"Absolute panic" amid Australia bushfires

[+Desertrat56]

WOW!  That is a lot of rain!  I hope it quenches some of the fires.

[openozy]

8 hours ago, Myles said:

Is there any positives to these fires?    Obviously they don't outweigh the negatives, I just like to find a silver lining.  

Example:

With global warming, the positives could include - more farm-able land in northern areas.   The finding of more ancient items as permafrost melts.   

 

The only positives were as I said before the smoke haze blocking the sun a bit.It's the intense heat and dry which is the main worry,my corn crop failed this year and I had water.My niece works for Edgell and they have no work this corn season.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

15 hours ago, openozy said:

Things have changed dramatically here,I started noticing it about 20years ago but it's escalating each year.The last 4 years it's got really bad,whether man made or a natural event.I can see Oz being uninhabitable sooner than we think.

I think we will survive, but our population will never be much larger than it is now. It will be a hard survival, a mentally, physically and financially hard survival but look up stubborn and there’s a picture of an Australian in the dictionary. The only thing that will make survival impossible is if the government doesn’t adapt as well, so we’re ****ed as long as the LNP is in power and charisma vacuums like Shorten and Albonezzi are leading Labor. 

[+susieice]

3 hours ago, Golden Duck said:

Here's a video of the reaction to the rain in Cunnuamulla.

 

I'm seeing this too. A lot of rain coming to Australia. I sure hope it puts a lot of these fires out and wets a lot of the areas that haven't burned yet down.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7895063/Heaviest-downpour-MONTHS-come-weekend-rain-bomb-giving-firefighters-needed-hope.html?fbclid=IwAR2X5-x9oQOUALqsYV7-cXm4XH_6HpGE5iaqGN1qxLyV-EMBWhH4WNGUyQ0

[openozy]

2 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

I think we will survive, but our population will never be much larger than it is now. It will be a hard survival, a mentally, physically and financially hard survival but look up stubborn and there’s a picture of an Australian in the dictionary. The only thing that will make survival impossible is if the government doesn’t adapt as well, so we’re ****ed as long as the LNP is in power and charisma vacuums like Shorten and Albonezzi are leading Labor. 

If the heat keeps coming back we won't be able to farm here and will have to resort to more mining, worsening the situation.We had next to no insects around here this summer,dead stock were rotting in their own juices.If the most important creatures to the environment go it will be a domino effect that no government can help.I hope it gets better but I'm getting resigned to the worst case scenario.

[+susieice]

This is an incredible story! What an awesome job by the Australian firefighters! Thank you!! 

Aussie Firefighters Save World's Only Groves Of Prehistoric Wollemi Pines

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/796994699/aussie-firefighters-save-worlds-only-groves-of-prehistoric-wollemi-pines?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR30VtkuSs6CB0p3puNB_W9xBbpzXL7KiM98P0E3_k2ekRzt22TfJFtUB5s

Edited January 17, 2020 by susieice

[DingoLingo]

the downside of the rainfall in NSW

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-16/nsw-bushfire-ash-leads-to-mass-fish-kill-in-macleay-river/11872372

[+susieice]

Three US firefighters died today when their water bomber aircraft crashed in the Snowy Monaro area. It looks like it's close to Canberra. They were flying a plane from the US company Coulson Aviation, which has grounded it's large tanker planes for the rest of the day. We hear a lot now about rain, but there are still a lot of fires in NSW and Victoria that are not under control.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7919141/Water-bomber-aircraft-CRASHES-Snowy-Mountains-helicopters-search-bushland-wreckage.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR3VXOJ637TH6Ht8V1J3EZzGsAM2dAGnFhwSMQZtev85R9vLSXYJdtca990

[tmcom]

So we had apocalyptic, unprecedented rain to put out the apocalyptic, unprecedented fires, mainly caused by the apocalyptic, unprecedented arsonists!

 

[Habitat]

13 minutes ago, tmcom said:

So we had apocalyptic, unprecedented rain to put out the apocalyptic, unprecedented fires, mainly caused by the apocalyptic, unprecedented arsonists!

