Fires in Victoria

[LunarMist]

From the news here it looks really bad down there. I know we have several Australian members - how are you doing?

We regularly have fires in SoCal, but usually they affect brushland more than homes or at least there is reasonable warning. One sometimes waits to standby for evacuation, but I've never actually had to leave home.

 

[mubs]

The newspaper here said some 14 people had died in the fires. I am concerned too.

 

[LunarMist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090208/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_wildfires
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/08/australia.wildfires/index.html

I don't know how accurate reports are, but fatalities seem to be increasing.

 

[udaman]

From the news here it looks really bad down there. I know we have several Australian members - how are you doing?

We regularly have fires in SoCal, but usually they affect brushland more than homes or at least there is reasonable warning. One sometimes waits to standby for evacuation, but I've never actually had to leave home.

Chewy & Tannin (Tea might be in trouble, hanging out in the trees) are along the east coast IIRC, fires are in a different location I believe, worst on record (modern times).

You live in So. Cal. LM, didn't know that. I live in So. Cal. and that's not my impression at all. Have you actually read up on So. Cal. fires...doesn't seem like it by your post?

Was 84 deaths being reported as of this morning, where are you guys getting your info... wiki?

Death toll reaches 108 as Australia's wildfires rage


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-australia-fires9-2009feb09,1,6487011.story

Interesting article in the LA Times (now in bankruptcy, parent corp) a while back comparing massive expense of fighting ever increasing wild fires in Calif. to how they keep cost under control in Oz. Was a contention that 'global warming' at the cause, but then in a natural fire ecosystem, fires burn up excessive build up or fire material, man made control results in ever greater stockpiles of that:

'Stay or go' policy puts Australian families on front lines of firefighting



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wildfires3-2008aug03,0,1422284.story

 

[LunarMist]

Reading up??? I've seen them from the backyard at least three times. Smoke so thick it is hard to breathe, constant helicopters overhead, and deciding whether to leave or not. Malibu, Chatsworth, Topanga, Simi and others - they all suck. Friends and coworkers made homeless, etc.

 

[Tannin]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. The areas affected are some distance from here. This is nothing but luck, it could just as easily have been Ballarat instead of Bendigo to the north, Horsham to the west, Cobram to the south, or Kinglake to the east. Similar sort of country here, and just as dry. Pure luck of the draw.

I spent Black Saturday with Belinda as her house is very much at risk (mine is in the centre of suburban Ballarat and more-or-less safe); cars packed and trailer loaded, ready to depart at 5 minutes notice, and constantly watching the CFA fire warning website.

It was 44 degrees here in Ballarat (that's 111 F), with a howling gale blowing down from the arid inland, gusting in all directions.

We are not at all surprised that the fires spread so quickly or burned with that incredible heat: humidity was less than 10%, the temperature over most of the state was 46 or more (115 F) (Ballarat is 450 metres above sea level and can often be a bit cooler than the rest of the state), and there has been no rain of any consequence for months.

The death toll currently stands at 135 and still counting.

The root cause is climate: we have always had fires in summer, sometimes bad ones, but never, ever in our history have we had such extreme weather. Remember also that we now have radio and mobile phone communications, motorized fire trucks (in the 1939 Black Friday fires, a lot of transport was still horse drawn), aircraft, weather radar, helicopter water bombers, huge D9 bulldozers, readily available help airlifted in from the other states, and much, much less bush to burn than there used to be.

There is no reason to think that the future will bring a reduction in summer temperatures, only further increase.

 

[Tannin]

PS: visit http://abc.net.au and follow the prompts for news and very compelling photography.

 

[LiamC]

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5037339-5006020-6,00.html

The molten metal in the foreground is the wheels that have melted. That should give you an idea of the heat. And that isn't a one-off case...

I thought we had it bad in Canberra in 2003. Only 4 people died and 500 homes destroyed. That was nothing like this. Hunt around and you will see multi-car accidents that were overtaken by the flames. The only conclusion to draw is that everyone in those cars perished. The toll will be much higher than 135...

 

[Tannin]

Fires the deadly inevitability of climate change

It is only a couple of years since scientists first told us we could expect a whole new order of fires in south-eastern Australia, fires of such ferocity they would simply engulf the towns in their path. And here they are. The fires we saw on Saturday were not "once in a thousand years" or even "once in a hundred years" events, as our political leaders keep repeating. They were the face of climate change in our part of the world.

These fires are simply the result of the new conditions that climate change has introduced here: raised temperatures, giving us hotter days than we have ever experienced before combined with lower rainfall giving us a drier landscape. Let's stop using the word "drought", with its implication that dry weather is the exception. The desiccation of the landscape here is the new reality. It is now our climate.

It was only by chance that a cool change came through on Saturday. What if the pattern of the heatwave that occurred in the last week of January had been repeated? If instead of the cool change on Saturday evening we had had three or four days of above 40 degree temperatures? How much of our state, how many of our towns and outer suburbs, would have been engulfed?

