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Bushfire - Australia (1 Viewer)

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Chosun Juan

Given to Fly
Australia - Aboriginal
Bushfires - Australia

These fires at 1.6 Million Hectares burnt are now over 50% larger than the Amazon fires burning in 2019 - no celebrity press to speak of though. :cat:

The thing of most interest to me is how the heck are all these fires starting - bush doesn't just self combust no matter how bad the conditions are. (actually some stock yards possibly do but that's another topic). https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/10802676

Amid all the climate change hoo ha, I thought I'd put together a few articles .....

How fires start: (the upshot is over 80% are caused by people)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...ition-source-how-we-know/11701132?pfmredir=ms

Recent state of play:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp...-australia-boys-arrested-fire-bushfire-sydney

Will rainforests burn?:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-are-our-rainforests-burning.amp

All this and still 11 days to go until the START of summer - yay!






Chosun :gh:
 
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These fires at 1.6 Million Hectares burnt are now over 50% larger than the Amazon fires burning in 2019 - no celebrity press to speak of though. :cat:

The thing of most interest to me is how the heck are all these fires starting - bush doesn't just self combust no matter how bad the conditions are. (actually some stocky yards possibly do but that's another topic). https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/10802676

Amid all the climate change hoo ha, I thought I'd put together a few articles .....

How fires start: (the upshot is over 80% are caused by people)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...ition-source-how-we-know/11701132?pfmredir=ms

Recent state of play:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp...-australia-boys-arrested-fire-bushfire-sydney

Will rainforests burn?:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-are-our-rainforests-burning.amp

All this and still 11 days to go until the START of summer - yay!






Chosun :gh:

When you say 'bush', I assume you don't mean the fires engulfing Eucalytus forest and killing Koalas? When people talk of the Australian bush, I imagine semi desert?

If so, then won't this regenerate far more quickly than the Amazon, it's also not the so called 'lungs of the World', hence no celebs?

Tragic for local wildlife and those that lose their lives or homes but on a global scale, not that crucial?
 
When you say 'bush', I assume you don't mean the fires engulfing Eucalytus forest and killing Koalas? When people talk of the Australian bush, I imagine semi desert?

If so, then won't this regenerate far more quickly than the Amazon, it's also not the so called 'lungs of the World', hence no celebs?

Tragic for local wildlife and those that lose their lives or homes but on a global scale, not that crucial?
Blame peculiar Australian language for any confusion !
It is true that references to out 'bush' refer to country areas, and if you go even further inside the country then you are going 'outback'.

What I am mostly referring to here is 'bushland' - Eucalypt forests - wet, dry, open forest and even woodland, which thanks to urban sprawl surrounds and dissects suburbia and outer towns. Confusingly for foreigners we abbreviate this 'bushland' to 'bush' (abbreviations cut down on the number of potential flies swallowed ! :) ...... of course it helps to read the articles in the links posted too which give locations and other data ;)

Interspersed among this 'bush' are tiny pockets of dry and semi- subtropical rainforest in sheltered south and south-east facing gullies and gorges.

So yes it is the Eucalypt forests I am talking about and unfortunately the Koalas of Northern NSW (one of their stronger holds) are copping the devastating brunt of it. [Please nobody post any pictures of burnt and injured Koalas, of which there are many, as it's just too heartbreaking].

Being mostly fire adapted, a lot of it should regenerate (thicker and more fireprone than ever), so somewhat different than Primary Rainforest that is being deliberately cleared (under the guise of fires) but given the impacts and size, no less crucial?

The point is not to swallow any climate change hooey.

First the land 's wetlands are drained, cleared and eroded, which drains and degrades all the land, then precious surface and groundwater is harvested and over extracted further drying the landscape out.

Then add the stoopid actions of man in igniting it, with catastrophic weather conditions (Temps over 35°C and winds 50km/hr and over) to create unstoppable out of control fires.

There is a fire in the eastern part of the Wollemi National Park and surrounds which in itself is fully 1/5th the size of ALL the fires combined in the Amazon over the last year, and it is currently out of control. The Wollemi hasn't burnt for a long time.

I think saying that these fires may not be that crucial? on a global scale is possibly missing several important points ....... :cat:





Chosun :gh:
 
Yes, there are fires across all different types of ecosystems or modified environments in multiple states now. South Australia had predicted temperatures of 45°C and winds gusting up to 90km/hr resulting in the highest bushfire category warning of "catastrophic" - fires in such conditions are deemed unsurvivable and basically authorities have the power to order mandatory evacuation. One of the power utilities even shut down power to 10,000 homes to prevent fallen lines providing an ignition source. Inconvenient as that was - it was probably a good move.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6501262/adelaide-swelters-but-misses-nov-record/?cs=14231






Chosun :gh:
 
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Andy, Have a look at https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me
It updates every 10min as a warning system for people.

if you zoom in and scroll north of Sydney to around Port Macquarie or Coffs Harbour you'll see a vast area of many National Parks inland from the coast are on fire. Very little of the area is actually farmland like the bbc story you quote. It also happens to be from a different state.
 
