[OT] Australia burns!

[Hygric]

Anyone heard any word about a relief appeal yet? I may be unemployed at the moment, but I can scrape together something.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

This may be a little too soon, but everyone in Canberra, watch over the next 6 - 12 months. Those tens of thousands of hectares of burnt out bush will be green again. The bush's relationship with fire is nothing short of miraculous.

Humanity's relationship is more problematic. To all those who have lost, and you are sadly not alone, prayers and support. No doubt we'll be sending aid from here on the other side of the country very soon.

Wow, those firestorms were as bad as anything I've ever seen footage of, the whole sky orange and red in the day! Terrifying!

 

[Eternalknight]

Re: Melbourne covered in smoke

It's kinda ironic. I started a thread and whinged about a group that chain-smoked and this morning I wake up and get ready to walk 3km to a meeting and when I get outside, I find the entire city covered in a pall of smoke.

Admittedly, my first thoughts were selfish and were along the lines of, "Oh that just figures, doesn't it," but then I realized just how much must've burnt up north for virtually all of Melbourne, including the outer-suburbs, to be blanketed in such a way.

Melbourne smoke shroud: http://au.news.yahoo.com/030120/2/ivw7.html

Well I'm a little closer to the victorian fires, and my township (Sale) has been covered in smoke too. Apparently one house has been lost so far in Victoria, and although, as Agback said, Canberra is out of immediate danger, many of the high country towns in North East Victoria and Gippsland are now under threat.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Well, It's Monday night, 2 days after the fire.

On Friday and Saturday today's temp. was predicted to be 39. Yesterday they changed that to 35. But due to the huge smoke cloud it only got to 31.

I'd like to point out that the front of the fires was spread out over 30Km. There were 300 firefighters involved at the time, which is not enough to cover 30Km. (that's one firefighter per two olympic pool lengths for the meterically-challenged). I can't even imagine how many you would need to handle a 30Km front - maybe ten times that number?

400+ houses destroyed in one makes this the worst fire in Australia's history according to the news I've just seen.

Some people are trying to find someone to blame, but what's bothering me most about the whole problem at the moment is the news that the Emergency Services H/Q lost power during the fire - they should have a generator, and should have Satellite phone just for this sort of circumstance. While I don't think it would have saved much, at least the radio could have gotten reports of areas to evacuate.

Duncan

 

[Eternalknight]

400+ houses destroyed in one makes this the worst fire in Australia's history according to the news I've just seen.

Not quite right. Ash Wednesday, over 2000 houses were destroyed. I think, however, that the ACT fires were the second worst in Australian history.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Not quite right. Ash Wednesday, over 2000 houses were destroyed. I think, however, that the ACT fires were the second worst in Australian history.

Ah, well. As I said, it was on a news report I just saw on TV - but maybe there were some further qualifications to it I missed ;-)

BTW, I just wanted to point out that now less than 5% of houses in Canberra are without power, which is pretty good going IMO.

By the end of the week nearly all houses should again have power, phones and gas.

Duncan

 

[Sammael99]

Last year, when Sidney was on fire, I already wondered about international relief, and I'm wondering yet again...

In France, it's the dead of winter. We have dozens and dozens of Canadair planes, hundreds of firemen specialized in fighting forest fires unused right now.

Why don't they get sent down there ? OK, so I'd take 48hrs, but it seems to me that would still be worthwhile. Is it due to our government not proposing, yours not asking or am I being increadibly stupid ?

 

[Duncan Haldane]

In France, it's the dead of winter. We have dozens and dozens of Canadair planes, hundreds of firemen specialized in fighting forest fires unused right now.

Why don't they get sent down there ? OK, so I'd take 48hrs, but it seems to me that would still be worthwhile. Is it due to our government not proposing, yours not asking or am I being increadibly stupid ?

There already is a lot of this going on between the US and Australia, and a bunch of firefighters arrived from New Zealand yesterday (we also have major fires in National parks with Ski resorts in the middle of them, and these guys from NZ are specialists in that type of environment).

We even have been sharing helicopters with the US.

California has been planting lots of Eucalyptus trees (Australian Natives) over the last couple of decades, and are now suffering with the type of bushfires we get here because of it.

But I know no reason why French Firefighters wouldn't be sent here.

Of course, the scope and effect of the firestorm in Canberra was never anticipated. We are in the middle of the worst drought in 100 years here at the moment, that along with extreme temperatures and 100km/hour winds created a situation no one could expect - and it became apparent how bad it would get in about an hour, so not much time to do anything about it.

Duncan

 

[Eternalknight]

Apparently some folks in Canberra had less than 15 minutes warning, is that right?

 

[Agback]

This may be a little too soon, but everyone in Canberra, watch over the next 6 - 12 months. Those tens of thousands of hectares of burnt out bush will be green again. The bush's relationship with fire is nothing short of miraculous.

The same is not true of the pine plantations. We had a lot of those burned last year, and they are still open and bare. Pines don't stand fire the way eucalypts do. We have lost thousands of hectares of pine plantation in the past few days, and there is some question as to whether they ought to be re-planted with pines or gums.

Then again, you are assuming that we will have rain in the next six months. Our last significant rain was in February. There is no prospect of real rain before April, and it is entirely possible that we are going to have another dry year.

Regards,


Agback