People are comparing last Saturday to Ash Wednesday and Black Friday. But this misses the point. We should be comparing these fires to the vast and devastating fires of 2002-03, which swept through 2 million hectares of forest in the south-east and raged uncontrollably for weeks. They have been quickly forgotten because, being mainly in parks, they did not involve major loss of human life or property.

But it is to this fire regime, the new fire regime of climate change, rather than to the regimes of 1983 or 1939, that the present fires belong. Saturday showed us the terrifying and desolating face of climate change.

 

[Tannin]

More from this excellent article, while the body count continues:

"The Prime Minister weeps on television at the tragedy of Saturday's events. He looks around uncomprehendingly, unable to find words, unable to find meaning. But there are words. There is meaning. This is climate change. This is what the scientists told us would happen. All the climatic events of the past 10 years have been leading inexorably to this."

 

[The Giver]

Headline: St. Petersburg Times (Florida) "Australian Toll Mounts"

Is there a relief fund set up somewhere the friends and fans of Aussies can contribute to????

 

[Tannin]

Thanks Bill,

Yes the Red Cross and various other agencies have a relief fund running, but honestly, it has already had a massive subscription (over 30 million dollars in the first couple of days, and that will increase fast) and in any case, that will not address the core problem, which is atmospheric carbon levels.

Over and over, we are hearing experienced, professional firefighters saying that it didn't matter what they did or how much equipment they might have had, these fires were way beyond any human ability to control. "We could have has 5000 men and 50 Elvises", one senior firefighter who was at the scene said earlier today, "and it wouldn't have made any difference".

(An "Elvis" is one of those gigantic water bombing helicopters. You have them too - indeed, the exact same ones: they are highly effective and incredibly expensive, so they are shipped around the globe every year to keep them busy working both the northern and the southern fire seasons.)

The intensity of the fires, the incredible heat generated, and the speed at which they move has taken them beyond any ability to fight them when conditions are bad. I spent this morning talking to a fireman who spent the weekend fighting the Bendigo fire (a realitively small one that destroyed only about 80 homes and killed only a half-dozen people). He and his team were defending an ordinary suburban street. We are not talking bush blocks here: these were typical suburban quarter-acre housing blocks in the town itself. They lost: all the houses burned to the ground.

This never used to happen. The difference is climate. It is hotter, the vegetation is much, much dryer because our rainfall is 40% lower than it used to be, the humidity is way down - less than 10% on Black Saturday - and the winds reach gale force even before you factor in the self-generated howling of the fire itself.

Don't send money. Do something that will actually help: write to your congressman today and tell him that you expect his to get off his arse and do something about climate change now, or you will kick him out and get someone who will.

Money will provide short-term help to the people in Bendigo and Marysville who lost their homes last week, but it will do nothing to help the people who will lose their homes and lives in Ballarat or Maryborough next year, and Adelaide or Bathurst next year, and every year.

If you really want to help, write to your congressman.

 

[Tannin]

The death toll now stands at 181 and still counting. Forensic experts have warned that because of the extreme heat some of the bodies may never be identified.

 

[Tannin]

Pictures and much more information here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/

 

[Bozo]

One thing that has me baffled after looking at the pictures, the houses are destroyed but the nearby trees look unscathed. Strange.

 

[LiamC]

The trees are blackened, but I can see what you mean. You were expecting complete levelling, whilst it looks like the leaves are still on the trees.

Australian trees have little resemblance to trees of the Northern Hemisphere. The canopy is much more open and spread out. The leaves also contain high levels of essential oils (Eucalyptus oil and derivatives). Notice the oil. This has implications. Our fires rip through the forest (bush) canopy at speeds fire fighters (and I've spoken to them) from the Northern Hemisphere cannot comprehend. It is literally (when it gets going) a rolling fireball/fire-storm on a front miles wide that can move at 60 ~ 70 miles per hour. Hot enough to melt metal. The front doesn't last long, but it doesn't
have to. It's like throwing an armload of tinder and twigs on fire, it burns hot and bright for a minute or so and dies away. But as Tannin said, you have square kilometres of extremely dry tinder and oil filled vegetation to fuel the front.

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,22010,5037339-5006020,00.html#

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5037340-5006020-1,00.html


To get back on topic, what you are seeing in the pictures is about 10% of the original foliage, and it's probably 97% carbon. When it rains or a wind blows, there will be nothing left.

 

[Chewy509]

I'm doing fine. (I'm in South East Queensland - nothing but sunshine, 30 degrees C and 80-90% humidity here). Thanks for the concern.

However, my parents live in Gippsland, VIC near Leongatha. And thankfully, they're fine as well, as the closest fires are still approx 30km away from their property, and they have mainly pasture/paddocks between them and the fires. But where my dad works was evacuated due to the fires and he had a few days off work. (No damage to his workplace, which is good news).

