Australia Fire Emergency - Weather related news.

Iancar29

Some serious pyrocumulonimbus footage from Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUxkzzKuCY0

https://twitter.com/astromike91/status/1213401886377660422

Also some rare "black hail" which was recorded a few times during some volcanic eruptions mentioned here.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-28/bushfire-storms-can-spark-fire-tornadoes-dry-lightning-and-more/10561832

SeaBreezes

HeartBreaking.

Oscar Bravo

Some of the photos of koalas ive seen is horrific. poor thing burned alive.

Harry Palmr

22 million dollars raised for the fight fighting services so far.

It's not just the mainland that's burning up

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/05/kangaroo-island-fires-farmers-shoot-injured-sheep-after-unfightable-bushfire-ravages-sa-island

Farmers on Kangaroo Island were shooting fire-injured sheep on Sunday as the small community prepared for more dangerous days ahead when hot weather returns in the middle of the week.

Firefighters on the island have been battling fires since before Christmas that blazed out of control after extreme weather on Friday.

The fires, which are still burning, started at the western end of the 160km-long island, and have burned about a third of it, killing two people and devastating the island’s two main industries, tourism and farming.

The former pilot Dick Lang and his son, Clayton Lang, were killed when fire overran their car on Friday.

Ferries have been running almost around the clock to evacuate thousands of tourists back to the South Australian mainland, the former mayor Jayne Bates said.

it's a big tourist spot - over 10,000 on the island.

Ocean Lodge hotel before and after.

DOCARCH

My sister in law is in New Zealand (north island....south of Auckland) and this was pic she sent yesterday from the middle of the day!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENgQbQaUwAAkZ88?format=jpg&name=large

This is approx. 2,500km from the fires!

nacho libre

I've read that an area the size of Belgium has been burnt. 500 million cattle perished, and several hundred houses destroyed, and 23 people killed.
It maddening to think the bulk of these fires are caused by arsonists, who in all likelihood will never be caught.

Akrasia

nacho libre wrote: »

I've read that an area the size of Belgium has been burnt. 500 million cattle perished, and several hundred houses destroyed, and 23 people killed.
It maddening to think the bulk of these fires are caused by arsonists, who in all likelihood will never be caught.

I think the figure is about 13% of the fires are started deliberately, with another 37% being suspicious so unless all of the suspicious fires were actually deliberate which is unlikely) then the majority of fires are either started naturally or accidentally

Of the deliberate fires, lots of those were started by idiots burning rubbish in their garden or burning off scrub which got out of control. Only a small percentage of these deliberate fires were actually arson, people setting out to destroy property with fire deliberately.

These statistics are about 10 years old and are kind of similar year on year. The difference is that the conditions for fires to spread and grow are very favourable this year so regardless of the cause, accidental, reckless, deliberate or natural, the potential for one of these ignition events to turn from a small local and non destructive fire, into a wildfire is much higher.

https://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/11703696/data/bushfire-ignition-source-ratio-data.jpg

Kingswood Rover

nacho libre wrote: »

I've read that an area the size of Belgium has been burnt. 500 million cattle perished, and several hundred houses destroyed, and 23 people killed.
It maddening to think the bulk of these fires are caused by arsonists, who in all likelihood will never be caught.

500 million cattle perished is factually incorrect . According to the beef central website which publishes market info on the Aussie beef market there are 25 million cattle in the country. The states most affected by the fires Victoria and New South Wales have 6.5 million between them. I doubt if all of them are brown bread.

Donegal Storm

It was 500 million animals killed, not cattle - though that figure came from some professor who just multiplied the average number of animals per sq km by the area burnt which is obviously simplistic and likely widely inaccurate.

Does anyone why this year has been particularly bad for fires? I know the area worst affected is heavily forested with eucalyptus trees which are highly flammable, not the usual arid bushland forests that are usually worst hit in the fire season.

I drove through Kinglake and the Yarra Ranges north of Melbourne a few years ago which were devastated in the 2009 fire season and there were still black charred trees everywhere, very eerie though a lot of the trees actually survived and the forest was slowly recovering with new vegetation. Takes a while but the forests will regenerate

eg.
https://goo.gl/maps/YxP3ZBHi8KHHuYRH9

SeaBreezes

[quote=

Does anyone why this year has been particularly bad for fires? I know the area worst affected is heavily forested with eucalyptus trees which are highly flammable, not the usual arid bushland forests that are usually worst hit in the fire season.
https://goo.gl/maps/YxP3ZBHi8KHHuYRH9[/quote]

I did see this article referenced from 2015:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scientist-david-packham-warns-of-huge-blaze-threat-urges-increase-in-fuel-reduction-burns-20150312-14259h.html


Forest fuel levels have worsened over the past 30 years because of "misguided green ideology", vested interests, political failure and mismanagement, creating a massive bushfire threat, a former CSIRO bushfire scientist has warned.

