drsurf said..
Jeez there are a whole lot of smart people on here with the solution to everything to do with the fires (sarcasm)
How many of you are volunteers in the Rural Fire Service (NSW) or Country Fire Authority (Vic) or the other equivalents in other states??
It's easy to be a keyboard warrior know it all, in the cities where you don't have to deal with the reality on the ground.

We have a property on the NSW South Coast which was potentially in the line of fire on Saturday. We are surrounded by bush but have a cleared zone where house, sheds, veg gardens and orchards are, which is either green grass or compacted soil/road. We have carefully maintained this over the spring summer and paid attention to removing flammable material away from buildings and other assets. Then we have mains water, full rainwater tanks, mobile pump/and tank on a tractor as well as petrol & electric water pumps and 240v diesel generator if the power goes out. These are basic requirements if you want to live near nature and survive a fire.

In addition to this we had the local ABC radio on giving updates and as a good seabreezer, checked the wind direction nearby on the coast and inland to check fire progression. I also had access to a website to check where lightning strikes occurred locally as the oncoming fire created its own weather in the form of thunderstorms, with no rain but plenty of lightning, which could create new fires ahead of the main front.

We have tenants renting the house on the property who said they were going to help protect the property and their stuff, but lost their nerve as the fire loomed closer, and went to an evacuation centre. That's OK, you don't want someone freaking out when the fire hits. We had sprinklers on the house roof with blocked gutters and damped down the ground around the house and sheds and my partner and I waited as the fire traveled closer. Fortunately due to the wind direction on the day the fire went past a few km to the west of us and there was minimal ash and no ember attack to deal with. After the southerly buster came through and died down we packed our equipment back into the shed and went back to our normal lives. Not so lucky were some of our friends in the active fire zone.

As well as living in the country I do a lot of outdoor work with heavy equipment on farms and other rural property ranging from road construction, clearing for asset protection zones, excavation and demolition. Many people and their properties are completely unprepared for fire and they will catch fire and burn easily.
For all the clever dicks saying there should be more hazard reduction burning you need to think a bit smarter than such a blanket statement. The fire season has now become so long, the days when the a decent hazard reduction can take place are very limited. Even during a bushfire at night, back burning to deny a fire fuel, can become impossible with a heavy dew or a small shower. A change in wind direction and strength can turn a gently creeping hazard reduction burn into a raging uncontrollable inferno. Houses and lives have been lost due to a hazard reduction reduction burn going rogue.

And then there's the ecological science of hazard reduction. Every bit of bush is unique. Some areas require burns of a certain magnitude and frequency for the ecosystems to survive. Some areas will lose species with inappropriate hazard reduction burns, to be replaced by fire loving species which make the forest more flammable than before. There are always consequences for actions taken and if you don't know what you're doing you can easily make a bad situation worse. The last thing we need is politicians making knee jerk decisions on these matters. People who have a good understanding of forest and fire ecology need to make these decisions based on good, well funded research so that hazard reduction works as it's meant to.

But even if the hazard reduction means the fire doesn't even come into sight, embers travelling 5km or more ahead of the fire can drop in and around your house, falling on or under wooden decks, into gutters full of dry leaves, into garden mulch around your house, blown under your house if it's above ground, into oily rags in your carport etc. setting it alight in minutes. Most houses are lost due to such ember attacks either before the fire arrives or after it passes. That's why if you're prepared it's good to be around your property during a fire.

And why are we facing such catastrophic fires? The climate is changing, and changing fast due to the changes humankind has made on the earth. Record temperatures lead to record evaporation rates drying out the country to give us unprecedented droughts. These tinder dry conditions make everything flammable and the fires are unstoppable. Wind patterns are also changing increasing fire intensity. Sea temperatures are rising wiping out kelp forests off the coast of Tasmania. Climate change is real people and on the TV every night. We need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels which are increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Over 95% of credible scientists who have contributed to research on climate science warned us of what we are experiencing years ago. Some said they were exaggerating the risk, but it looks like they have been too conservative.

