Yikes! Melbourne Wildfires!

[3113]

Australian bush fires killed 14 people and destroyed dozens of homes in the southern state of Victoria on Saturday, police and local media said, as a "once in a century“ heatwave sparked dozens of blazes across the country. "There are 14 dead. These areas are still very hot so we cannot get into many of the areas,“ a police spokesman told Reuters.

On Saturday temperatures in Melbourne soared to 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 Fahrenheit), the highest on record, local media said, with the mercury in the community of Laverton on the city’s west hitting 47.9 C (118.2 F). Officials said dozens of fires were blazing across the country’s densely populated southeast, and police said at least one that hit Sydney’s metropolitan area late on Friday had been deliberately lit.

A major fire in parkland east of Melbourne had burned more than 160 hectares of parkland after jumping containment lines overnight, and proved hard to control despite water bombs dropped from aircraft. Entire trees went up in flames, and roads in the area were closed.

Photos and more here.

Will everyone in Aussieland please chime in? Are you okay? Friends, relatives, neighbors okay?

Edited to add: Sorry! Title is wrong. Title should read Southern Australia Wildfires--I misread them as being in Melbourne! My bad!

 

[oggbashan]

Photos and more here.

Will everyone in Aussieland please chime in? Are you okay? Friends, relatives, neighbors okay?

Edited to add: Sorry! Title is wrong. Title should read Southern Australia Wildfires--I misread them as being in Melbourne! My bad!

Your edit is unnecessary. The fires are in the Southern State of Victoria and in the Melbourne suburbs.

I was in Melbourne in 1961 when wildfires spread through the Dandenongs and covered the city with wood ash. That was scary but these fires are worse.

Og

 

[DesertPirate]

Wish they didn't have them but glad they are away from Starr.

 

[3113]

Update:

Walls of flame roared across southeastern Australia on Saturday, razing scores of homes, forests and farmland in the sunburned country's worst wildfire disaster in a quarter century. At least 25 people died and the toll could rise to more than 40, police said. Witnesses described seeing trees exploding and skies raining ash as temperatures hit a record 117 degrees Saturday and combined with raging winds to create perfect conditions for uncontrollable blazes. A long-running drought in southern Australia — the worst in a century — has left forests extra dry. The fires were so massive they were visible from space. NASA released satellite photographs showing a white cloud of smoke across southeastern Australia.

The threat eased somewhat early Sunday as temperatures fell sharply, winds slowed, and rain began falling in some areas. Thousands of firefighters struggled through Saturday night to make headway against the largest of about a dozen large fires in Victoria state that earlier in the day ripped unchecked across at least 115 square miles of forests, farmland and towns. The single worst fire was about 60 miles north of the southern city of Melbourne. "The whole township is pretty much on fire," Peter Mitchell, a resident of the town of Kinglake, where at least six people died, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio during the inferno. "There was no time to do anything. ... It came through in minutes."

..."It's been, I think, the worst day in our history," said Victorian Premier John Brumby, whose parents' house was among those saved by firefighters Saturday.

...Forecasters said temperatures would only reach about 77 degrees on Sunday around Melbourne.

More info and photos here.

Aussies! If you can, please let us know that you're all right!

 

[ishtat]

Not exactly sure where Starrkers is located but assume she is west of the mountains which probably means she is due for a very hot day today. Western Sydney about 20 miles from me is forecast to get to 43degrees C and it will probably be hotter still west of the mountains - with strong winds.

 

[starrkers]

I'm in Central West NSW. No fire here, just very very hot.

The Victorian fire news is getting worse. Looks like at least two towns have been wiped off the map overnight. People are being found dead in their cars as they tried to escape. Access to these areas is limited with burning trees fallen on roads, etc. News footage from helicopters is ugly.

 

[3113]

I'm in Central West NSW. No fire here, just very very hot.

The Victorian fire news is getting worse. Looks like at least two towns have been wiped off the map overnight. People are being found dead in their cars as they tried to escape. Access to these areas is limited with burning trees fallen on roads, etc. News footage from helicopters is ugly.

Oh, geeze that's awful! Keep us updated.

 

[OzArrian]

Last count as of about 20 minutes ago were 35 people dead and could go into the 40s.

Sad to say some of those bushfires that have been raging in Victoria (as well as some here in NSW) were deliberately lit.

