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25 dead in wildfires

My sincerest sympathies to all in Victoria.

I certainly hope if arson was involved, the guilty get what they deserve = severe punishment for premeditated murder.

Distressing also is an article I read indicating a well respected area expert informed the local government in January that the fire danger was crucial and suggested controlled burns. This was seemingly ignored by those responsible in government.

They too should be at least charged with reckless endangerment and removed from their positions....permanently!

Sad to see it seems that politicians all over the world are the same: do nothing corrupt, worthless loathes.
 
EasyEd said:
Hey All,

Really really terrible stuff going on there...

Dave part of the reason so many are dead is that they either don't evacuate soon enough or aren't prepared to fight hard enough at the end. These fires are incredible in the speed at which they move - people don't realize this as they stay to fight then realize they probably can't win - panic - and try to run in a car. Fire beats car cause smoke won't let you see and a car is one of the worst places to be in a fire as it is small and heats fast. Most people really have no true understanding of the true ferocity of a wildfire - that said more would survive if their homes were better prepared (water the heck out of your house if you got water otherwise why are you there if you haven't cleared the fuels around your home?), they stayed inside and put out any embers that find their way into the house. Instead too many try to run when it's too late. We've seen exactly the same thing in some fires on the prairies of the midwest a few years ago.

I hope they get those guys starting fires - especially at a time like this.

-Ed-
Click to expand...

Ed I'd disagree with some of what you said in regards to evacuating sooner. Officail policy in Victoria is in a nutshell:

  • Prepare a fire plan
  • Prepare your house/property
  • Decide early (i.e. when you see smoke) to either stay and defend or evacuate
You can view that at www.cfv.vic.gov.au
You are right though in people getting away too late but apparently these fires were on top of people in as little as 30sec nothing on land could outrun them.

One huge problem down here is the lack of water, we've 12 years of very much below average rainfall, water storage's across the state are very low. But when we had good rains in November/December the bush grew like all hell & thus dried out to such an extent that it is a ticking bomb waiting to go off as it did. That's the natural cycle of the bush.

I understand that the big bushfires you had in the Mid-West USA and California were terrible. Am i right in saying that California have a lot of (imported) eucalyptus trees?

Anyway we aint out of the woods yet, fires are still going & communities are still under threat.......

RIP to all who have passed away.
 
This is heart-breaking stuff, and I've made my Red Cross donation...
Lots of anger coming out now, I simply cannot believe anyone would be purposely setting fires in these conditions, doesn't make any sense.

One other thing I couldn't understand: some of the aerial pics show an entire neighbourhood of burnt-out houses, but there is still a tree canopy visible.
What are they, and why do they survive??
 
Hey All,

Guru I don't think we disagree on anything.

As I understand it your right some of these fires were so fast there was little time to react. It comes down to how prepared are you - when it turns dry - get ready to either get out or get into it with mother nature.

The speed of these fires and the ability they have to spot ahead is what is so incredible to me. The shaggy bark ignited then in the fire column and flying ahead means an incredibly fast moving fire. In the US it's generally wind although California has many very flammable fuels but these are sometimes in combination with bad planning that gets people in trouble.

I think our time is coming in the US. We've seen only a taste of the megafires - starting with Yellowstone in 88 and then several big fire years and then California this past year. These are wakeup calls and while wildfire experts "get it" the general public still doesn't - they seem to think humans are in control. Yellowstone in 88 is a phenominal example - if only the public could truly understand what happened there. The US had had a history of 75 odd years of dominating fire and then in Yellowstone fire showed who really had the upper hand. At no time in the history of fire fighting in the US had any fire had the resources thrown at it that the Yellowstone fires did. There were enough aircraft of so many varieties that ATC was needed. The US went so far as to have Apache attack helicopters trying to bucket water - Apaches are bad firefighters! A General was in charge of the military fire fighters - a General - how many men is that? It was an election year - the Presidential candidates were in and out - the whole country watched America's first national park burn - and there was absolutely no power that America could throw at those fires that could stop them. One congressman wanted an emergency pipeline built from the Pacific ocean to supply enough water to fight those fires. Absolutely true.

The park is fine - probably for the most part far healthier (ecologically speaking) now than it was before those fires - I was there this fall looking at the legacy of those fires. To hear the men who tried to fight those fires say that until then they had never seen fires like those was an eyeopener. And then to see what was thrown at trying to fight them. In the end weather started the fires and weather made them controllable - the resources of the United States of America were pitiful in their efforts to stop them. Probaly not since the 1910 fires in the northern rockies or the Tillamook or perhaps peshtigo had fires like that been seen.

The point being that we as humans really don't learn from our own history or from the experiences of others - like what is happening in Australia. Perhaps California will help. It's still put it out - a burned tree is a waste of a resource that coulda been cash - I don't want to smell smoke - and it won't happen to me. Frustrating as in real life I am a wildland fire management specialist.

