Fires in Oz

[Rustyoznail]

I didn’t want to fill up the coffee shop with depressing news, so I’m creating this thread.

So far there’s 11,000,000 hectares (27,181,600 acres) burnt in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.

To put that in perspective, that’s nearly all of England on fire. Scotland and Wales is next...

The closest fires to us are about 50km away, but we’ve had a cool change and a light sprinkle of rain. There’s a good thing about being in a really damp area of the state. My sister and her family though are in the east of Victoria and are under imminent danger from ember attack. Eucalyptus leaves can smoulder for ages and can be blown around 20km in front of the actual fire.

Two things will stop this disaster. A lot of rain, or nothing left to burn.

https://i.imgur.com/ezujwYC.jpg

 

[Bramblethorn]

Penrith (Western Sydney) reached a new record of 48.9 degrees today - 120 Fahrenheit. This is a major urban area. I hate to think how many people will be dying just from the heat and smoke, let alone the fires themselves.

Several places dear to my heart are under attack, or choking in smoke. It's a sad time, made all the worse by massive failures of leadership :-/

 

[Handley_Page]

That picture speaks volumes ('the road to hell' ?)

Are those "water bombers" not used, then ?

 

[Bramblethorn]

That picture speaks volumes ('the road to hell' ?)

Are those "water bombers" not used, then ?

They are, but we don't have enough aircraft to cover such a huge fire front (nor trucks or volunteers, for that matter), and the fires themselves make for very dangerous flying conditions - fierce winds, thunderstorms, and thick smoke/ash.

This is Canberra Airport from Friday - not even that near the fire front, this is all smoke blown in from NSW fires:

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc78ny104a8u9q72ak4v4.jpg/r0_0_4062_2699_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

Aircraft are useful for stomping on new fire spots before they get established, and for targeted property protection, but they only go so far.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-15/are-bigger-water-bombers-the-answer-to-bushfire-woes/11705502
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...jor-air-tanker-expansion-20200103-p53onl.html

 

[RustyIron]

I was just watching an update on TV on the fires, According to the experts the current situation is totally unprecedented. I have certainly never seen anything like it in my life.

A 400 km section of the HWY from SA to WA has been cut, and likely to be for 5 or so days.

This is Spooky https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/78/590x/1223701_1.webp?r=1578072047737

 

[ElectricBlue]

Several places dear to my heart are under attack, or choking in smoke. It's a sad time, made all the worse by massive failures of leadership :-/

The failures in leadership started decades ago when people started saying, "Oh no, you can't do controlled burns, think of the cost, think of the smoke." The reason we have a cataclysm now is because we've left the fuel load go for so long of course it burns.

Once this lot is over there'll be an major rubbing of anguished hands, the bloody Greens and climate doomsayers will jump on the global warming bandwagon and blame the current government, blame everyone but themselves, nothing will get done, and in ten or fifteen years it will all happen again because the trees will grow back, drop their branches and dry out every year, and the fuel will build up. Again.

This is the worst I've seen in terms of hectares burned, but the loss of life has been surprisingly low, and we've had entire townships decimated before. The difference this time, hopefully, is that there might be a rational discussion, and progressive burn policies put in place. The scale of this season might focus some minds - we can only hope.

 

[Voboy]

Growing up in the Western United States (the hills north of LA), this was a sadly common state of affairs when I was a boy. My friends and I always said that if the earthquakes didn't get you, the fires would. Parts of places like Alaska and the northern Rockies see out-of-control fires annually, fought at great expense. The growing severity and cost of our modern fires, too, is the result of decades of wrongheaded fire policy that never allowed nature to manage itself; I don't know if that's the case in Oz.

What's happening down there sounds like a perfect firestorm of wind, weather, and embers. Hang in there, guys. When I was training in wildland firefighting in Wyoming a million years ago, I was reminded that you can't stop these fires; really, you can only hope to contain and direct them until they choose to go out. Meanwhile, it's a lot of digging.