My brother on the other hand lives out towards Hamilton (mid way between Melbourne and Adelaide), and is a local CFA member. He nearly had to evacuate his own home due to fires approx 2km from his property. (He lives near a pine plantation, it it went up in smoke). He's been out helping in the west of Victoria, fighting some of the smaller fires there.

For other local news, the floods in north Queensland have claimed a few lives, a local child was suspected to be taken by a croc in the main street of the town Ingham. ( http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/08/2485468.htm?site=idx-qld ). Flood waters are already receding, but due to local low-pressure systems just north, the residents are expecting more rain shortly. Ingham has been severally flooded twice in the a matter of weeks... Just a pity the run that's flooding Nth Queensland isn't helping out the people of Vic.

 

[jtr1962]

Don't send money. Do something that will actually help: write to your congressman today and tell him that you expect his to get off his arse and do something about climate change now, or you will kick him out and get someone who will.

Money will provide short-term help to the people in Bendigo and Marysville who lost their homes last week, but it will do nothing to help the people who will lose their homes and lives in Ballarat or Maryborough next year, and Adelaide or Bathurst next year, and every year.

If you really want to help, write to your congressman.

Believe me, a small minority here have been doing exactly that but unfortunately the powers that be for the last 8 years don't want to hear it. Maybe the new guy will do things differently, or at least we can hope. It looks like Australia is getting the brunt of this unfortunately but be aware that even in the US we're experiencing real but more subtle climate change. I'm not sure what can be done anyway from a practical standpoint. Even if we stopped putting CO2 and other greenhouse gases like methane into the air today, the high concentrations will remain for decades. I guess we could start planting lots of fast-growing trees anywhere the rainfall will support them, and hope it takes the CO2 out of the air faster than we put it in. Long term we really need to change our ways.

If/when things get as bad in the US as they are over there you'll see action. Those temperatures sound like hell on Earth. I hope we can end this before it gets really bad.

 

[Tannin]

It is believed that most of the missing victims are now accounted for, although there will probably be a few more added to the list before investigations are complete.

Official death toll now stands at 201.

Meanwhile, the northern part of the continent faces massive floods.Like the fires, these are a symptom of global warming. See here: http://media.theage.com.au/?rid=46228

If you still don't believe that anthropogenic climate change is the criticial issue facing us all, and still stand in the way of the people trying to deal with it, the time is past to call you ignorant, and the time is past to call you mistaken, and the time is past to call you stupid. It is time to call you what you are: scum.

 

[Tannin]

208 dead.

 

[LiamC]

Hey Tony, are you OK? The fires are headed for Ballarat today I hear

 

[Tannin]

No problems here in central Ballarat, Liam, thanks for asking.

Today was a shocking day for wind through Victoria, only 32 degrees but a howling north wind gusting over 100km/h (higher in the alpine areas), followed by a late afternoon change with even stronger gusts and a windshift around to the south-west. Firefighters had to be pulled out of line because it was just too dangerous to be anywhere near trees (one was killed last week, in much gentler weather). During the worst of the wind as the front came through, most of the aircraft were grounded too.

We have a 1-100 fire danger scale calculated on a number of factors: temperature, wind speed, dryness of the vegetation, stuff like that. Today the risk factor was 170.

Thankfully, the four big fires still burning from a couple of weeks ago did not escape their containment lines - firefighting teams from Victoria, all the other states, and overseas have been working very hard all week to get them contained before the expected danger day, and that effort has paid off.

Of the two fires near Ballarat, the first and larger one to the east of here close to Dalesford (this one started about a week ago) remained within its containment lines; the second one started south of Ballarat at the worst possible time this afternoon while the wind was at its peak, but there was a massive response by the aircraft that could still fly and almost 100 ground units and they got it under control before it got too big.

We are very, very lucky that the change didn't bring any lightning to speak of, and also (against the forecast) brought a little bit of rain. Here we got perhaps 3 or 4 mm - not enough to count as the first actual rain since ... er ... since I can't remember when, but it miught have been December, but sufficient to take the worst edge off the fire risk for a couple of days.

The toll for Black Saturday now stands at 210, plus 35 people still missing. The bodies may not exist anymore - the heat of the Black Saturday fires was extreme.

Also today, we have had many non-fire related wind events: power lines down (central Ballarat had no power earlier today, many other places the same), trees blown down blocking roads and rail lines, and so on.

But, thanks to a massive effort by the fire people and the SES, no lives lost. If ever there was a season where we could use some autumn rain, this is the one.

 

[mubs]

Glad y'all are ok, Tony.

 

[Fushigi]

Some pictures from the Boston Globe.

 

[paugie]

I'm sorry, Tony, that such a big catastrophe happened. We hope that by this time there are no more fires burning.

I knew that I posted something in this thread early on but looking it over, there's nothing from me. :-(