Thousands of people trapped in Australian coastal town by huge wildfires

[Salerno]

If you say so mate.

[Chazar]

6 minutes ago, RJRS1301 said:

Good, tell that to the arbourists and others who are currently looking at the devastation in many areas

The roots have been burned , soil sterile. I am sure they will value your expertise and skills.

Have you been here for the past 3 weeks to witness the devastation, and see the soil samples at the UNSW and SCU?

Not to mention many of the trees have exploded in the heat

 

[Olmate]

7 minutes ago, RJRS1301 said:

Good, tell that to the arbourists and others who are currently looking at the devastation in many areas

The roots have been burned , soil sterile. I am sure they will value your expertise and skills.

Have you been here for the past 3 weeks to witness the devastation, and see the soil samples at the UNSW and SCU?

Not to mention many of the trees have exploded in the heat

 

Correct,trees may shoot initially but the suckers and shoots are growing off the outer rim of sap wood in a futile attempt to sustain life.In essence any trees exposed to this type of fire are gone. It’s not something to easily comprehend the extreme power of such events unless you have first hand knowledge  or experience,so don,t sweat trying to explain it here. Just pathetic that some Ozzie’s (?) are amongst them.

[Chazar]

6 minutes ago, Olmate said:

Correct,trees may shoot initially but the suckers and shoots are growing off the outer rim of sap wood

I was  talking about  lignotubers where a trees  above ground mass is  totally destroyed

[Tchooptip]

11 hours ago, Odysseus123 said:

He's been told that many times over the past few months (by people on the ground)...no effect it seems..

 

My friends from Cobargo were evacuated yesterday and half the town was lost..

 

Meanwhile water bombers frantically landing and loading up for another trip.. 3,000 litres in 30 seconds..a trip of 10 minutes and then dive down again..a very hazardous and heroic endeavour..bless 'em.

 

The fresh water is all gone now..they are loading from a salt water river..note the sky.

 

 

3,000 litres does not seems so much. 

This is one of the many pictures I made of a Canadairs in south of France where they replenish regularly for the many fires every summer, the countenance is 6.000 liters in 12 seconds. Sometimes I saw four of them one behind the other, so it was 24,000 liters in one single pass. 

But for such monstrous fires, maybe they wouldn't even make a difference

[Olmate]

2 minutes ago, Chazar said:

I was  talking about  lignotubers where a trees  above ground mass is  totally destroyed

Yes , so what happens when that tuber regrows, it’s a useless sucker, with no root system of its own to support it. And what has that got to do with the topic of devastating bush fires anyway,perhaps ligno tubers don,t burn?????

[Chazar]

2 minutes ago, Olmate said:

And what has that got to do with the topic of devastating bush fires anyway

So no  eucalypts involved in those  bush fires then

[Odysseus123]

8 minutes ago, Tchooptip said:

3,000 litres does not seems so much. 

This is one of the many pictures I made of a Canadairs in south of France where they replenish regularly for the many fires every summer, the countenance is 6.000 liters in 12 seconds. Sometimes I saw four of them one behind the other, so it was 24,000 liters in one single pass. 

But for such monstrous fires, maybe they wouldn't even make a difference

That's a great photo!

 

However I think that the clue as to why they use the smaller planes up here is in the respective backgrounds of our photos..

[Don Mega]

1 hour ago, Olmate said:

I am ashamed at your lack of knowledge of Australia then sport, especially bush fire prevention.But do tell us how good is scomo, guess your into franking credits too?

Kinda ironic Aussie's are being told the flee the land in boats !!

[Olmate]

4 minutes ago, Chazar said:

So no  eucalypts involved in those  bush fires then

Of course, 99%, so you only concern is regrowth not actually stopping the blaze or have I misread the topic?

[Chazar]

6 minutes ago, Olmate said:

Of course, 99%, so you only concern is regrowth not actually stopping the blaze or have I misread the topic?

youve  misread what I was  talking  about

I was responding to this and this  alone the  books  are a field  guide to eucalypts

 

  1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

It's true eucalypts regrow shoots of leaves on the trunks a few months after a fire. It's a bit more difficult for them to do that when they are burnt down to a stub.

There are  many  hundreds  of varieties of  Eucalypts in fact I  have a 3  volume set on these trees. Most  have lignotubers and they will resprout

Edited January 1, 2020 by Chazar

[Olmate]

4 minutes ago, Don Mega said:

Kinda ironic Aussie's are being told the flee the land in boats !!

