Aussie forest fires...

I know there are a lot of Victorians on here, are all your lot OK over there? Just found out the fires around Bendigo have spread to right next to where some of my gf's family live... That shit is out of control... Very scary stuff... :[

Loads of links to some dark stories towards the end of this thread http://www.londonfgss.com/thread15997.html?highlight=weather+week.

My head can't get around the fact it was arson - it beggers belief - who are these people that do such a truely wicked wicked thing

to give you an idea, places like marysville, healesville etc are like potters bar or places in the green belt, thats how close it's to melbourne.

believe it about the arsonists, there are on going issues in some of the wealthy in eastern suburbs of people lighting hedges.

It's fucked. I'm not sure if i want them to be caught or if I'd prefer to know they died from their own fire.

+1 to arsonists burning to death.

Really sad story in the news today about a CFA volunteer dying when his own house was burnt down in "suspicious circumstances". Grim.

There was a fire in a small town called Tanjil Bren near mount Baw Baw where my Grandma/Aunt have properties. Thankfully its out.

On a more positive note, this little fella made it.

a snifter of vodka to get the l'il guy back on his feet aaaahhhhhhh

I thought this morning's news reports were a little koala-centric and In other news for my liking considering it's a day of mourning... 150+ dead but the little fella made it, so everything's OK... :/

You're totally right TS. Its fucking dark times.

Heres the link about the CFA volunteer: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25044256-421,00.html

In other shitty news, the Churchill fire apparently jumped containment lines last night.

Thanks for posting about this by the way. Hope everything ok with the GF's family.

koala's don't drink water. they get teh moisture from the leaves they eat.

http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/koalas.htm

I've been looking at BBC news and reading stories on this. It is incredibly sad to hear the death toll constantly rise and the utter ferocity of the destruction.

koala's don't drink water. they get teh moisture from the leaves they eat.

http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/koalas.htm

I think all the leaves were a little overdone.

Dale, koalas evidently DO drink water in extreme circumstances, given the number of photos of them climbing out of trees and begging for drinks and jumping in buckets of water...

i've been in Melbourne for the last few weeks, hanging out and visiting family, and the day that the fires kicked off was fucking epic. it was the hottest day ever recorded in Melbourne, in 150 years of records, with temperatures of 46.4 in the CBD (in the shade) and approaching 50 in various parts of the state. Combine that with extremely high north-westerly winds (geography buffs and aussies will notice that this means winds that have blown across 3000km of desert) and coming off one of the worst droughts ever, means that it was pretty much the best/worst conditions for bushfires you could possibly imagine. I went outside briefly on Saturday afternoon, and it was like standing in a giant hairdryer, it was relentlessly hot and windy. I've never experienced anything like it, and i lived in Melbourne for 26 years.

when the fires started it was really an inevitability, because we get bushfires every summer and you kind of expect it. but this was by far the worst fires we've seen. there are stories of fireballs racing up hillshides and people having literally minutes between hearing there was a fire and having to escape through exploding trees. as to whether or not it was arsonists lighting fires, i don't know. there have been suggestions that the fires in Gippsland were deliberately lit, but not so much the ones in Kinglake/Whittlesea which have been the most deadly. Seriously all it would take to start a fire in those conditions would be a cigarette butt, a glass bottle lying on the grass, or a piece of metal reflecting sunlight onto something flammable. the whole state was basically a tinderbox sitting in an enormous pre-heated bellows. if it was arsonists, they'd better hope the police catch them, because if the community do they are fucked.

the reaction to the fires has been incredible, and i'm glad i was here to see the whole country pull together. people have donated a fuckton of money, time and stuff to help people who have lost everything. it's actually restored my faith in humanity a bit, seeing how generous people are in such a dark time. the blood bank was so overwhelmed with people who wanted to donate blood, i heard there was a waiting list 3 weeks long. that's pretty incredible considering they normally have a shortage of donors.

so yeah, it's been a massive fucking tragedy, i know people who have died or lost their houses, and people who have had very narrow misses, and it's intense. but it's also pulled the state and the country together in a way that sounds like a cliche, but is actually pretty fucking real and very moving.

it's going to be a headfuck coming back to London this weekend.

I think all the leaves were a little overdone.

that's not funny, mate.

http://mumbrella.com.au/2009/02/12/comment-heard-the-one-about-the-media-group-that-thinks-the-bushfires-are-funny/

this is an example of the British media being a bit retarded. I'm sure we all agree that the Daily Mail are cunts anyway, but for fuck's sake!

Yep I'd agree with that. UK Media is fucked in the head. Its not even remotely funny.

Also agree with teens on the koala pic....wtf?