Victoria's "failed fire management policy" is an increasing threat to human life, water supplies, property and the forest environment, David Packham said in a submission to the state's Inspector-General for Emergency Management.

But personally I have no opinion or idea why.

nacho libre

Akrasia wrote: »

I think the figure is about 13% of the fires are started deliberately, with another 37% being suspicious so unless all of the suspicious fires were actually deliberate which is unlikely) then the majority of fires are either started naturally or accidentally


https://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/11703696/data/bushfire-ignition-source-ratio-data.jpg

https://www.smh.com.au/national/arson-mischief-and-recklessness-87-per-cent-of-fires-are-man-made-20191117-p53bcl.html

It's a bit more than 13 per cent according to the above source, although some of those maybe in the suspicious category

Oneiric 3

nacho libre wrote: »

It maddening to think the bulk of these fires are caused by arsonists, who in all likelihood will never be caught.

Saw a few images of the charred remains of a variety of different animals from these fires. Horrific and heart-breaking beyond expression and the main reason why I cannot follow this story at all.

nacho libre

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Saw a few images of the charred remains of a variety of different animals from these fires. Horrific and heart-breaking beyond expression and the main reason why I cannot follow this story at all.

I did not see any of these. Too Horrific and heartbreaking as you say, i prefer to look at images such as the young boy giving a drink to a Kangaroo, or those people rescuing koalas. Hopefully some natural justice will befall the scum who started these fires deliberately

RobertKK

Meteorologists in South America have said the smoke from the fires has reached South America.

Carol25

nacho libre wrote: »

I did not see any of these. Too Horrific and heartbreaking as you say, i prefer to look at images such as the young boy giving a drink to a Kangaroo, or those people rescuing koalas. Hopefully some natural justice will befall the scum who started these fires deliberately

Arson didn’t cause the catastrophic conditions in Australia, years of drought and heat did. I see all the right wing sources are now pedalling ‘arson’ as the cause. They need to keep big business churning, consumerism thriving & pollution and climate change on the back burner after all.
The government were warned by all who deal with these bushfires regularly last April about what was coming and they did nothing. It’s a national if not global disgrace. Australia like to pride themselves in their military and being ‘allies’ of the US. They should’ve had them out there in the front line from the word go. Not some poor volunteer pointing a single fire hose at a 200 foot tall & km’s wide inferno....

RobertKK

Carol25 wrote: »

Arson didn’t cause the catastrophic conditions in Australia, years of drought and heat did. I see all the right wing sources are now pedalling ‘arson’ as the cause. They need to keep big business churning, consumerism thriving & pollution and climate change on the back burner after all.
The government were warned by all who deal with these bushfires regularly last April about what was coming and they did nothing. It’s a national if not global disgrace. Australia like to pride themselves in their military and being ‘allies’ of the US. They should’ve had them out there in the front line from the word go. Not some poor volunteer pointing a single fire hose at a 200 foot tall & km’s wide inferno....

I saw ABC news in Australian citing arson for a number of the fires.

I was thinking this is something terrorists could do quite easily.

Storm 10

RobertKK wrote: »

I saw ABC news in Australian citing arson for a number of the fires.

I was thinking this is something terrorists could do quite easily.

There was a part time fireman arrested for starting fires and he went out fighting them again until he was arrested I would say a lot were started deliberately

Gaoth Laidir

There's no real major trend regarding Australian rainfall over the past 120 years, nationally or regionally. 2019 was the driest year, but in the southeastern region where the fires were it was by no means the driest.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/?ref=ftr#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries







Max temperatures are going up but pan evaporation is stationary.





In SE Australia, the rising December max temperature trend is much less, with no increase in evaporation.

Graces7

Now they are culling the camels.. Utterly heartbreaking.Invasive species and drought measures.

And the photo of the tiny toddler in white and the big uniformed officer pinning a medal on her, set against her father's flower-covered coffin. The second such tribute to little ones born to sheer gutsy courageous men in fighting fires as volunteers.

Carol25

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

There's no real major trend regarding Australian rainfall over the past 120 years, nationally or regionally. 2019 was the driest year, but in the southeastern region where the fires were it was by no means the driest.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/?ref=ftr#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries







Max temperatures are going up but pan evaporation is stationary.





In SE Australia, the rising December max temperature trend is much less, with no increase in evaporation.