 

[SimonDoom]

My thoughts are with our Oz friends. The US has seen an unusual number of devastating fires in recent years, including last year's fire that wiped out the 15,000 person town of Paradise and killed over 80 people. I know people whose homes have been destroyed by the fires. But over 20 million acres burned is staggering. That's very hard to imagine. I hope you folks get rain soon, although I don't know if that's likely in the middle of your summer.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Hopes and prayers for you, folks. We too in Canada have had some massive fires, although nothing like this. Hang in.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The failures in leadership started decades ago when people started saying, "Oh no, you can't do controlled burns, think of the cost, think of the smoke." The reason we have a cataclysm now is because we've left the fuel load go for so long of course it burns.

Once this lot is over there'll be an major rubbing of anguished hands, the bloody Greens and climate doomsayers will jump on the global warming bandwagon and blame the current government, blame everyone but themselves, nothing will get done, and in ten or fifteen years it will all happen again because the trees will grow back, drop their branches and dry out every year, and the fuel will build up. Again.

*sigh*

Here's a bushfire protection specialist debunking the myth that "green tape" impedes burn-offs:
https://twitter.com/jagungal1/status/1212945884767379457

Here's a former fire commissioner:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/thi...about-the-nsw-mega-fires-20191110-p5395e.html

Here's an ABC fact-check:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/hazard-reduction-burns-bushfires/11817336

Here's another bushfire specialist:
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...conspiracy-to-stop-bushfire-hazard-reduction?

And a couple more threads from people experienced with fire:
https://twitter.com/ozjimbob/status/1212179666649268224
https://twitter.com/propinqua/status/1212645984863281152

Main points from those discussions:
- The main obstacle to hazard reduction burns isn't "green tape", it's that the climate is changing and the window in which HR can be done is shrinking. (If you recall, our fire season started in winter this year...)
- In moderate conditions, HR burns can be helpful, but the benefit they provide lasts roughly 5 years (depending on local vegetation etc.), and even if we were prepared to burn the shit out of the entire countryside every five years, we don't have the capacity to do so.
- In extreme weather conditions like those we're experiencing now (and will continue to experience more and more of, due to climate change), HR is far less effective. When it's mid-forties and bone-dry with high winds, just about anything will burn. The old wisdom about how fires used to work isn't reliable in the new world.

(Also, as I'm sure you know, the Greens have never held a majority in any Federal or State Parliament, and very rarely even at council levels, so I'm not clear on how they are supposed to have imposed all these restrictions on HR that people keep claiming? Never mind that Greens policy actually supports scientifically-backed hazard reduction, as part of a broader management strategy.)

So hell yes people are going to talk about climate change. It is central to the situation here. Anybody who wants to talk fire risk without acknowledging how climate change affects that is sticking their head in the sand.

 

[Handley_Page]

There was a fabulous cartoon on facebook that I saw earlier.
On he left was the usual gang of 'marvel' super-heroes (Superman, Thor, Wonder woman etc.), and on the right is a single little bloke dressed in a very dirty hi-viz jacket wearing a rather quaint hat.

Superman looks at him and says

"Welcome".​

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I've been watching the news here. Usually, when I hear something described as apocalyptic, I scoff at the hyperbole. But I think that's an appropriate word for this. It's devastation on an unprecedented scale. And the helplessness of knowing that even everyone's best efforts can't fix it. My heart goes out to you all.

Is there any way to help, from over here?
I saw a guy selling t-shirts to raise money for the volunteers, but by the time I saw the article, he'd stopped.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

So hell yes people are going to talk about climate change. It is central to the situation here. Anybody who wants to talk fire risk without acknowledging how climate change affects that is sticking their head in the sand.

Well said.

It's hard to pin any one event squarely or exclusively on climate change, because the effects are so massive and so pernicious. We have the same arguments here, during hurricane season. I think in the coming years a lot of complex systemts effected by weather aren't going to work the way they used to.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So hell yes people are going to talk about climate change. It is central to the situation here. Anybody who wants to talk fire risk without acknowledging how climate change affects that is sticking their head in the sand.

Sigh in return. Your cited fact checks are from media outlets that, in my opinion, are part of the issue.

But then, I'm of the school of thought that says climate change is a constant thing - the last ice age ended only twenty thousand years or so ago, and sea levels rose a couple of hundred metres very rapidly - flood myths, anyone? Not myths, actual events: as evidenced by the Falls of Gibraltar, the North Sea, the Siberia/Alaska land bridge, the land bridges surrounding Australia (nobody swam here), etc, etc.