I have a lot of family in australia right now, it scares me. we havent heard much from them. not that i expect them to up and think about calling me first and foremost.

i cant begin to believe that i single person could possible find that article funny. As a previous Journalism student I cant believe someone could bring themselves to do that. It is a huge part of modern media to think about ethics...or at least in my education it was. bastards.

it is amazing to think of how people are pulling together though. hope your gf's family are ok!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25026912-2702,00.html

on the koala pics: the newspapers here have been FULL of fire news. The Age newspaper which is Melbourne's broadsheet paper was completely packed with bushfire news (people dead, people who've lost houses, the aussie cricket team visiting survivors, how people escaped etc etc) up to about page 12. it's been massively over-covered, and some commentators have even described it as "disaster porn" (not unjustified). so it's not as if slipping in a couple of picks of "CFA heroes" helping out the native wildlife was that OTT. in context it's a much-needed relief from what is a serious and heavily covered tragedy.

the foreign media just love koalas, so these pics get syndicated more than pics of dead aussies.

tis article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/australia-fires-natural-disaster has also copped a lot of criticism. i personally think it's patronising, factually incorrect and incredibly insensitive. basically the writer is completely fucking wrong, despite having the beginnings of a couple of good points.

not as bad as the aussie christian cult (unfortunately named "Catch the Fire Ministries") who tried to claim the fires were due to God's vengeance after the state of Victoria decriminalised abortion: http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2009/02/10/media-release-abortion-laws-to-blame-for-bush-fires/

by the way, the CFA are heroes.

by the way, the CFA are heroes.

+1

a snifter of vodka to get the l'il guy back on his feet aaaahhhhhhh

tis article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/australia-fires-natural-disaster has also copped a lot of criticism. i personally think it's patronising, factually incorrect and incredibly insensitive. basically the writer is completely fucking wrong, despite having the beginnings of a couple of good points.

I agree it's timing in insensitive and appreciate that you have been affected by this, but how is this article inaccurate? I have read the salient points made in other articles in the last year, namely that bushfire is a natural process that has been suppressed in recent decades. Is this wrong? I do not want to underplay the loss of life or the possible criminal cause of the fire, but are lessons not to be learned?

I agree it's timing in insensitive and appreciate that you have been affected by this, but how is this article inaccurate? I have read the salient points made in other articles in the last year, namely that bushfire is a natural process that has been suppressed in recent decades. Is this wrong? I do not want to underplay the loss of life or the possible criminal cause of the fire, but are lessons not to be learned?

well, i guess it's not so much wrong as just really ill-informed. i think the questions of fire and land management are definitely worth debating, and the local media are doing so.

the guardian article cops a good serve here which will explain why it sucks better than i probably can.

It's just that the author takes a very simplistic viewpoint, and does it with a condescending arrogance that really pisses people off. and it's not even accurate - in lots of areas controlled burns are used to reduce the fuel load before summer. it's not as if she's discovered some new approach that we stupid colonials aren't aware of because we're such rednecks we ignore anything the aboriginal people may have known. land management and awareness of sustainability has improved a lot in the 25 years since she left australia. i reckon the people who live in those areas and have actual lifetimes of experience dealing with the environment and fire may have something to say about her smugness from a city on the other side of the world.

however, she completely misses the point that the problem in this case was really the extreme weather conditions, not so much the planning and execution of fire plans. the debate over fire policy is pretty intense here now (both in terms of fuel reduction burning and the "go early or stay and defend" policy), but it's not actually clear cut what is the best policy. In some instances burning the undergrowth actually makes it grow back thicker (which is why the aboriginal people did it - although not in all regions, remember how much variation there is in australia's environment - it speeds up regrowth of vegetation which has evolved to rely on fire). the best management practises will vary depending on the specific area - Churchill is quite different to Kinglake and the best approaches will probably be quite different as well. But controlled burning is not that safe in any case, and it's not easy to do. Remember most of the CFA firefighters are local volunteers, resourcing is an issue, as is the size of the areas involved - should we pre-burn the whole state?

The deaths were caused mainly by the speed and intensity of the fires - people had literally minutes between hearing they were coming and being inundated. The speed of the fires is not overly influenced by the undergrowth, apparently it's all about windspeed, so it probably wouldn't have helped much anyway, especially considering these incredibly fast fires were burning at canopy (treetop) level. Would fuel reduction burning have helped? Probably not. So her argument is simplistic, at best.

The comments that people "pretend" to live in the bush but want to be near shopping malls is wrong, these are rural communities that burned. Churchill is a long way from the nearest mall! Also it's pretty stupid to say that people shouldn't be allowed to live in the bush - these are farmers and people in towns that provide services to rural communities. Europeans have lived there pretty well for 170 years, with a serious bushfire maybe every 25-30 years on average. This one was abnormal.

as for "you should be living in bark huts and farming kangaroos"... i think this shows how far out of touch the author is. I think it sums up the article in general: there is a kernel of truth here (that we need to manage the land better and live more sustainably) but it's wrapped in patronising bullshit and is just over the top.

So in summary, the article was simplistic, engaged only at a very very shallow level with the realities of the situation, and to top it off was smug, self-satisfied and insensitive to the victims.

The police have a arrested a man on suspicion of lighting the fires in Churchill: http://www.theage.com.au/national/churchill-arson-suspect-arrested-20090213-86o3.html

He's totally fucked if he's guilty.