[OT] Australia burns!

[Xeriar]

As you may or may not be aware, Denver experinced something quite similar to this last summer with the Haymen Fire. It turned out that one of the Federal Forest Service Employees had intentionally set the fire.

At the end of it, something like 130,000 acres of forest ended up burning (something like a 50 mile by 10 mile strip of land). I do not know what the property damage was, but it was (as might imagine) quite extensive.

The US has been paying for it's 'squash all fires no matter what' mentality, it's like our government forgot that fires are a part of nature.

Sigh, we'll probably see more of this.

 

[Eternalknight]

I guess bushfires are nothing new to anyone living in Australia, but I've got to say the footage of the firestorm on tv is like nothing I've ever seen.

And now the media is trying to whip up a blame storm, because it's easier to report news in the modern era when there's a villain to blame. To quote Kent Brockman "The time has come for finger pointing."

People are suffering and monumental sacrifices are being made and the media wants a witch hunt.

God it annoys me. Reading the Herald Sun today and seeing all the letters printed there about people blaming the fire fighters, or the government... I wish people would find something better to do! It was a frak of nature - nothing less than that. The fire ripped into Canberra along a 35km fire front at about 70km an hour (if the news is to be believed). I'd like to see anyone try to stop that.

Not sure what the weather is supposed to be in Canberra later this week, but here in Victoria the fires are getting more and more serious. It will be 35 degrees on Friday, 40 Saturday and 41 Sunday, and two of the fires in the Victorian High Country are about to join up, creating a fire front of more than 100km (for those not paying attention, that is three times the size of Canberra's). It has burnt over 100,000 hectares of land already.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Not sure what the weather is supposed to be in Canberra later this week, but here in Victoria the fires are getting more and more serious. It will be 35 degrees on Friday, 40 Saturday and 41 Sunday, and two of the fires in the Victorian High Country are about to join up, creating a fire front of more than 100km (for those not paying attention, that is three times the size of Canberra's). It has burnt over 100,000 hectares of land already.

It was 35 today, and they are predicting 40 degree on Sunday - currently the hottest ever recorded in Canberra is 39

Duncan

 

[hong]

Here in small-town Sydney, the skies are brown as bits of Canberra waft overhead. The last time it was this brown was the same time last year, only then it was bits of Sydney wafting overhead.


Hong "I think I can see Duncan Haldane's house from here!" Ooi