[img]http://www.bom.gov.au/tmp/cc/evap.seaus.12.63441.png I’m just wondering what is your overall point? Do you think the climate is getting warmer or not? Are you saying there hasn’t been a drought in Oz that the mainstream media talks about, that the animals dropping dead from the sky due to the heat and lack of water is a natural occurrence? Now 10,000 camels have to be culled due to drought? What would your explanation be as to why the fires are so out of control this year more than any other when the government claims the same resources were used to fight them - why were there fire thunderstorms+tornadoes occurring so frequently. Arson starts fires in a lot of countries but the apocalyptic conditions that developed in Oz don’t seem to follow.[/img]

Gaoth Laidir

Carol25 wrote: »

I’m just wondering what is your overall point? Do you think the climate is getting warmer or not?
Are you saying there hasn’t been a drought in Oz that the mainstream media talks about, that the animals dropping dead from the sky due to the heat and lack of water is a natural occurrence? Now 10,000 camels have to be culled due to drought?
What would your explanation be as to why the fires are so out of control this year more than any other when the government claims the same resources were used to fight them - why were there fire thunderstorms+tornadoes occurring so frequently. Arson starts fires in a lot of countries but the apocalyptic conditions that developed in Oz don’t seem to follow.

This year was a hot and dry year, with an increasing trend in summer max temperatures, but there is no trend in annual, spring or summer rainfall or pan evaporation one way or the other since 1900. Here's that link again. Those images I posted yesterday expired but I couldn't be bothered uploading them again and doing the work for you. Look at the different variables for the whole country and the Southeastern region for both annual, seasonal and monthly periods and make your own deductions. Look at Spring and summer rainfall and pan evaporation. Maps and trends.

Arson made up a significant proportion of fire initiations again this year, and with changes to the management of fire fuel it's no surprise that there was a major catastrphe waiting to happen.

It might interest you to know that the Australian government have been officially culling camels for years. This petition is from 6 years ago and got 23,000 signatures then. This is nothing new. Here's another petition from 8 years ago. It got over 60,000 signatures.

Camels allowed Australians to explore and settle in the country. Instead of honoring the camel's vital role in the founding of Australia, the government's recent call for a camel cull has marked camels as nothing more than a menace.

Australia has the highest camel population of any country. The animals originally began to breed in the wild after the British introduced them to Australia from India and Pakistan in the 19th century. Now that they thrive, Australia wants to cut their numbers.

Camels became fair game in 2009 when the government decided to spend AUD$19m to eradicate at least 1/3 of the camel population. Private contractors often shoot camels dead from helicopters, leaving their remains where they fall in the desert. Needless to say, alternative approaches exist but have yet to be properly explored.

Ask Australian Feral Camel Management Project leaders to find an alternative to a mass killing of wild camels.

Danno

Gaoth Laidir

Danno wrote: »

Taking the url from the BOM image, like I did yesterday, will just expire. It was a pain doing it all on the phone, so sod that for a game of marbles! Off topic: is there really no proper way of posting images on the Touch site without having to manually type "" before and after each url? :mad:

Carol25

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51071800



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/opinion/australia-fires.html

mandrake04

Let’s clear up some facts.

Current bushfires only about 3% of area burnt is attributed to arson, the larger fires in very remote areas originated from lightning. Bushfires are nothing new and although they happen nearly every year... they don’t happen on this large scale every year ...but very large fires have happened in the past.


I’m no climate change denier, but I live close to an affected area and these fires have nothing to do with climate change. Now its convenient to blame long term drought on this but the reality is drought is mostly affecting west of the state of NSW they are mainly on level 5 restrictions for years where the east only went to level 2 in mid December. Most of these fires are in the east of the state in an area had a lot of rain during September which is usually the driest month at around 50mm but got triple that this year. (See attached)

This has two effects (a) it super charges spring growth (b) the time of the rain and it’s wetness afterwards decreased the window for HRBs. The spring had unfavourable western dry winds unsuitable for HRB and a hot dry summer provided perfect conditions for large fires.

The government should have spent the money and carried out cultural burns and better long term Hazard management over the last 10 years and had a backbone and ignored the greentards, hopefully they learned their costly lesson.


The camel cull is nothing new, camels are a big problem as they consume a lot of water and strip the bush of food like bush plums essential to other wildlife. They are the ultimate pest in WA as they do a lot of damage, there are companies that for a cost will fly actually you (as a licensed amateur shooter) on a Camel safari to a base camp and you go out on a shoot from back of UTEs. You basically bring in your own rifle and they provide ammo and you shoot feral Camels, Donkeys and whatever else.

This current 10,000 cull is because the Camels are now encroaching on some of the communities and either consuming or contaminating the water.