 Boat people, your mate was boss at tourism Oz then ( where bloody hell are you) when that was the story, just before he got sacked. Now that,s ironic....

[Olmate]

4 minutes ago, Chazar said:

youve  misread what I was  talking  about

I was responding to this and this  alone

 

  1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

It's true eucalypts regrow shoots of leaves on the trunks a few months after a fire. It's a bit more difficult for them to do that when they are burnt down to a stub.

There are  many  hundreds  of varieties of  Eucalypts in fact I  have a 3  volume set on these trees. Most  have lignotubers and they will resprout

Grass regrows too, so what!

[Chazar]

1 minute ago, Olmate said:

Grass regrows too, so what!

you seem a  bit  emotional Ill leave you to it

[tifino]

for anyone not near enough to smell the smoke this time... well here's one of the most widely used images of a lucky escape, from the previous big big big fires (of 2009) here

 

    

on Black Saturday, it got within 3km from our home.

Even the back lawn started up, as the falling embers made it look like an angle grinder had gone crazy 

[URMySunshine]

This is beyond anything I could ever imagine. Brave beyond words.

 

 

[metisdead]

Inflammatory posts and the replies have been removed. 

[GroveHillWanderer]

15 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

As far as possible in the time available and the people able.

Did you not even read the post you are replying to? Even if they could clear-cut all the forest for 40 km around the town, which would be almost impossible without having hundreds (if not thousands) of people working for days on end, it might still not be enough to prevent embers reaching the town.

 

Also, the fires have been spreading in often totally unpredictable directions, with winds sometimes switching 180 degrees in direction in a very short space of time, to know for sure which towns would come under threat.

 

The fires cover too large an area and there are too many towns that might potentially be affected, to be able to clear-cut the forests for hundreds of square kilometres around all of them.

 

I'm not sure you really appreciate the scale of the problem.

[RJRS1301]

7 minutes ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

Did you not even read the post you are replying to? Even if they could clear-cut all the forest for 40 km around the town, which would be almost impossible without having hundreds (if not thousands) of people working for days on end, it might still not be enough to prevent embers reaching the town.

 

Also, the fires have been spreading in often totally unpredictable directions, with winds sometimes switching 180 degrees in direction in a very short space of time, to know for sure which towns would come under threat.

 

The fires cover too large an area and there are too many towns that might potentially be affected, to be able to clear-cut the forests for hundreds of square kilometres around all of them.

 

I'm not sure you really appreciate the scale of the problem.

People do not seem to understand that the fires create their own weather with ferocious winds which are blowing at high velocity like a fiery tornado, picking up vehicles, melting metal, with front hundreds of kilometres wide. Over 400,000 hectares sizzled, killing almost every animal, reptiles, birds being fried in the sky in some places, in its path. Over 100 fires burning in NSW alone

[URMySunshine]

Without wishing to be alarmist this looks like an international disaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kevvy]

How do you stop this , all those experts on here  giving advice , please tell us how to stop it .. Fires can travel up to 60klm an hour ...The fires stretch for hundreds of kilometers.

[thaibeachlovers]

11 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Having said that, I think the precursor conditions for these latest fires are unprecedented. The elephant in the room is climate change.

I'm not going to deny that climate is changing. As to why it is changing is a subject for another thread.

Given it didn't suddenly change yesterday, the authorities, IMO, have been lax about initiating processes to mitigate the effects of climate change, which they must have known about. If there has been a drought for "years", they should have been ready for any possibility that would eventuate from such.

I'm guessing that being human they just procrastinated and hoped that nothing would happen, so they didn't have to initiate unpopular measures that would have impacted the next election.

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, kevvy said:

How do you stop this , all those experts on here  giving advice , please tell us how to stop it

You can't. You have to take measures to reduce the fuel, long before a fire starts. If that isn't possible for any reason, you have to accept that there will be fires and prepare accordingly.

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

Did you not even read the post you are replying to? Even if they could clear-cut all the forest for 40 km around the town, which would be almost impossible without having hundreds (if not thousands) of people working for days on end, it might still not be enough to prevent embers reaching the town.

 

Also, the fires have been spreading in often totally unpredictable directions, with winds sometimes switching 180 degrees in direction in a very short space of time, to know for sure which towns would come under threat.

 

The fires cover too large an area and there are too many towns that might potentially be affected, to be able to clear-cut the forests for hundreds of square kilometres around all of them.

