VSalonistas Down Under and the fires

[rwsaunders]

Folks...I really feel helpless watching the news everyday of the horrible fires that you are dealing with. I can’t even imagine the position that many people are in...perhaps the folks in California and the PNW can relate in some manner.

[mzilliox]

Fires are horrible. one feels so defenseless. Water is life. its "The Ecology stupid" we should be focusing on, not the economy.

heart goes out to anyone suffering, and today especially those suffering from climate devastation.

[j44ke]

Antti Lipponen does some interesting graphic constructions on climate and weather. He did this short clip to convey the volume of smoke coming from the fires. Click the image to see the animation as it won't show here.

Australia bushfire smoke 1 Jan 2020 by Antti Lipponen, on Flickr

[BBB]

Well...what to say...

The fires started in parts of New South Wales and Queensland in September (or the start of spring) and again in November (or the end of spring). Very hot and windy conditions saw the fires break out in the Adelaide Hills in Sth Australia in the lead up to Christmas, as well as exacerbating the pre-existing fires in NSW. Post Christmas, fires started in remote areas of New South Wales and Victoria and were fanned towards the coast, where large numbers of people were holidaying. There has also been fires on the other side of the country in Western Australia. People have died (including volunteer fire fighters), people have lost their homes or businesses, lots of native species have been killed, very large amounts of land have been burnt out. In short, the fire season has been a disaster.

The fires have taken place in parts of the country that have been suffering from years of drought and amongst the backdrop of an on-going debate about climate change and what to do about it. The fires have exposed the current Federal Government's weak spot and the Prime Minister has been revealed as the emperor with no clothes (or at least a Hawaiian shirt as he chose to spend a week away when the fires flared up pre-Christmas and was castigated for it). We are a country crying out for some decent leadership on these issues, but we've got nada.

Here's some recent coverage:


Bushfire-ravaged communities return to ruins – in pictures | Australia news | The Guardian

Page not found | The Guardian

Page not found | The Guardian

New Zealand glaciers turn brown from Australian bushfires' smoke, ash and dust | World news | The Guardian

[Too Tall]

News coverage is heartbreaking. Massive devastation. OZ is strong, you'll recover and figure this out.

[Blue Jays]

Very unfortunate fires hurting our Australian friends. We are pulling for you in North America! Stay strong.

[Colinmclelland]

There has been some good to come out of it. Our spin doctor of a Prime Minister appears to have been uncovered as a waste of space. That's it though. Everything else is shit.

Oh, and obviously we aren't including the truly epic emissions that come from the fires in our emissions calculations. We'll still meet our Paris target at a canter! BS.

It's weird, where we are on the Sydney coast it hasn't even been hot. In summer we'll typically get a week in the high 30s -low 40s. Not so far. While the country had it's hottest day on record a while back, it wasn't even hot where we were - all sea-breeze and relative coolness. And this Saturday the forecast for Orbost is 49 degrees. It's hard to get your head around that kind of heat when you are not experiencing any.

It's dry though - there's a child care place being built around the corner from us. They planted out the landscaping pre-Christmas, and now it's all dead. And not just mostly dead either. That stuff will not be re-sprouting. It's the dryness that has made these fires so epic - i read somewhere fires used to burn anything under 10cm in diameter, but it's all so dry it's now burning anything under 15cm diameter. That's a 50% increase in fuel right there.

I've got a Canadian riding buddy who used to do some firefighting over there and he had a quote "Nature starts these fires and nature will put them out". I find the idea that we can put out things as huge as these slightly laughable. You just do not want to be in their way. People who choose to stay and defend their homes? WTF? It's stuff.

The recommendation is to avoid non-essential travel. Lot's of people with planned holidays on the NSW south coast. Hopefully they'll all have the sense not to go now. My wife now evaluates potential actions against "what would the coroner say?" At the moment I think they would include the word "dickhead".