-Ed-
 
Wing_Z said:
One other thing I couldn't understand: some of the aerial pics show an entire neighbourhood of burnt-out houses, but there is still a tree canopy visible.
What are they, and why do they survive??
Click to expand...

could have been a low burning fire? in africa all the main trees and such survive wild fires whilst all the shrub gets destroy, not sure if its the same case here?? or it could be the same type of thing that if you drop a bomb on a house all is destroyed except the china plates, which i have never understood!
 
"One other thing I couldn't understand: some of the aerial pics show an entire neighbourhood of burnt-out houses, but there is still a tree canopy visible.
What are they, and why do they survive??"

Two things have contributed to this seemingly unusual scenario.
Radiant heat is one but the primary cause has been ember strikes, plus the fact that the worst hit areas are more or less 'outer suburbs'.

Kinglake was a 'Treechange' town, many of the residents were retired while a large number were younger people who had opted out of the Urban sprawl.
What you then end up with are semi-urban streets tucked in the bush, so it would appear that as one home lit up the next in line followed and so on down entire streets .......... :kilroy:

Most (but not all) of the immediate casualties were found in vehicles, in this case it seems as if radiant heat has been the primary cause.
Given the average MV has a 'glass area' making up between 30% to 50% of the total surface area, anyone sheltering inside has little protection, as radiant heat will pass through glass.
Compounding the danger, dense smoke, extreme heat, quite narrow sreets and the 'stress factor' resulted in a large number of MVA incidents as residents attempted to escape.

As for 'wetting down' buildings, as Guruswarmyoz has mentioned, water is very scarce and the firefront generated radiant heat temperatures can be up to 1000C, not much can stand in the way of heat of that magnitude!

The death toll is looking very grim, with teams only beginning to search through areas that have just become open, Marysville being one such example.
Out of 500 residents the number of deceased is esitmated at 20% ........!
The forensic crews are really up against it identifying remains, as any structures must be checked before they can enter and search.
It has been esimated by the Victorian State Coroner that it will be 12 months or more before they can identify victims, an some they will not be able to identify.

Aside from the Human toll, it is estimated that 1,000,000+ native animals have been killed, I haven't heard any livestock numbers but expect they will be just as horrific.

As for 'Arsonists', it is probable that a few fires were set by these dearanged people, but most have been the result of lightning strikes and other natural causes.......and we currently have some 30+/- fires burning.

Not good at all.
 
One of the problems with trees in Australia is their oil content. The main type of tree here is of the Eucalypt variety. The USA has a variety of the Eucalypt but you also have the Cypress Pine trees. These are are also very high in oil content.

On a hot dry day with the proper conditions and wind a fire can very quickly get into the tree tops hence we have what is a crown fire. And with the radiant heat the leaves are dried out and explode in the fire.

The fire on the forest floor consumes the ground litter which means you virtually have 2 fires at once. Once a fire reaches a slope like a hill or mountainside the speed of the fire will increase with the slope. A fire travelling at say 10 kilometers per hour on flat ground will speed up to 20 kph on a 10 degree slope. But if that slope was increased to 20 degrees the speed would icrease four fold.

I was not aware of that kind of speed increase until I did my Advanced Firefighter Course and Crew Leader Course. Even though I am in Communications this knowledge is valuable in an emergency.

Sorry if I have rambled on here.

Cheers
Pat
 
Pat,
Add the large number of Pine Plantations around the Kinglake-Marysville area etc and 47C ambient plus the 50+K Northerlys and it was just a matter of time.
:kilroy:
 
Noel, wasn't aware there were plantations in that area. We have them up here as well.

Cheers
Pat
 
Found this tribute on the ORBX forums. It was made by Ryan "Aussiecop" Mason who is one of our better exports to the US. As his nic says he is a policeman in Indiana.

http://www.vimeo.com/3174442

I will never be able to listen to this tune without thinking of the heroes and victims.

Cheers
Pat
 
I have a mate from way back living in south east suburban Melbourne out Dandenong way. He said on the Saturday it was 47 deg with a big hot wind blowing. Around the neighbourhood there are quite a few gum trees....the hot wind was igniting the tops of the trees.
 
A 39 year old man has been charged for lighting the Churchill fire on Saturday.

Charged with arson causing death, recklessly starting a bushfire and being in possession of child pornography. And his stupid lawyer is trying the mental health issues defence. Hope the court sees right through this and puts him away for life.

Cheers
Pat
 
'Sam' the Koala is doing well and recovering from her burns.
She drank three bottles of water when this was taken!!!
Fires still threatening several areas and the offical toll is into the 190+ region.
 
AussieMan said:
...Charged with arson causing death, recklessly starting a bushfire and being in possession of child pornography. And his stupid lawyer is trying the mental health issues defence. Hope the court sees right through this and puts him away for life.
Cheers
Pat
Click to expand...
Lock him up forever so he can't hurt children or burn people. :mad:
 
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