Bush Fires

[bastonjock]

Hi Guys
I know that this is not sailing related but i just wanted to say that i hope that none of you are caught up in that inferno in the south of Austraila,my prayers go out to those poor unfortunates.

[Oskar 26M]

The bushfire situation in the south-east of Australia is a major disaster, the worst in our history. In Victoria there are 130 known dead and the authorities believe there are more to be found. Fires have burnt a colossal area and still no weather relief is in sight.

I'm safe-ish on the west coast so far. Although we too have had some bad fires, including one in Kings Park in the heart of Perth, so far they have been brought under control.

One of the main concerns where I live on the fringe of Perth is that some of our local councils have cow-towed to city-bound greenies and have made traditional 'control burning' to reduce fuel loads on the ground impossibly difficult or banned it altogether. As a result, fuel loads in places like mine are the worst I have ever seen. We all feel vulnerable to a thunderstorm or (as in Victoria) some nutter with a match!

[Clemo]

Thanks for your thoughts Bostonjack. I'm not directly affected either, but its a strange place, Australia. With 47degrees C in the southern states and the fires you have heard about, on the same weekend we also have serious flooding in our northern regions.

Are you having uncommon cold weather?

Tks again,
C ya

Clemo.

[bastonjock]

we are getting the worst winter weather for 22 years,the reason that i know its 22 years is that my first born ,my son was due 22 years ago,the village was snowed in,we could not get out for 4 days,i went around the village and found two midwifes,i had them on standby just in case.

we have had a few fatalities due to the weather,its effecting my business to,either that or the credit crunch,i repair car body work and i would have expected an increase in my work load due to accidents but no one is bothering except with the insurance work and i dont get that.

what we are going through here is nothing in comparison with the fires in Victoria an to make things even more crazy i believe that its floods in Queensland,hope my aunt is ok,one of my sailing aquaintences over here is an Austrailian,hes an expert in fires and works for an insurance company.

Theres just been some poor distraught bloke on the news,he placed his kids in the car as a safety measure and then wentto try to save his house,he came back to find that the car had burned and his kids were dead.
I would imagine that some of the arsonists are seeing this as an oportunity to burn their own homes and duck out of debt caused by the current economic situation

do you still have hanging in Austrailia?

[Mistral]

I wish we still had hanging here.

It was quite scary on Saturday night seeing the fires only few kilometers away from where we were. It is not until Sunday morning we heard that complete towns had been razed. From nearly all the people we know, all do know somebody that has been affected by this firestorm in one way or other. 6 days later it is burning in large areas and the weather is warming up again with the associated winds.
It sure is a country of contrasts with the floods up north.

[Boblee]

Bastonjock
One of the arsonists who was caught filed his insurance claim just after the fire started, hanging would be too good for these blokes.
We were near the fires at the Gippsland lakes, it was freezing (6-20 deg) and never saw the sun for five days and then bang 47 deg with a superheated Northerly wind, luckily people near the lakes only got covered in ash but only 40-50 k away had fires.
I think there were over 30 fires at one stage, it is not just the heat, we have problems with green beaurocrats who have short memories and large areas being locked up with a huge buildup of litter and ground fuel, people wanting/forced to live right amongst tree's certainly contributes to human losses but with the fuel and right conditions it is a recipe for disaster and virtually unstoppable.
These fires are a regular occurance but many people have adopted the attitude that the Gov will look after them with all the shiny toys, the firefighters who are mostly volunteers have done an amazing job to handle the conditions they experienced.
Lets hope the lessons that have been learned time and time again are heeded this time in 1851 we had hotter temperatures and far far more land burned with a lot less casualties and even though aborigines weren't recorded I would be surprised if they were caught out as they were used to working with fires.