 

Don't forget the BOM talking up flash floods that are "one in 100 year events", but happen roughly every five years. I really do think there is a culture in there to exaggerate, and cherry-pick angles that make things look, er, apocalyptic.

[tmcom]

29 minutes ago, Habitat said:

Don't forget the BOM talking up flash floods that are "one in 100 year events", but happen roughly every five years. I really do think there is a culture in there to exaggerate, and cherry-pick angles that make things look, er, apocalyptic.

Well, you know, the manager of BOM, gets up makes the unprecedented decision to use mint toothpaste instead of an other one, then watches all of the apocalyptic news on the ABC, and spends the rest of the day believing we are doomed.

Pretty hard to think rationally when faced with impending doom, unless it involves hoarding canned beans?

 

[Golden Duck]

12 hours ago, Habitat said:

Don't forget the BOM talking up flash floods that are "one in 100 year events", but happen roughly every five years. I really do think there is a culture in there to exaggerate, and cherry-pick angles that make things look, er, apocalyptic.

 

[Crikey]

Guys, a terrorist magazine carried instructions on how to make fire bombs to destroy American forests, should we be worried?

[Peter B]

On 1/23/2020 at 7:30 PM, tmcom said:

So we had apocalyptic, unprecedented rain to put out the apocalyptic, unprecedented fires, mainly caused by the apocalyptic, unprecedented arsonists!

 

I'd like to think you have more evidence for this statement than that you heard a few politicians say it.

But the evidence I've founds suggests you're likely to be wrong. You might like to try this article first: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-15/is-arson-mostly-to-blame-for-the-bushfire-crisis/11865724

The key point the experts are making is this: most of the fires over the last couple of months have started in remote locations; and fires in remote locations are usually started by natural causes, in particular dry lightning storms.

Arson fires are much more likely to be started near urban areas. But even then, fires near urban areas can be caused by a range of factors other than arson. The fire between Queanbeyan and Canberra Airport last night was started when strong winds blew a tree branch onto power lines. The Baldivis fire a couple of weeks ago near Perth was caused when a trailer wheel fell off and the axle scraping on the road caused sparks. The Binna Burra fire in November last year was probably caused by a discarded cigarette. Another fire in the area a couple of weeks later was apparently caused by an army live fire exercise. In December, backburning around the Gospers Mountain fire got out of hand and destroyed houses. The Black Saturday fires in 2009 were in part caused by arson but in other cases by strong winds blowing down power lines.

As for the "apocalyptic, unprecedented rain", well, I'm sure a lot of people appreciated the effect of the rain on the fires, but did anyone claim it was apocalyptic or unprecedented? In any case I didn't appreciate the effect of the hail on my car, either: something like 150 hail dents on the bonnet, roof, boot and left side, and a cracked windscreen.

[tmcom]

15 minutes ago, Peter B said:

I'd like to think you have more evidence for this statement than that you heard a few politicians say it.

But the evidence I've founds suggests you're likely to be wrong. You might like to try this article first: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-15/is-arson-mostly-to-blame-for-the-bushfire-crisis/11865724

The key point the experts are making is this: most of the fires over the last couple of months have started in remote locations; and fires in remote locations are usually started by natural causes, in particular dry lightning storms.

Arson fires are much more likely to be started near urban areas. But even then, fires near urban areas can be caused by a range of factors other than arson. The fire between Queanbeyan and Canberra Airport last night was started when strong winds blew a tree branch onto power lines. The Baldivis fire a couple of weeks ago near Perth was caused when a trailer wheel fell off and the axle scraping on the road caused sparks. The Binna Burra fire in November last year was probably caused by a discarded cigarette. Another fire in the area a couple of weeks later was apparently caused by an army live fire exercise. In December, backburning around the Gospers Mountain fire got out of hand and destroyed houses. The Black Saturday fires in 2009 were in part caused by arson but in other cases by strong winds blowing down power lines.

As for the "apocalyptic, unprecedented rain", well, I'm sure a lot of people appreciated the effect of the rain on the fires, but did anyone claim it was apocalyptic or unprecedented? In any case I didn't appreciate the effect of the hail on my car, either: something like 150 hail dents on the bonnet, roof, boot and left side, and a cracked windscreen.

