Down Under Wildfires

Anyone on this Forum affected by the Aussie wildfires?

Slick

I have got a house full of smoke and a step-daughter who is worried about what might happen. I am upwind of two bushfires which are about to become one very big one. The prevailing winds are from the south and west, except on very hot days. Bushfires make their own winds. The problem is that if the wind blows from the north east, the fire can reverse direction and come towards our town. Then we might get ember attack. If the embers get under the eaves and up into the roof . . . ? Many Australian country towns are built in the middle of eucalypt forests. Our town is surrounded by grassland. We are currently suffering a drought, so the trees have little moisture, but contain eucalyptus oil - they can simply explode. There is a possibility, that we could have a firestorm on our hands.
Friday this week might be a worry. We had a dangerous day on Friday of last week.
When this bushfire season finishes, the next will probably be floods. Hot air carries more moisture.
My friend lives near the top of Mount Dandenong, east of Melbourne. That is really dangerous.

acotrel said:

I have got a house full of smoke and a step-daughter who is worried about what might happen. I am upwind of two bushfires which are about to become one very big one. The prevailing winds are from the south and west, except on very hot days. Bushfires make their own winds. The problem is that if the wind blows from the north east, the fire can reverse direction and come towards our town. Then we might get ember attack. If the embers get under the eaves and up into the roof . . . ? Many Australian country towns are built in the middle of eucalypt forests. Our town is surrounded by grassland. We are currently suffering a drought, so the trees have little moisture, but contain eucalyptus oil - they can simply explode. There is a possibility, that we could have a firestorm on our hands.
Friday this week might be a worry. We had a dangerous day on Friday of last week.
When this bushfire season finishes, the next will probably be floods. Hot air carries more moisture.
My friend lives near the top of Mount Dandenong, east of Melbourne. That is really dangerous.

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hope you , yours, and your Seeley survive unscathed.

Best wishes

We're hearing about a lot of people getting arrested for starting fires. What is going on with that? Has there always been an issue with pyromaniacs there?

swooshdave said:

We're hearing about a lot of people getting arrested for starting fires. What is going on with that? Has there always been an issue with pyromaniacs there?

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There is one particular conservative politician who started the rest off to becoming in denial about climate change. There have been instances where mentally ill people have started fires and it suits the conservatives to make as much as they can out of that. Two days ago our Prime Minister actually acknowledged that climate change is happening. His political party works closely with the coal lobby. Fossil fuel industries are subsidised at $29 billion per annum in Australia and whom do you think they fund ?

The latest reports this morning said the two fires joined-up during last night when it was cool. The winds got erratic, but fire-fighters are kept well away when that is happening. This morning, I have a stuffy nose which means the smoke is still about. When we have smoke, that means there is no breeze. Today the temperature will reach 35 degrees C. On Friday it will be about 45 degrees C. If the wind gets up on Friday, we might have a problem. If the fire erupts, it can travel like the wind. I would be very unlucky if the wind blew from the north east carrying embers and there is not much to burn around my house. I'd just have to stand and fight or give up and try to run. It would all be pretty quick.

Most of the fires start because of 'dry lightning' - low humidity and eucalyptus oil. But that is not our current problem - the fires are already going, any more is just more. What we have can form a firestorm if the wind gets up.

Some people just like to start fires, bit of a mental issues for sure, our country is a dry country and have always suffered long droughts and 3/4 of the country has very little rain fall, but this has been one of the worst drought we have on record, the under growth is so dry and dry lighting strickes have caused a lot of the major fires, it all part of Australia's history and the Abourigianls have dealt with it for centuries, but the biggest problems people like to live in the bush and aren't preparing for the fire session, we use to have burn off's in our cooler months but these are just not being happening as much these days.
Its a big lost to property and lost of life as well the widelife but the country will recover and the land will regrow quickly as this has been happening for centuries, our Gov was warned about this inferno months ago but did nothing about it and has proven our PM is just a show pony and why does he need to have the media with him all the time, makes me wonder.
And now they have caught a few looter and now the scammers are hitting, be aware who you give your donations to as the scammers don't care.

Ashley

Wish you guys and all your Country the best ..... makes my worry of 1.5 ft. of snow forecast this week seem very lame ....

May you come out of this unscathed. I suppose rain would be a miracle, but here's hoping the Supreme Architect of the Universe will oblige with some, and may the winds remain favorable.