Damage to Gondwana rainforest a ‘global tragedy’

"The damage caused by fire in the Gondwana rainforest world heritage area in the north of the state is a “global tragedy” and an “absolute crisis” a Nature Conservation Council ecologist says."

Twelve of 28 NSW world heritage reserves have been at least partly affected by fire.

"Graham said until a week ago Barrington Tops and the New England national park were the two largest blocks of Gondwana that had not been affected by fire. That changed after lightning strikes sparked fires in those areas."


https://www.theguardian.com/environ...t3K8Kh6p0-FTe4dC7wJ3eJsMf-ZoGlFddVjN4vUHsuAPU





Chosun :gh:
 
I have seen reports of unemployed individuals starting fires so that they would be employed to work on the fire crew.
 
I have seen reports of unemployed individuals starting fires so that they would be employed to work on the fire crew.

This is simply not true. Whilst some ppl involved in fighting fires have started them - a problem over a long time in many countries with individuals obsessed by fire. Your assumption that it's unemployed doing it to get employment is false for the simple reason outside of Australian cities and where the vast majority of the fires are the fire fighters are all volunteers and no remuneration is involved.
 
I have seen reports of unemployed individuals starting fires so that they would be employed to work on the fire crew.

This is simply not true. Whilst some ppl involved in fighting fires have started them - a problem over a long time in many countries with individuals obsessed by fire. Your assumption that it's unemployed doing it to get employment is false for the simple reason outside of Australian cities and where the vast majority of the fires are the fire fighters are all volunteers and no remuneration is involved.
Don't think Dan was referring specifically to Australia? Pretty sure I've come across similar claims, in ref to USA / California.
 
Don't think Dan was referring specifically to Australia? Pretty sure I've come across similar claims, in ref to USA / California.

I was giving the benefit of the doubt with my comment about being a general problem of fire fighters obsessed with fire (pyromaniac seems to be out of fashion?) but given this is a specific thread about the Australian fires the Australian community-based volunteer fire fighting system is the only approach relevant to the situation under discussion.
 
I have seen reports of unemployed individuals starting fires so that they would be employed to work on the fire crew.

I was giving the benefit of the doubt with my comment about being a general problem of fire fighters obsessed with fire (pyromaniac seems to be out of fashion?) but given this is a specific thread about the Australian fires the Australian community-based volunteer fire fighting system is the only approach relevant to the situation under discussion.

According to the research I posted earlier - 13% of fires are deliberately lit and a further 37% are suspicious (I think we can take that to mean deliberately started but with insufficient proof to categorically prove it). Also, according to the data in the article I posted in post#8 that means that ~ over 30,000 fires in Australia each year are deliberately started or suspicious.

A further 1/3 are started accidently by equipment (chainsaws, welders, slashes, trains etc), loss of control of prescribed burns etc.

That means that over 80% of all fires are man-made.

There is an element in the Rural Fire Service that are obsessed by fire as another of the earlier posts proved when one man was caught. I am sure there are other equally dangerous elements within the service with a 'let it burn' attitude (this saw a fair chunk of Canberra wiped out years ago when a fire in a National Park being 'monitored' got out of control in catastrophic conditions).

There are currently over 2,000,000 hectares ablaze or burnt in Australia at the moment - much of it at the mercy of the weather or burning across the country until it reaches an ocean.

Life Imprisonment or Death Penalty are conversations I think we should be having ......... :storm:





Chosun :gh:
 
I have seen these 'pyros' first hand. Out in the country I had a neighbour who was in the Rural Fire Service (RFS) and also an absolute firebug to the point of being mesmerized by it !

He had two out of control fires escape onto our property burning fences and seedlings. I was tempted to use the shovel on him as well as the fire ! Perhaps the most serious occurrence was when he was burning paddocks and it got out of control - nearly burning cars, his house, and him. We called the police that time as well as the usual fire brigade ...... :storm:

I have also seen a fire started by lightning after it struck an ancient isolated rough barked apple paddock tree. I called the fire brigade to save as much of the tree as anything - and also to ensure it didn't spread to the nearby riparian area, though that didn't seem highly likely. :cat:




Chosun :gh:
 
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