Point taken, but a cyclone in the Indian sea, is going to cause freak occurrences.

[Peter B]

On 1/24/2020 at 8:42 PM, tmcom said:

Point taken, but a cyclone in the Indian sea, is going to cause freak occurrences.

It's going to have to be pretty freaky for a cyclone in the Indian Ocean to cause a month of smoke haze.

And that's only part of what we've experienced in Canberra this summer: six days in a row of temperatures in the range of 35 to 40 degrees in December; five or six weeks of pretty much continuous smoke haze, including several days of literally the worst quality air anywhere in the world; a hail storm that's damaged well over a thousand cars and left thousands of people potentially waiting months for damage assessments; a bushfire which both closed the city's airport and cut our home phone and internet access for about 12 hours; and all the while we've been surrounded by bushfires that are taking weeks to contain, let alone put out.

If this is the new normal for Canberra summers, then yes, I think we're entitled to (a) use the word "unprecedented", and (b) look for some action from the government on climate change mitigation.

The thing about the hail storm is this:

1. I couldn't put an insurance claim in online, and had to wait on the phone for an hour before I got to talk to a call centre person. That was Wednesday morning. Fair enough, he was courteous and helpful. And he said the assessors would call me in 24-48 hours to book a time for an assessment. They haven't called back, so I'll give them until Wednesday next week before I chase them. Only annoying, but still annoying...

2. On the news tonight was a report suggesting that people are being given appointments 3 months in the future before their cars will be assessed. In the meantime, cars with cracked windscreens legally can't be driven.

3. Theoretically my car is driveable if I get the windscreen replaced. But I can't do the windscreen repair separately from the other damage repair, so I still have to wait until all the damage can be fixed in one go, however long that might be. So in the meantime my car has to stay off the road.

4. My policy provides me with a replacement hire car, but only while the car is in for repairs. Until that happens - who knows how far in the future - no hire car. Now fortunately we have two cars, and public transport is an option for me to get to work, but it's ridiculously slow compared with driving. What about the families with one car, now undriveable, that's going to stay that way for months, who have little or no access to public transport to get to work? (And Canberra's weekend bus services are terrible.) These families, obviously mostly poorer families, are going to take a bad financial hit. It'd be nice to know the government has ideas for how it might help them.

So now, in addition to the transport, energy and tourism hits to the economy caused by the fires (as well as a couple of thousand homes and businesses destroyed) we have the insurance hit caused by this hail storm.

So pardon me if I find your incessant use of "she'll be right" winkies unhelpful and annoying.

[tmcom]

3 hours ago, Peter B said:

It's going to have to be pretty freaky for a cyclone in the Indian Ocean to cause a month of smoke haze.

And that's only part of what we've experienced in Canberra this summer: six days in a row of temperatures in the range of 35 to 40 degrees in December; five or six weeks of pretty much continuous smoke haze, including several days of literally the worst quality air anywhere in the world; a hail storm that's damaged well over a thousand cars and left thousands of people potentially waiting months for damage assessments; a bushfire which both closed the city's airport and cut our home phone and internet access for about 12 hours; and all the while we've been surrounded by bushfires that are taking weeks to contain, let alone put out.

If this is the new normal for Canberra summers, then yes, I think we're entitled to (a) use the word "unprecedented", and (b) look for some action from the government on climate change mitigation.

The thing about the hail storm is this:

1. I couldn't put an insurance claim in online, and had to wait on the phone for an hour before I got to talk to a call centre person. That was Wednesday morning. Fair enough, he was courteous and helpful. And he said the assessors would call me in 24-48 hours to book a time for an assessment. They haven't called back, so I'll give them until Wednesday next week before I chase them. Only annoying, but still annoying...

2. On the news tonight was a report suggesting that people are being given appointments 3 months in the future before their cars will be assessed. In the meantime, cars with cracked windscreens legally can't be driven.