Slick

swooshdave said:

We're hearing about a lot of people getting arrested for starting fires. What is going on with that? Has there always been an issue with pyromaniacs there?

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There was a story on the local news today about a lot of misinformation on the fires going global
Pictures of Australia completely on fire
This is not true
It’s a very big country
While a lot of the east coast is or has been of fire, as well as the center bottom the rest is not.
It is still very bad and lots of lives, property and animals have been lost.
I heard on the news that some kids supposedly started fires in Queensland a month ago.

Beware of scams collecting donations

Here in Tasmania (island south of the mainland) we had bad fires last year.

Graeme

I live on the NSW south coast near Nowra. The fires came closest to me on Saturday night but fortunately passed about 4km to the west of me. I was up all night prepared for the ember attack but fortunately with a southerly wind blowing I only received hot ash and embers from the fire on the south side of the Shoalhaven river that were no longer glowing. A friend about 4k to the west lost her house at Tapitallee. Work colleagues have lost houses and a work colleague who retired on Christmas eve was killed in the fire at Conjola.

For almost 2 months all the air that I have had to breathe has been smokey and at time myself or workmates have not been able to make it to work due to road closures.

I have another property a little further south and the fires passed within 1 km of that property. 12 homes just to the west of me there were destroyed and one person was killed.

The area from Batemans Bay to the coast is like a war zone as fire ripped through leafy suburbia.

So far I have nothing to complain about and have been very lucky, but the nature of this fire has been to return to areas that have been untouched so I cannot relax. The forecast for Friday here was for extreme fire conditions again but the most recent temperature and wind predictions have eased a bit and the winds are now predicted to be northerly which is favourable to me.

There seem to be plenty of idiots about still lighting fires. Yesterday a workmate just witnessed a fire bug light a fire near her property but fortunately was able to get the car number plate. The main fire in my area is the Currowan fire which was initially started when a firebug lit 6 separate fires on a hot day along the River Rd at Currowan. I would personally like to see these bastards tried as terrorists.

Other low lifes have been looting and in another case a scumbag posed as a fire fighter and door knocked several houses telling the occupants they must evacuate immediately. He the set about robbing the houses but was caught in the act. Some businesses have engaged in profiteering with bottled water being sold in one store at $9 per bottle and caravan gas bottle refills (to people without power) at $100. On the other hand plenty of people have thrown their homes open to strangers that have either lost homes or have evacuated due to the fire. A major food chain Woolworths has been providing food free of charge to some of our clubs who are providing free meals for evacuees. It seems that events like this bring out the best in some but the worst in others.
this link opens a map that you can zoom in on to see the extent of fires in NSW.
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me


ando

We were severely impacted about 10 days ago. The fire got to within 1.5 miles of us (at this margin of the fire, two homes were lost), but in the end we escaped completely unscathed, though somewhat rattled by the experience.
So many others have been far lest fortunate. The son of a friend near Milton "lost everything" despite very careful preparation over two weeks for the impending fire's arrival.

We always have had bush fires, but nothing on the scale of these. It's as if the apocalypse has arrived.
My heart breaks for the losses people have sustained, human lives and possessions. (Four volunteer firefighters have died so far). The loss of flora and fauna is on a scale unimaginable. Some will never recover.

Arson unfortunately is nothing new. Each time the causes of bush fires are investigated, the figures are remarkably consistent, over decades:
47% are the result of arson
40% are the result of accidents, but nonetheless related to human activity.
13% are the result of natural events, such as lightning strikes.
Arson remains a factor, but is no different this time to before. What is different is the extent of the drought we are experiencing in large parts of Australia.

Rather than re-hash things, if you are interested and patient, feel free to read through this long series of recent posts on an MG car related forum site. The original posting was directed towards me, enquiring about my and my family's welfare.
I contributed for a while, till the thread was hijacked by climate change denialists, speaking loudly and forcibly, and, as usual almost always with no factual basis to their claims.
I absolutely despair of a large number of my fellow countrymen.

https://www.mgexp.com/forum/mgb-and-gt-forum.1/new-south-wales-fires-and-members-of-the.4059822/

At present the monsoon in Indonesia is causing horrific floods. It is possible that the wet season in North-west Australia will send rain across to our side. The weather cycle has changed and nobody knows what to expect. A few months ago, we had big floods in Queensland, now they have bushfires.