[slwrnu]

Some years ago my employer arranged an exchange for 18 months with a similar organisation with offices in Sydney and Melbourne. Ironically it was quite wet. I have very fond memories of hiking around the Blue Mountains, water skiing on Lake Macquarie, cycling round Centennial Park, skiing at Thredbo, golfing all over the east coast, and a wine tasting trip up the Murrumbigee (sp?) river north of Adelaide. So I am following the news carefully and keeping in touch with old friends out there, best wishes to the Aussies affected by this.

[Mark Kelly]

Everyone in my area received "get out while you can" messages from the fire service today.

We are outside the forecast extreme danger zone (which stops at the ridge along the south east of town*) and in a newly built BAL rated** house so we are staying and preparing to defend if it comes to that. The house was built with a large rainwater tank to help with defence but it literally hasn't rained a drop since the tank was put in (did someone mention climate change?). We will be depending on the town water supply staying up, if it goes down we are out of here pronto. Escape plan is to the centre of town which is full of gold rush era buildings in solid granite.

My brother stayed and defended in the Canberra fires in 03 (he lives in Duffy, the worst hit part, near Mt Stromlo, he saved his house and more importantly his cellar). My other brother lives in Bermagui on the edge of the forest so he can't return home, he's staying with my sister in Northern NSW, her area has already burnt so they'll be OK.

* The vineyard sits up close to this ridge so things could get very interesting there.
** All new dwellings in Australia have to be assessed for Bushfire Attack Level readiness. Ours is only 12.5 kW / m^2, the lowest level, due to a sheltered position inside the town boundary; the town is two streets wide at this point so we aren't that far inside.

[ericpmoss]

News coverage is heartbreaking. Massive devastation. OZ is strong, you'll recover and figure this out.

I don't think they will. These fires burned too hot, and sterilized the ground. Estimates are over 500 million animals dead, hundreds of species extinct, if not thousands. Maybe in several generations they'll crawl back to something livable. Maybe.

[Mabouya]

We are a country crying out for some decent leadership on these issues, but we've got nada.

Sounds familiar in oh so many ways, but specifically for this thread, it's painfully true on the climate change issue.

But, let's continue to ignore the problem and we'll see how that works out in the long run.

[guido]

Heartbreaking pictures...

The Australia Wildfires in Pictures - The New York Times

[Colinmclelland]

Sounds familiar in oh so many ways, but specifically for this thread, it's painfully true on the climate change issue.

But, let's continue to ignore the problem and we'll see how that works out in the long run.

z

We’ve got a Prime Minimal rather than a Prime Minister.

Ignoring would be a big step forward for our government. The modus operandi before waa: spin, lie, deny...repeat

[Colinmclelland]

...Estimates are over 500 million animals dead...

Today’s estimate is 480m in NSW. Add VIC, SA and QLD to that and it will end up a properly big number. Not good.

On the upside, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the Aussie bush (the plants, not the animals) comes back from a fire.

I remember driving along Bells Line of Road after fires in 1994 thinking “well this is fcuked...i guess we just need to learn to like a moonscape”. 12m later regrowth was well under way. Same area burnt again this time

[guido]

See Where Australia’s Deadly Wildfires Are Burning - The New York Times

[BBB]

It's raining here in Melbourne. What a relief.

[Mark Kelly]

Unfortunately the promised rain in the north east hardly settled the dust: still not a litre in my tank.

The cool weather is at least a temporary reprieve but the smoke is worse than ever. If this keeps going vintage is toast, which is small beans in the scheme of things but a year's income lost for me.

[BBB]

That's a real bummer. The fires in the Adelaide Hills pre-Christmas took out about 1/3 of the vines planted in the hills.

We've had about 11mm of rain here in Melbourne in the last 24 hours and today is wet and very smoky.

[Mark Kelly]

That's a real bummer.

Yeah, I might have to figure out a way of selling some bikes to make ends meet.

The fires in the Adelaide Hills pre-Christmas took out about 1/3 of the vines planted in the hills.

Vines often survive being burnt, depending on severity, due to underground carbohydrate reserves. There's a good chance they'll lose this year but come back for 2021; we can hope, anyway.

[guido]

https://www.facebook.com/RosscoUnoff...234049693/?t=0

Video of the fire approaching...