 

I'm not sure you really appreciate the scale of the problem.

Of course I don't appreciate the scale of the problem which is why I asked the QUESTION in the first place, seeking INFORMATION.

[RJRS1301]

16 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I'm not going to deny that climate is changing. As to why it is changing is a subject for another thread.

Given it didn't suddenly change yesterday, the authorities, IMO, have been lax about initiating processes to mitigate the effects of climate change, which they must have known about. If there has been a drought for "years", they should have been ready for any possibility that would eventuate from such.

I'm guessing that being human they just procrastinated and hoped that nothing would happen, so they didn't have to initiate unpopular measures that would have impacted the next election.

Wrong on so many levels. Much clearing had occurred when able to do so. Temperatures have been higher than usual since July 2019 (winter) coupled no rain.

Fires began in September (fire season generally considered to be Nov early) in some regions and have continued to spread. Understanding of the science of fire stroms may assit you to grasp the ferocity of the situation.  Couple all that with climate change deniers in highest office of the land and cabinet. Places which have never considered low / no risk of fires since european settlement have had firestorms.

Then of course there is clear/do not clear eternal argument. PM refused to meet with fire commissioners earlier and plan in spite of having briefings from external agencies 

Edited January 1, 2020 by RJRS1301

[thaibeachlovers]

10 hours ago, RJRS1301 said:

It was another demonstration of his cloth ears, his inability lead, and his inability to initiate ideas, his refusal to listen to his fire commissioners past and present.

His ability to send prayers and wishes for a miracle.

His demonstration of being a happy clapping incompetent

Assuming you are talking about the PM of Australia, according to what I've read on here, it's a STATE responsibility, not a FEDERAL one re fire prevention, but not being an Aussie I may have misunderstood.

[RJRS1301]

13 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Assuming you are talking about the PM of Australia, according to what I've read on here, it's a STATE responsibility, not a FEDERAL one re fire prevention, but not being an Aussie I may have misunderstood.

Fire is a state responsibilty, the premiers had and continue to meet with their comissioners, but it was requested that the PM lead a national approach to prevention, funding , resourse sharing. breaking down state border issues. He is the apparent "leader" of the country. Funding for emergeny services is mainly from federal funds, and administered by the states. I fully understand the state/ commonwealth divisons and this where some of the co-ordination problems have occurred.

A Commonwealth leader failing to lead and meet with state participants including state emergy service ministers and premiers, or even offer resources and support

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Posted 1 hour ago

Australian authorities scramble to reach victims of deadly fires as death toll rises

By Colin Packham

 

Smoke from the Currowan Fire is pictured from St George’s Basin south of Nowra and looking towards Sussex Inlet and Lake Conjola, Australia, December 31, 2019 in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. John Wardle via REUTERS

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A third person was confirmed dead on Wednesday in devastating bushfires that engulfed Australia's southeast coast this week and a fourth was missing and feared dead, as navy ships rushed to provide supplies and assist with evacuations.

 

At least 15 people are now believed to have died, while scores of people remain missing after weeks of fires that have ripped through Australia's east coast, much of which is tinder-dry after three years of drought.

 

Fanned by soaring temperatures, columns of fire and smoke blackened entire towns on Monday and Tuesday, forcing thousands of residents and holidaymakers to seek shelter on beaches. Many stood in shallow water to escape the flames.

 

The toll to life and property keeps rising in Australia's devastating bush fires. Julian Satterthwaite reports.

 

Bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million hectares (10 million acres) and new blazes are sparked almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions and, most recently, dry lightning strikes created by the fires themselves.

Edited January 1, 2020 by RJRS1301

[Salerno]

4 minutes ago, RJRS1301 said:

Funding for emergeny services is mainly from federal funds

Not for firefighting it's not; State funding (at least in NSW and Vic, pretty sure the same all round).

[RJRS1301]

17 minutes ago, Salerno said:

Not for firefighting it's not; State funding (at least in NSW and Vic, pretty sure the same all round).

The funding comes from state levies, (insurances) council contributions,  and from comonwealth grants to states who administer it, the request from the comissioners was for meetings on funding, and national approach. He failed to meet with them.

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2020 by RJRS1301

[Tug]

My heart goes out to our southern neighbors on planet earth I’ve been close to a grove of eucalyptus when they went up right across the creek from it we saved our family  home but it was close loud and terrifying those eucalyptus explode more than burn absolutely horrifying thinking of the towns folk hunkered down on the beach