Face also the reality that the world is going to keep on using up fossil fuels until it can no longer do so because hey, we still want our lattes and our mobile phones and go cruising on our 200,000 tonne ships, and fly around the world. I do NOT see anyone giving that up in a hurry.

Anyway, what you rather, be under a bit more water, or be under two kilometres of ice? We're overdue the next ice age. Look on the bright side, the southern hemisphere won't get the ice, and the Lit winter contest will really have something to talk about.

We're going to have to differ on this, Bramblethorn, because in my view there is more foolishness influencing the commentariat than wisdom, but hasn't that always been the case?

But the good news, in my town, is that it's raining.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've been watching the news here. Usually, when I hear something described as apocalyptic, I scoff at the hyperbole. But I think that's an appropriate word for this. It's devastation on an unprecedented scale. And the helplessness of knowing that even everyone's best efforts can't fix it. My heart goes out to you all.

Is there any way to help, from over here?
I saw a guy selling t-shirts to raise money for the volunteers, but by the time I saw the article, he'd stopped.

Pink sent half a million bucks. The relief agencies are saying send money, not things, because then the victims can buy what they know they need, not what someone thinks they need.

I'm pragmatic about all of this. Bushfires are a constant in Australia, as are droughts, floods and cyclones. Lives and properties get lost and destroyed, but this year in my state alone more people died on roads and from the annual flu, than died in all of these fires put together. People do what people do to survive, help each other, we move on.

Australia tends to be pretty good at remembering its disasters because the one thing that always shines through is how the people in the street, the guys on the fire line, knuckle down and do what needs to be done, despite the doomsayers and politicians.

Which is also why I get cynical at all the hand-wringing that goes on - to which I always reply, "I told you it would burn, I told you it would flood, but you still went and built there, and didn't give yourself a clear zone or stilts. Why did you do that?" If you're going to live inside nature, be better prepared. It's not that hard.

We've done droughts and fires. It'll be floods next, then cyclones. Pestilence is just around the corner, and then it will be the end of days. It's enough to start a religion .

 

[yukonnights]

I guess we should have seen all of this coming

Anyone want to discuss gun control next ?

There's a few more good ways to guarantee a family argument over the holidays

 

[trysail]

Hijacking Australian 2019 Bushfire Tragedies to Fearmonger Climate Change

https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/clip_image006.png

​

 

[trysail]

It Has Been Hotter, Fires Have Burnt Larger Areas

by Jennifer Marohasy, Ph.D.






​

 

[AwkwardMD]

There is 99% agreement within the scientific community that climate change is real and affecting everything (including wildfires), but by all means let's entertain the 1%.

 

[TxRad]

There is 99% agreement within the scientific community that climate change is real and affecting everything (including wildfires), but by all means let's entertain the 1%.

He's not really that entertaining.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

So scary. I hate seeing this.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Side stepping the anthropogenic global warming debate

If one were inclined to send money, can someone post a link to a reputable organization to which to donate?

 

[ElectricBlue]

There is 99% agreement within the scientific community that climate change is real and affecting everything (including wildfires), but by all means let's entertain the 1%.

Yes, and my point is that the climate has been constantly changing since the last ice age, so what's new? It's what the earth does. Mankind has had an effect, sure, but as the dominant intelligent species on the planet, that's what mankind does. Live with that and adapt to it, or step forward as part of the eight billion who should be saying, "No, it's fine, kill me now because only a mass extinction of mankind will halt our effect on the planet." Because that's the harsh reality, and until the developed nations stop demanding power and food at ever increasing rates, that's not going to change. And that's you and me and everyone here, and we all complain when the internet goes down.

Sure, climate change has an effect, but it does not cause everything, and it's not dominating everything. It's a distraction - the real issue in the context of this year's fires is what to do to reduce the fuel load. Well, nature sorted that one out for us, so for the short term, for those areas, they're safe. And they'll be lovely and green when everything grows back. Which it will.