Having seen a bushfire once up close and personal I can say categorically that if you get caught in one it's hellish. They can move incredibly quickly, and as most of south east Australia has had drought and extremely hot weather this has been a ticking time bomb.

 

[OzArrian]

Latest count is 46....extremely bad situation

 

[starrkers]

65 dead, 700 homes gone.

Toll expected to rise as crews go house to house, looking for bodies.

 

[OzArrian]

Now up to 76...

Words fail me

 

[starrkers]

84 now.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Hell erupts on Earth.

 

[trysail]

Oz weighs on my mind today.

 

[Stella_Omega]

New reports at least 93 deaths now.


Victoria State Police are saying also, that some fires which were put out-- restarted, and they are thinking deliberately by arsonists.

 

[reachedme]

wildfires

I live in wetern victoria its okay here but these are bad sat morning here I can't remember it being so hot so early in the morning and the wind. We had bad fires 20 years ago called the ash wednesday fires if you want to know more try the australian broadcast corporation or the country fire authority sites

 

[ishtat]

96 confirmed dead with another 100 unaccounted for this Monday morning. Weather has turned cool but no rain to speak of. A sense of shock prevails.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

New reports at least 93 deaths now.


Victoria State Police are saying also, that some fires which were put out-- restarted, and they are thinking deliberately by arsonists.

And there are still those who refuse to believe that capital punisment isn't justified in any case. Bring back the auto da fe'.

 

[starrkers]

108 dead, 750+ homes destroyed.

Fires still burning.

 

[starrkers]

130 dead, 750 homes gone, more than 800,000 acres burned.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

130 dead, 750 homes gone, more than 800,000 acres burned.

Unholy. Whoever sets those things approaches Al Qaeda in genuine evil.

 

[starrkers]

Some of the fires were delivberately lit, some were from lightning strikes.

http://www.smh.com.au/

 

[3113]

Our thoughts are with with all of you there in Australia. That's a huge, and shocking loss, whether or not it's touched you personally.

 

[3113]

The latest:

Police declared incinerated towns crime scenes Monday, and the prime minister spoke of "mass murder" after investigators said arsonists may have set some of Australia's worst wildfires in history. The death toll rose to 166.

There were no quick answers, but officials said panic and the freight-train speed of the fire front — driven by 60 mph winds and temperatures as high as 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 C) — probably accounted for the unusually high toll. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, visibly upset during a television interview, reflected the country's disgust at the idea that arsonists may have set some of the 400 fires that devastated Victoria state, or helped them jump containment lines. "What do you say about anyone like that?" Rudd said. "There's no words to describe it, other than it's mass murder."

From the air, the landscape was blackened as far as the eye could see. In at least one town, bodies still lay in the streets. Entire forests were reduced to leafless, charred trunks, farmland to ashes....At Kinglake, a body covered by a white sheet lay in a yard where every tree, blade of grass and the ground was blackened. Elsewhere in the town, the burned-out hulks of four cars were clustered haphazardly together after an apparent collision. Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported a car in a small reservoir, the driver apparently steering there in desperation. "What we've seen, I think, is that people didn't have enough time, in some cases," Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon told a news conference. "We're finding (bodies) on the side of roads, in cars that crashed."

..."Last Saturday we had the most intense fire weather conditions we have had in forecast history," David Packham, a research fellow in climatology at the School of Geography & Environmental Science at Melbourne's Monash University, said in an e-mail to journalists on Monday. He said the heat and a recent lack of rain made it clear days before the weekend that "conditions were in place for a disaster to occur." At least 750 homes were destroyed Saturday, the Victoria Country Fire Service said.

...The country's top law officer, Attorney General Robert McClelland, said people found to have deliberately set fires could face murder charges. Murder can carry a life sentence.

Complete story here.

 

[starrkers]

The visibility here is severely affected by smoke from the fires - hundreds of miles south of here.
The good news: today it is 24 degrees (76F) at 9am. Yesterday it was 30 (86F).
Top temperature expected today here is 31 (88), yesterday it peaked at 41 (106).
It is cooler again in Victoria.

The bad news - there was no rain with the cool front. Fires are still burning, some out of control. The poor buggers fighting them are the ones that have lost family and friends, homes and whole communities.

And the death toll is still rising. Now 173 confirmed. No idea how many missing, people are scattered all over the place. Several villages have been obliterated.