Be prepared for the next natural disaster when we have record rainfalls in the burnt water catchments filling the dams with ash and eroded soil, silting up rivers and ecosystems and turning river mouths, bays and estuaries to muddy swamps of toxic algae which will then wash up and down the coast making surfing, kiting, windsurfing impossible. If you don't like this version of the future get off your arses and do something to create a better one. Stopping coal mining and burning is a good place to start and look at treading more lightly on the planet in your own lives. Take some responsibility, don't look for someone else or some thing to blame.

drsurf said..
Jeez there are a whole lot of smart people on here with the solution to everything to do with the fires (sarcasm)
How many of you are volunteers in the Rural Fire Service (NSW) or Country Fire Authority (Vic) or the other equivalents in other states??
It's easy to be a keyboard warrior know it all, in the cities where you don't have to deal with the reality on the ground.

We have a property on the NSW South Coast which was potentially in the line of fire on Saturday. We are surrounded by bush but have a cleared zone where house, sheds, veg gardens and orchards are, which is either green grass or compacted soil/road. We have carefully maintained this over the spring summer and paid attention to removing flammable material away from buildings and other assets. Then we have mains water, full rainwater tanks, mobile pump/and tank on a tractor as well as petrol & electric water pumps and 240v diesel generator if the power goes out. These are basic requirements if you want to live near nature and survive a fire.

In addition to this we had the local ABC radio on giving updates and as a good seabreezer, checked the wind direction nearby on the coast and inland to check fire progression. I also had access to a website to check where lightning strikes occurred locally as the oncoming fire created its own weather in the form of thunderstorms, with no rain but plenty of lightning, which could create new fires ahead of the main front.

We have tenants renting the house on the property who said they were going to help protect the property and their stuff, but lost their nerve as the fire loomed closer, and went to an evacuation centre. That's OK, you don't want someone freaking out when the fire hits. We had sprinklers on the house roof with blocked gutters and damped down the ground around the house and sheds and my partner and I waited as the fire traveled closer. Fortunately due to the wind direction on the day the fire went past a few km to the west of us and there was minimal ash and no ember attack to deal with. After the southerly buster came through and died down we packed our equipment back into the shed and went back to our normal lives. Not so lucky were some of our friends in the active fire zone.

As well as living in the country I do a lot of outdoor work with heavy equipment on farms and other rural property ranging from road construction, clearing for asset protection zones, excavation and demolition. Many people and their properties are completely unprepared for fire and they will catch fire and burn easily.
For all the clever dicks saying there should be more hazard reduction burning you need to think a bit smarter than such a blanket statement. The fire season has now become so long, the days when the a decent hazard reduction can take place are very limited. Even during a bushfire at night, back burning to deny a fire fuel, can become impossible with a heavy dew or a small shower. A change in wind direction and strength can turn a gently creeping hazard reduction burn into a raging uncontrollable inferno. Houses and lives have been lost due to a hazard reduction reduction burn going rogue.

And then there's the ecological science of hazard reduction. Every bit of bush is unique. Some areas require burns of a certain magnitude and frequency for the ecosystems to survive. Some areas will lose species with inappropriate hazard reduction burns, to be replaced by fire loving species which make the forest more flammable than before. There are always consequences for actions taken and if you don't know what you're doing you can easily make a bad situation worse. The last thing we need is politicians making knee jerk decisions on these matters. People who have a good understanding of forest and fire ecology need to make these decisions based on good, well funded research so that hazard reduction works as it's meant to.

But even if the hazard reduction means the fire doesn't even come into sight, embers travelling 5km or more ahead of the fire can drop in and around your house, falling on or under wooden decks, into gutters full of dry leaves, into garden mulch around your house, blown under your house if it's above ground, into oily rags in your carport etc. setting it alight in minutes. Most houses are lost due to such ember attacks either before the fire arrives or after it passes. That's why if you're prepared it's good to be around your property during a fire.

And why are we facing such catastrophic fires? The climate is changing, and changing fast due to the changes humankind has made on the earth. Record temperatures lead to record evaporation rates drying out the country to give us unprecedented droughts. These tinder dry conditions make everything flammable and the fires are unstoppable. Wind patterns are also changing increasing fire intensity. Sea temperatures are rising wiping out kelp forests off the coast of Tasmania. Climate change is real people and on the TV every night. We need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels which are increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Over 95% of credible scientists who have contributed to research on climate science warned us of what we are experiencing years ago. Some said they were exaggerating the risk, but it looks like they have been too conservative.

