Australian bushfires

[Theknacktoflying]

Is anyone else absolutely floored by the info coming from Sydney that almost 480 million animals, birds and reptiles have died.

The loss of human life, the loss of homes and habitat is quite something.

What a way to begin 2020

In NSW for example, the parks and wildlife service has lost a third of its workers due to cutbacks. In 2011, there were 289 parks and wildlife rangers, including 28 senior rangers. By 2018, there were no senior rangers, and only 193 rangers. They are basically operating on a skeleton staff, while the workload and fire danger increase year on year. More cuts are scheduled for 2020.

I think we're fucked.

We've had the ice age and times where wind etc drastically changed the landscape (( Sahara etc ))

The fire is a new age, I think it's going to spread and drastically change the world. Not just in Aus.

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-31/victoria-bushfire-trapping-people-in-east-gippsland-live-blog/11833630

They must be absolutely petrified to say the least.

The Mallacoota beach scenario is terrifying

Does anyone know the background, was there any warning to evacuate- though of course there are practicalities attached to that.

The real question is: will it change anything politically? I am not confident after watching our weasel of a Prime Minister ignore the northern floods, refuse hustings and did not even bother to turn up to the climate debate.

How bad does it need to get?

The road was closed nearly 24 hours ago from what I saw on victoria.snarl.com.au/incidents/single/128745, it was too late to leave when the wind changed the direction of the fire as I understand it.

I am not confident after watching our weasel of a Prime Minister ignore the northern floods, refuse hustings and did not even bother to turn up to the climate debate.

Yet he turned up in NZ after the eruption, he seems to do the good publicity stuff only and the rest only if it doesn't interfere with his holidays. Jacinda Ardern is a good one for publicity too though, typical politicians....

Everyone was told not to go to holiday in East Gippsland and to leave if possible. It is the biggest holiday week of the year so masses of tourists are down there. People with farms and animals can't easily leave.

From what I've read the decision was not to evacuate Mallacoota because that would have been even more dangerous.

it must be absolutely terrifying to be waiting on the beach. Do they have access to water, food etc?

I grew up in rural Western Australia where long, hot, dry summers were totally normal. Fires were a given. But the difference was, because we didn't have a lot of dense forest and back burned every year, it was rare for fires to really take hold before they could be put out. I now live in Melbourne and am more acquainted with the eastern states. They have had years of drought, making everything incredibly dry. Bush land and forests are dense and there are larger populations living in these bushfire prone areas. The governments this side don't seem to have strong fire prevention plans eg with controlled burns and there is constant bickering but no solutions to our water problems. We have interfered so much with our natural resources such as the Murray River. I can't help but feel as a collective, we have caused terrible harm to our country and our climate. I know drought has long been a fact of life in Australia, but it seems longer and more severe that it ever was.

The quote on another thread on Mallacoota said there was no evacuation warning because the Princes Hwy is closed and so it was very hard to go north from Mallacoota.

Foaming, I agree

Tourists in Mallacoota and the rest of the Gippsland region were told to get out the day before. Before the temps reached 40+ and the highway was closed.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/29/victoria-bushfires-australia-thousands-evacuate-vast-east-gippsland-fire-threat-zone

This is happening it’s frightening

I'm not aware of SCOMO showing any real leadership in relation to the bushfire situation, since he was forced into returning early from his Hawaii holiday, while volunteer firies were injured and two killed.

Apart from a few insitu visits, I don't see much progress.
Can anybody offer concrete changes?

@Butterer people weren't ordered to evacuate, that's true.

But we (Victorians) knew for days that Monday was going to be extremely hot and windy, that the bush is bone dry, and that due to fires further west the main highway would probably close. Events on the other side of Melbourne were cancelled due to the conditions despite no fires in the vicinity. Common sense would be to stay the hell away from difficult to access bush areas if you could.

Mallacoota's a pretty remote place and I can understand that residents had few options, but tourists had the choice to head home before the heatwave arrived, or just not go. Theyve almost doubled the town's population and made it that much harder to protect and provide for residents.

I hope everyone's ok but unfortunately latest reports are off people unaccounted for

This is a good resource for up to date fire news

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-31/victoria-bushfire-trapping-people-in-east-gippsland-live-blog/11833630

There is more recent news re fires, and evacuation / safety plans but 30 mins ago the thread was updated with this:

PM's office confirms ADF will support all requests for help
"The Prime Minister has spoken to the Chief of the Defence Force who confirmed that all requests for help from the ADF in Victoria and New South Wales will be met with no impact to any other area in Australia currently receiving support.

The ADF are already on the ground supporting local communities, airlifting people out of danger, providing aerial fire reconnaissance, clearing fire breaks and providing a wide range of logistical support".

The ADF are responding quickly to requests for assistance and moving their assets into place.

The Prime Minister has been in regular contact with the Premier Dan Andrews and Premier Gladys Berejiklian to be updated on the situation in NSW and Victoria and to ensure every Commonwealth support is available to the both state firefighting agencies.”
That statement comes from a spokesperson for the Prime Minister.

@managedmis averages. What's your point? That last summer where I live was as hot? It wasn't.

The people in Mallacoota are being told to go to the quayside and submerge themselves in the water if they hear a siren. It’s awful to read this and it must be absolutely terrifying.

Must be especially scary and difficult to handle for pregnant women, small children, vulnerable adults, disabled and the elderly.

In the 60s in Adelaide we got sent home if it was over 100f

We got ripped off in the 90 and 00s then
Not once were we sent home

Closest they get these days is like 2nd last week of school our area was on highest alert for fires, the schools buses got stopped for day (told night before) and we can keep kids home if we wish, no mark on their record for not attending.
We kept dd home that day

Saying the fires are caused by hazard reduction burns not happening due to "greenies complaining" is just a lie made up by the government and spread by the right wing media.
First, the greens only have one MP in the House of Reps and 9 in the senate, the government has 77 and 35. They have never been in power so they could not force a policy like this through. If it even was their policy - which it isn't!

WTAF are you on about? I did not mean The Greens as in the political party. Also backburning has never ever been the remit of the Federal Govnt, let alone State. It is implemented on the local level and while in more recent years it may be due lack of funding which you can trace back to various levels of Govnt, the huge change in backburning originally came about by very vocal groups lobbying not to ‘destroy the environment’. So, while backburning is still undertaken and can be argued decreased due to funding/resourcing neither of these were issues 40 years ago when it started to be greatly reduced or cut out. If we returned to backburning like we did 50/60 years ago we wouldn’t be as badly off as we are in this fucking mess at present. Also, if urban sprawl had not been allowed to creep into outskirts it would have helped but the Australian trend has always been to go out not up.

Fact check on hazard reduction burns (not the same as backburning).

This piece is really interesting, particularly on the FFDI point at which fuel becomes irrelevant and fires are weather-driven rather than fuel driven, and some of the complexities involved. The second half is where the good stuff is.

I can’t remember the last time the fire danger was low enough to carry out any serious burning on my parents’ place.

Sorry I misquoted the scientists there - should not have said ‘irrelevant’ - they say ‘small effect’.

I'm in Brisbane and no, the whole country isn't on fire. We've had very little in our area at all. We're in drought now but that is a pretty normal thing when you live here.

My niece lives in an affected area in New South Wales and she has evacuated to her mother's place - luckily they have a caravan so they put all their valuables in it and drove over and put the van in my sister's front garden. They have evacuated before so they are used to it.

Seven people have died, and some areas are very badly affected, but it certainly isn't covering the entire country.