Although it is easy to understand and appreciate concerns expressed by some commentators over the haste to rebuild in fire-affected areas, it is also easy to understand why people would want to re-establish their homes and their dreams.

That’s not to say that replacements for homes lost on Black Saturday should not be built to a much stricter and more sensible building code.

Updated standards should make home owners and occupants better prepared for fires and afford them a better chance of surviving one.

In the Bendigo region, more than 70 homes were lost in fires at Redesdale and in Bendigo’s western suburbs.

Not allowing affected home owners to return to their land and recreate their lives would also send a bad message to neighbours whose homes were spared.

We don’t need to create suburban ghettoes with a policy of forced abandonment of fire-affected properties. But we do need to have a far greater respect for the bush that surrounds our city and for the hazards and dangers it presents to us all.

A policy that creates no-go zones in fire-affected areas could mean huge upheaval for hundreds of thousands of Victorians.

That would not only be a complete over-reaction, it would probably also spell the end of hundreds of regional and rural communities.

What do you think?

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