Be prepared for the next natural disaster when we have record rainfalls in the burnt water catchments filling the dams with ash and eroded soil, silting up rivers and ecosystems and turning river mouths, bays and estuaries to muddy swamps of toxic algae which will then wash up and down the coast making surfing, kiting, windsurfing impossible. If you don't like this version of the future get off your arses and do something to create a better one. Stopping coal mining and burning is a good place to start and look at treading more lightly on the planet in your own lives. Take some responsibility, don't look for someone else or some thing to blame.

drsurf said..

For all the clever dicks saying there should be more hazard reduction burning you need to think a bit smarter than such a blanket statement.

holy guacamole said..
True but you're missing the real point IanK.

Prescribed burning can only tinker at the edges of the bushfire issue.

The real issue is the vastness of land, human habitation patterns, the need to maintain some National Parks and a warmer drier climate.

You need to drop this myth that prescribed burning is going to make a big difference.

If we did as much prescribed burning as some armchair know-it-alls would like we'd be living in perpetual smoke haze.

holy guacamole said..

If we did as much prescribed burning as some armchair know-it-alls would like we'd be living in perpetual smoke haze.

holy guacamole said..
^^ Still missing the point. Prescribed burning will only ever deal with the issue at the margins.
The indigenous people didn't burn mountainous wooded terrain,

Ian K said..

The first human caretakers of the land had been burning it for 50,000 years.

Ian K said..





You need to do a bit of research.

www.ffm.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/21059/Report-51-Effectiveness-of-Broadscale-Fuel-Reduction-Burning-in-Assisting-With-Wildfire-Control-in-Parks-.pdf

Ian K said..


You need to do a bit of research.

www.ffm.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/21059/Report-51-Effectiveness-of-Broadscale-Fuel-Reduction-Burning-in-Assisting-With-Wildfire-Control-in-Parks-.pdf

How much more prescribed burning are you proposing we do. Double? Triple? Ten times? Twenty?

TheTruth said..
Fire season is hotter and longer. Volunteers wearing yellow vests running around the bush, banging into each other, isn't going to put these fires out. We need to move away from the Dad's army model of fire prevention and put it in the hands of professionals. The only thing we have managed to do well is minimize the loss of human life.

What we need bigger water bombers and more of them.

project Aquarius.
publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=legacy:2927&dsid=DS1

Chris 249 said..
Only a complete ****wit would be insulting the people who are actually doing something.

TheTruth said..
Can you find any research that's more recent than 34yo- ROFL

The graphics on that PDF looks like it was published around the time Skippy was on TV

Chris 249 said..
Don't be a liar as well as a ****wit. I have been discussing the issue, complete with references to reality, in a bunch of previous posts. You, on the other hand, are a self-obsessed megolamaniac arsewipe who is so arrogant that you sling **** at people risking their lives while you cower behind a keyboard. Vile, disgusting and cowardly.

You have utterly failed to consider issues such as visibility over the fire, airspace restrictions, retardant and runway availability, control issues and others. You have shown no evidence of having done any research or having any experience but you are so self-obsessed that you nevertheless know more than those who have spent years in the field. Revolting.

TheTruth said..
Fire season is hotter and longer. Volunteers wearing yellow vests running around the bush, banging into each other, isn't going to put these fires out. We need to move away from the Dad's army model of fire prevention and put it in the hands of professionals. The only thing we have managed to do well is minimize the loss of human life.

What we need bigger water bombers and more of them.

Macroscien said..




Fascinating lecture, Whole encyclopedia of bushife , worth to read and memorize !

kato said..








????? Wind, Slope, FDI etc table like that has zero relevance

4 years ago experts suggested to the government to buy a fleet of 747's to fight fires.

TheTruth said..










Settle down and watch your ticker Boomer - hahahahah

TheTruth is that these fires are caused by humans - specifically too many of us. And we have to be smarter at fighting them. The volunteers, running around the bush in their yellow jump suits, banging into each other, cursing the PM, may be well meaning. But they are out of their depth. They have saved human lives but have largely failed in controlling the fires we are seeing in recent times.

4 years ago experts suggested to the federal government to buy a fleet of 747's to fight fires. They said it was a state issue.

Here ya go boomer - some links (lol)

www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-rejected-major-air-tanker-expansion-20200103-p53onl.html

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-15/are-bigger-water-bombers-the-answer-to-bushfire-woes/11705502