After living in Queensland for a year, I am sorry to see that the lousy zoning and urban growth policies are now coming back to bite the citizens in the backside. You can't just let developers and homebuilders go in a plop a house in the middle of a forest of highly volatile vegetation without due consideration of what sort of risks are involved. Now the houses and such are in there, and no provision for adequate fire control measures has been planned or implemented, so the answer is for the provincial leaders to tell the residents they are on their own now? Lack of prior planning will cause emergencies, and this in a region that's been under drought conditions for the past decade. They should've done better at warning and restricting development when they had a chance, instead of just looking to fill the coffers with more property tax monies and then walking away from the mess they helped create.

Urban growth isn't just about finding the most lucrative way for the government to allow land use; sometimes it requires a little forethought for the environment and the welfare of the people who will occupy it.