cabin in the hills and it sounds so environmentally friendly, doesn’t it? But if you must build in areas that are dangerous then go for safety first and then aesthetics.

However, if you can’t afford to build a firesafe home then perhaps you should not build one there at all. It simply isn’t worth the suffering that the “She’ll be right, mate” attitude produces.