"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
We had some heavy rainfall in Sydney a few days ago and I thought things were finally fixed; woke up today to more smoke haze...so no, it's not under control yet.
It's affecting the whole east coast and has worked its way down the coast over many months with disaster in its path. Now it's affecting south of Sydney mostly near the NSW/Victorian border and the high country where the plane crashed.
There was a nasty fire advancing on Moruya yesterday and some houses were lost, but that may be a sting in the tail I think - it has nowhere to go from there.
I'm in Sydney's Blue Mountains and have been through similar 20 years ago. I have my own opinions about all this from experience and studying local history, and I think it's a lot of local factors have to be addressed by local people, with no big brush 'solutions' so I don't take any sides.
Overall I notice the recent collapse in what they call the Indian Ocean Dipole and the onset of the delayed northern wet season coincides with a return to damp conditions around here, we're all relieved and feel the crisis has passed for us, as it always has before. It's early days, but once an area has burned it is safe(r) for years after, as I've seen (right up to my back fence in 2002). It all grows back too, new shoots are sprouting already on things like Xanthorrhea which need fire to germinate.
If you want a more realistic depiction of current fires see this site: https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/map.html
Odd dots aren't a worry as they are usually in already burnt areas and have nowhere to go. Lines of dots are a concern, but they may show the firefighting with backburning rather than a dangerous fire. Even as it looks bad around Moruya today, that may be a controlled backburning operation taking advantage of cooler weather - so that may be the smoke you're getting in Sydney. The firefighting makes a lot of smoke too. Fight fire with fire.
Thanks for that link, Bruce. According to the map there's been a number of fires around Perth - the Dianella fire is closer than I'd like, but still at a safe distance. Looking at the sites of the fires I'm inclined to blame bored schoolkids with matches.
19 new fires were started recently by some firegrub in one area. Apart from lightning, fuel loads, volunteer-only firefighting, there will be quite a way to go to defeat this thing.
That said, various towns are open for business again and asking people to come and spend their holidays. So some progress.
In all, under 2% apparently of Oz land is under fire. Millions of animals injured though which is terrible to see.
Respect and condolences for the brave US firefighters who died so sadly helping Australia.
7 comments:
We honour them. These guys were making 8 firefighting flights per day for a month. They are fallen heroes to us.
Is this monstrous conflagration (or collection of conflagrations) anywhere near being brought under control?
We had some heavy rainfall in Sydney a few days ago and I thought things were finally fixed; woke up today to more smoke haze...so no, it's not under control yet.
It's affecting the whole east coast and has worked its way down the coast over many months with disaster in its path. Now it's affecting south of Sydney mostly near the NSW/Victorian border and the high country where the plane crashed.
There was a nasty fire advancing on Moruya yesterday and some houses were lost, but that may be a sting in the tail I think - it has nowhere to go from there.
I'm in Sydney's Blue Mountains and have been through similar 20 years ago. I have my own opinions about all this from experience and studying local history, and I think it's a lot of local factors have to be addressed by local people, with no big brush 'solutions' so I don't take any sides.
Overall I notice the recent collapse in what they call the Indian Ocean Dipole and the onset of the delayed northern wet season coincides with a return to damp conditions around here, we're all relieved and feel the crisis has passed for us, as it always has before. It's early days, but once an area has burned it is safe(r) for years after, as I've seen (right up to my back fence in 2002). It all grows back too, new shoots are sprouting already on things like Xanthorrhea which need fire to germinate.
If you want a more realistic depiction of current fires see this site:
https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/map.html
Odd dots aren't a worry as they are usually in already burnt areas and have nowhere to go. Lines of dots are a concern, but they may show the firefighting with backburning rather than a dangerous fire. Even as it looks bad around Moruya today, that may be a controlled backburning operation taking advantage of cooler weather - so that may be the smoke you're getting in Sydney. The firefighting makes a lot of smoke too. Fight fire with fire.
Thanks for that link, Bruce. According to the map there's been a number of fires around Perth - the Dianella fire is closer than I'd like, but still at a safe distance.
Looking at the sites of the fires I'm inclined to blame bored schoolkids with matches.
Paco,
/
you asked about conflagration decreasing.
19 new fires were started recently by some firegrub in one area.
Apart from lightning, fuel loads, volunteer-only firefighting, there will be quite a way to go to defeat this thing.
That said, various towns are open for business again and asking people to come and spend their holidays.
So some progress.
In all, under 2% apparently of Oz land is under fire. Millions of animals injured though which is terrible to see.
Respect and condolences for the brave US firefighters who died so sadly helping Australia.
Yes, very sad that courageous U.S. fire-fighters died helping Australia defeat these bushfires.
Respect and condolences.
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