It's that simple. Timber grows, it dies, it dries out, and it lies around for decades. And then it burns. That's the 99% reality. The fact that the temperature has risen over the last two hundred years in Australia - once you get past the debate about normalizing historical temperature records and wasn't that fun - in the grand scheme of things, it's a factor but it's not the dominant factor. Building in the wrong place is a much bigger influence, I'd say. But you read the hysteria and anyone would think we've never had natural disasters before. To keep perspective, I just found this statement:

In terms of monetary cost however, [bushfires] rate behind the damage caused by drought, severe storms, hail, and cyclones, perhaps because they most commonly occur outside highly populated urban areas

The dominant factor in bushfires is the massive fuel load that just keeps piling up. That's what needs to be addressed. I find this all the time in any debate - people worry about why they fell into a hole. I accept the reality, we're in a fucking hole, now help me build a ladder and climb out of it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If one were inclined to send money, can someone post a link to a reputable organization to which to donate?

https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-donate

https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/about-us/news-and-stories/disasters-other-appeals/bushfires-latest/

 

[Bramblethorn]

Sigh in return. Your cited fact checks are from media outlets that, in my opinion, are part of the issue.

Would you like to rebut any of the facts and reasoning presented in those articles, or are you just here to shoot the messenger?

I would LOVE to believe that everybody who studies bushfires professionally and all these fire chiefs are wrong when they say this is a new thing, that the world is changing and our climate is getting much more dangerous, that "do moar hazard reduction burns" is not a fix. It's profoundly depressing to think that my children and yours are going to be comprehensively fucked as things continue to change. Give me believable evidence that this isn't so bad and I will embrace that evidence. I want to believe.

But if it's just sticking our heads in the sand and repeating comforting myths about how everything will be fine if we go back to the old days, I'm not buying.

But then, I'm of the school of thought that says climate change is a constant thing - the last ice age ended only twenty thousand years or so ago, and sea levels rose a couple of hundred metres very rapidly- flood myths, anyone?

If you remember those flood myths, you might remember that those legendary floods were extremely bad and a shitload of people died. Yes, nature is capable of creating its own devastating climate change events. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to make our own.

The rise you're talking about was actually about 120 metres, and it took place over about twelve thousand years (roughly between 20,000 BP and 8,000 BP). The kind of climate change we're looking at here and now is taking place over decades.

Face also the reality that the world is going to keep on using up fossil fuels until it can no longer do so because hey, we still want our lattes and our mobile phones and go cruising on our 200,000 tonne ships, and fly around the world. I do NOT see anyone giving that up in a hurry.

To the contrary, we have recent historical evidence that it is possible to make a significant dent in carbon emissions through policy - look at what happened to Australia's emissions over 2012-14, for instance. What's lacking, so far, is the will.

It's unlikely that we'd be able to eliminate all fossil fuel use, but plenty of reduction is possible, and every bit helps buy time to adapt.

Anyway, what you rather, be under a bit more water, or be under two kilometres of ice?

Is "neither" an option? I'd like "neither", thanks.

We're overdue the next ice age.

No, we're not. Where are you getting this from?

The last glacial maximum was about 25,000 years ago, recent enough that the Earth's crust is still rebounding in the spots where those ice sheets used to be; the typical glacial cycle is about 100,000 years, driven largely by changes in the Earth's orbit (google "Milankovitch cycles" if you want more info). Absent human interference, we'd have many thousands of years before the next glaciation. That doesn't seem like a great reason to embrace a much faster-moving change.

Pink sent half a million bucks. The relief agencies are saying send money, not things, because then the victims can buy what they know they need, not what someone thinks they need.

This is pretty much universal advice: unless relief groups have specifically asked for things, money is by far the best thing to send. Even when you have the same kind of things that they need, relief orgs who buy in bulk can get much more value for money, and trying to manage in-kind donations is a logistic nightmare, especially when so many people use "charity donation" as a garbage disposal service.

I'm pragmatic about all of this. Bushfires are a constant in Australia, as are droughts, floods and cyclones. Lives and properties get lost and destroyed, but this year in my state alone more people died on roads and from the annual flu, than died in all of these fires put together.

Are you counting in deaths from smoke and heat there, or only direct bushfire deaths?

Which is also why I get cynical at all the hand-wringing that goes on - to which I always reply, "I told you it would burn, I told you it would flood, but you still went and built there, and didn't give yourself a clear zone or stilts. Why did you do that?" If you're going to live inside nature, be better prepared. It's not that hard.

In many cases, those regions weren't as dangerous when people built there. Patterns of fire and flood risk are changing. A lot of people living in the country towns most are risk are old folk who don't have the money to move and don't have much of a support network elsewhere. Let's not be in a hurry to blame victims.