To ask you to pray for the thousands of people trapped on a beach by fires in Victoria?

[TheClaws]

There are 4000 people from the town of Mallacoota, Victoria, Australia, that is currently being destroyed by fire. They most likely won’t have homes to return to. They all have life jackets on ready to take shelter in the water as embers rain down upon them. Fire personnel have just - as I post - told them to get in the water. Can you imagine how they must feel?

Australia at the moment is burning across 4 states. Where I am it is 45c and the smell of smoke is heavy. It is a terrible summer for us.

How terrifying

@iborga, that is the unfortunate situation but there are many people who could have signed up a long time ago and done their basic induction but have happily handed over responsibility to a few. Even now these fires will be burning for a long time so even getting their training done now would be helpful.

Many people are not being paid to fight the fires and most people can't sustain it for a long period of time as they have their own families and bills to worry about as well.

Many of the fires will just have to be maintained by 'damage control' rather than attempting to put them out, the bush is just too dense.

@LucaFritz Unfortunately even when you’ve been told to evacuate it may already be too late - fires can jump roads, houses, rivers and turn direction in a matter of seconds.

We never really knew anything about bushfires when we moved to Australia in early 2009, but the Black Saturday Bushfires in Victoria that happened shortly after we arrived taught us a lot (even though we weren’t in Victoria). It also made we think “Why on Earth did we move to Australia?”. Have a read of some of the stories from that and you will realise it’s often not a choice to stay, but that are trapped. One story from the Black Saturday fires I remember was a fire crew going into a National Park to clear out campers in case the bushfire nearby changed direction - they didn’t expect it to, but better safe than sorry. Unfortunately it jumped firebreaks, and the fire crew and the campers had to push the fire truck and any other vehicles into the river, and they also had to sit in the river for over 24 hours, hoping they didn’t choke on the fumes or burn to death.

Another story is of the people evacuating their town, when the fire turned and cut off all exits. People fled to the local footy club, where the women and children hid in the walk in refrigerator, while the men grabbed hoses, buckets, whatever to put out embers raining down on them to try to survive. They were doing the right thing by leaving, but again the fire turned too quickly and im quite sure they didn’t want to be fighting for their lives.

TLDR: It’s not as simple as they should of left.

I pray that everyone remains safe and that this horror weather cycle comes to a swift end and brings with it desperately needed rain.

Prayers for all in Australia and massive ((hugs)). Hope there is a good outcome for all in Mallacoota, how utterly terrifying for them all

This is in NSW - the grey area shows an active fire that was originally three fires that joined together. The grey indicates the amount of land burned out - an area larger than Sydney itself.

The blue markers indicate active fires, and yellow indicate fires where residents should ‘Watch and Act’. If these turn red, sometimes it’s too late to leave.

I feel for you OP. I've lived through hot temperatures with wildfire smoke so thick you can't stop coughing. I've also been evacuated during a nearby wildfire.
This is so awful it's almost hard to believe what I see - it looks like the stuff of movies and I just hope things turn around so the fires can be brought under control, although it will take months for them to be well and truly out.

Prayers to all the people and animals suffering in those hellish conditions, it must be terrifying. I am unsure how much of climate change is caused by humans, and how much is just the earth going through natural cyclical changes, but the signs all seem to show that the world's weather is getting very erratic and we will need to adapt homes and infrastructure to cope with these extreme weather events.

I don't understand how fire can travel across tarmac roads - does the tarmac melt and burn too? Also, are there laws about not growing any trees or shrubs within, say, 10ft of any building? If not, would such restrictions be helpful for the future? Sorry if I'm being dense about this, I'm just trying to think what measures could mitigate the damage in future, if bush fires happen again, after the homes are rebuilt.

The Claws - for those in the UK, this gives them some idea of context too.. although I think it's even bigger now.

Defenbaker Fire can jump across roads via embers. It creates its own wind and weather.

Yes, let's pray to the god that could send rain to put out the fires if he so chose to do so, but hasn't

Defenbaker - embers seem to be a huge issue.. they can rain down or be carried many metres.

Can we just use the term "pray" loosely to mean think of, rather than take time to be scathing. It's much easier.

It’s fires in Australia and it will be floods and mudslides for the northern hemisphere

Huge sympathy for those people tonight but their elected president is a renowned climate denier 😑

Devastating, those poor people, I am praying and wishing for their survival

I don't understand how fire can travel across tarmac roads

Because the fires are enormous, and the wind blows them across, and the embers blow up and set light to stuff all around.

OP, yanbu. I've been reading about this and it heartbreaking, it's terrifying, and I want to scream "why is nobody doing anything???" - all the wildlife too. Over 4 million animals dead

Just to add, the "why isn't anybody doing anything???" s about climate change - obviously rescue workers and firefighters on the scene are doing something...

twitter.com/BreakfastNews/status/1211793498149490688

Incredibly brave and calm woman local radio broadcaster here ^ talking from the scene.

I'm praying 4000 plus lives are at risk tonight and saying more fool them doesn't make you sound clever or superior.
Volunteers are in there with them trying to fight back the fire and keep them safe.
On this side of the world we can wish hope and pray that's all we can do but those numbers of people, real people at risk is horrific I am reading their best hope may be the ADF

I don't understand how fire can travel across tarmac roads - does the tarmac melt and burn too? Also, are there laws about not growing any trees or shrubs within, say, 10ft of any building? If not, would such restrictions be helpful for the future? Sorry if I'm being dense about this, I'm just trying to think what measures could mitigate the damage in future, if bush fires happen again, after the homes are rebuilt.

www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/06/the-terrifying-physics-of-how-wildfires-spread-so-fast/#2adc8aea7791

They jump, they move very fast, they radiate heat that makes things dry, heats then ignites, they create embers. And they are an important part of the ecosystem in a lot of places. These places are made to burn. Some trees use fire to reproduce. Some produce oils, bark and cones that are flammable to encourage fire. You can only fight the environment so much.

Wild/Bush fires are terrifying things that seem to have a mind of their own. You have no idea exactly where they're going to go or how fast they're going to move. They jump roads, rivers, and canyons.

We live in the Sierra Nevada foothills, just on the edge of the 'fire danger zone' and are acutely aware of the dangers of fire. Luckily we've never had to evacuate. But we have friends who had to jump in their irrigation pond whilst fire balls rained down top of them during the Eiler Fire a few years ago.

My prayers are with the people of Mallacoota and all Australians impacted by these horrible fires. And with those who battle to stop them.

This is hard to hear but so very diligent mobile.twitter.com/breakfastnews/status/1211793498149490688 this reporter is keeping locals updated

Thinking of everyone on that beach. Awful, really awful times over there.

For those wondering how bushfires get on roads. I have a piece of melted aluminium from my parents caravan. It melts at about 800 degrees. My parents lost thier house in a bush fire 18 months ago. Bush fire is hot, unpredictable and fast!

Thinking of all those affected, unimaginable

Possibly a stupid question but why aren't they evacuating people by boat rather than just leaving them there? I presume the mention of a beach means it is on the coast?

I watched a program on netflix a while back about the Californian wildfires and it was terrifying just watching it, I can't imagine what it must be like for them. Utterly horrendous.