comment, letters,

Neil Forscutt of Willow Tree wonders why we fight bushfires with water and offers an alternative. Australia has a surplus of trees and grass, a surplus of carbon dioxide, and a heap of bushfires. We seem to fight every fire with water, which, when it evaporates, releases two atoms of oxygen and one atom of hydrogen and surely that allows the fire to feed on that oxygen. Not being a scientist, I obviously do not know, but, it is beyond me why we cannot develop an expanding product out of CO2 that can be thrown at the bushfires and smother them. I was once told that something like that would be devastating on the environment. I am still wondering what the effect of a bushfire has on the environment, plus many homes. I would suspect it would be devastating.