3. Theoretically my car is driveable if I get the windscreen replaced. But I can't do the windscreen repair separately from the other damage repair, so I still have to wait until all the damage can be fixed in one go, however long that might be. So in the meantime my car has to stay off the road.

4. My policy provides me with a replacement hire car, but only while the car is in for repairs. Until that happens - who knows how far in the future - no hire car. Now fortunately we have two cars, and public transport is an option for me to get to work, but it's ridiculously slow compared with driving. What about the families with one car, now undriveable, that's going to stay that way for months, who have little or no access to public transport to get to work? (And Canberra's weekend bus services are terrible.) These families, obviously mostly poorer families, are going to take a bad financial hit. It'd be nice to know the government has ideas for how it might help them.

So now, in addition to the transport, energy and tourism hits to the economy caused by the fires (as well as a couple of thousand homes and businesses destroyed) we have the insurance hit caused by this hail storm.

So pardon me if I find your incessant use of "she'll be right" winkies unhelpful and annoying.

Freak occurrences as in hail storms, not smoke haze, which is caused by mismanagement of our park areas, and yes hot days, and a lot of arsonists.

The worst hail storm occurred hundreds of years ago when CO2 was a joke or very low, (overseas) which was at bowling ball scales and destroyed anything in its path, (that means killed most humans and livestock).

And a week of 35 to 40 is bad, but Sydney has had worse or a month of those temp's.

Or when l was a kid in the 70's, l remember a similar week of 35 to 40 d, days or a week, in October, that was also when scientists were crapping on about a mini ice age.

I am sorry for your hailstorm problem, but pinning the world ending on a freak occurrence is never a good idea.

 

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

5 hours ago, tmcom said:

Freak occurrences as in hail storms, not smoke haze, which is caused by mismanagement of our park areas, and yes hot days, and a lot of arsonists.

The worst hail storm occurred hundreds of years ago when CO2 was a joke or very low, (overseas) which was at bowling ball scales and destroyed anything in its path, (that means killed most humans and livestock).

 

Worst plague we had was hundreds of years ago, so why worry about this new one? 

[Peter B]

On 1/26/2020 at 3:18 AM, tmcom said:

Freak occurrences as in hail storms, not smoke haze, which is caused by mismanagement of our park areas...

 

How do you make that connection? And what do you mean by "mismanagement"?

...and a lot of arsonists...

Seriously? I've just pointed out causes of many of the recent fires that aren't arson (dry lightning, wind blowing branch onto powerlines, a trailer throwing up sparks after losing a wheel, discarded cigarette, army live-fire exercise, and back-burning getting out of hand - and the fire burning to the south of Canberra at the moment was supposedly caused by an army helicopter's hot landing light) and you're straight back onto the arson bandwagon?

I am sorry for your hailstorm problem, but pinning the world ending on a freak occurrence is never a good idea.

I appreciate your sympathies regarding the damage to my car, but you appear to have totally missed the point I was making. It’s going to take months for the insurance companies to finish assessing the thousands of cars damaged by the hail storm (at last count more than 30,000), and in the meantime thousands of people are being inconvenienced by having their cars locked up in yards awaiting assessment. Many of those people are going to be inconvenienced a lot more than me.

What’s going to be the total cost of damage caused by the fires and the hail storm? Rebuilding 2000 homes destroyed in the fires at $400,000 each is $800 million. Repairing or replacing 30,000 cars damaged in the hail storm at $20,000 each is another $600 million. Add on the cost of rebuilding highways, railways, mobile phone infrastructure and farm infrastructure, the cost of re-stocking farms, the cost of cleaning water catchments, the cost to the health system from mental and physical injuries, the cost of compensating volunteer firefighters for their time off work. Total cost? $3 billion? $5 billion?

Remember, at the moment Australia’s economic growth rate is lower than our population growth rate, so we’re in a per capita recession. We’ve already been warned the cost of fresh food is going to go up sharply in coming months. Insurance companies are going to take a hammering from claims, meaning higher premiums for everyone. Tighter building regulations are going to increase the cost of building/rebuilding homes. Some people with limited transport options thanks to either the fires or the hail storm are going to lose their jobs. If Australia gets to the end of 2020 without going into an actual recession (two quarters of negative economic growth) I’ll be surprised.

Now imagine what’s going to happen to the Australian economy, our quality of life, our standard of living, if what has happened this summer becomes an annual thing.

And the other frustrating thing - so many ideas proposed in order to limit the effect of climate change make economic sense in their own right, even without invoking climate alarmism. Insulating your house is cheaper than constantly heating and cooling it; using a heat pump or solar panels to heat water for the house is cheaper than gas or electricity; a fuel-efficient car is cheaper to run than a gas guzzler; and, according to this article (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-28/why-finance-is-fleeing-fossil-fuels/11903928?section=analysis) investment companies are dropping their investments in coal, not because they're run by greenies but because they're run by hardheaded business people in search of profits.

[Peter B]

Also, in case people weren’t aware, there’s a bushfire burning a little to the south of Canberra, which has burned out more than 100 square kilometres of bush and farm land. It started in the Orroral Valley, which some of you may know was the site of an old NASA tracking station. Sadly, it seems the fire has also burned through the old Honeysuckle Creek tracking station site (the tracking station which received the first Apollo 11 moonwalk TV signals). There wasn’t much there – the concrete slabs the buildings stood on, and a number of signs explaining the history of the site – but it was pretty and atmospheric country, thick forest with a lot of wildlife. Emergency Services say the fire is going to take weeks to extinguish because of the ruggedness of the terrain, but I so want to visit the site again when it reopens.

[tmcom]

1 hour ago, Peter B said:

How do you make that connection? And what do you mean by "mismanagement"?

Up to 30 years of fuel loads being left in our national parks, mainly, farmers unable to reduce fuel loads, on their land. And politicians on both sides ignoring what the last royal commission found after black Friday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_costly_or_deadly_hailstorms

Plenty of hailstorms throuhout history, and some when CO2 was much lower, or linking freak weather to climate change or some future disaster is a bad idea!

1 hour ago, Peter B said:

Seriously? I've just pointed out causes of many of the recent fires that aren't arson (dry lightning, wind blowing branch onto powerlines, a trailer throwing up sparks after losing a wheel, discarded cigarette, army live-fire exercise, and back-burning getting out of hand - and the fire burning to the south of Canberra at the moment was supposedly caused by an army helicopter's hot landing light) and you're straight back onto the arson bandwagon?

Arson caused a large part of the Sydney fires!

[Golden Duck]

3 hours ago, tmcom said:

Up to 30 years of fuel loads being left in our national parks, mainly, farmers unable to reduce fuel loads, on their land. And politicians on both sides ignoring what the last royal commission found after black Friday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_costly_or_deadly_hailstorms

Plenty of hailstorms throuhout history, and some when CO2 was much lower, or linking freak weather to climate change or some future disaster is a bad idea!

Arson caused a large part of the Sydney fires!

I suppose you'll enlighten us all on s5.1 of the Commisson's report, now? 

[DingoLingo]

On 1/23/2020 at 4:30 PM, tmcom said:

So we had apocalyptic, unprecedented rain to put out the apocalyptic, unprecedented fires, mainly caused by the apocalyptic, unprecedented arsonists!

 

gods Tm... your not sprouting that arsonists bs as well.. let me guess you also fell into the 3 teenage girls running away from starting a bushfire video rubbish as well

[rashore]

So heard a random thing on the radio the other day, and you guys just don't get any breaks.. a side effect of the fires..

Australians warned of possible deadly spider "bonanza": https://www.cbsnews.com/news/funnel-web-spider-australia-bonanza-experts-warn-conditions-ripe-activity-today-2020-01-22/

 

[tmcom]

4 hours ago, DingoLingo said:

gods Tm... your not sprouting that arsonists bs as well.. let me guess you also fell into the 3 teenage girls running away from starting a bushfire video rubbish as well

At least 180 for the Sydney fires, out of 200 odd fires, but the Guardian does say otherwise, and they should know, what with their "keepers of truth", commented by real, honest to goodness, "some guy up the street" commentary.