Thread: Australia bushfires leave three dead, at least 150 homes lost

Urm,

I must say that when I was on the tools it went like this.

Every summer was fookin red hot and the 40 degree days over short periods were the norm. The fires would kick off at anytime and some years were worse than others.

This year is full fuktard but you can put that down to bad luck and climate change ain't got fook all to do with it.

In Boganland the difference between extremely high temps ain't much, it's still fookin hot.

Hence I fook orf out of the stupid place come December, January and Febuary.

It's fuked.

Well the Sky Gods aren't happy.

Yer, blame it all on climate change and Sco-Mo because the coont fooked off on a Holiday.

Fookin emotional wankers.

Originally Posted by TheRealKW

Australia has hot summers, Australia has bushfires every season.

The big change in the last decade is that removal of dry fuel no longer happens. Of course, you will end up catastrophic days if you have a decade or more dry fuel build up. That does not mean climate change is at cause.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

https://www.northerndailyleader.com....rks-hits-back/

Wytaliba had been back burning before fatal fire

I have been a member of the Wytaliba community near Glen Innes for 40 years.

We lost two of our community members in last Friday's bushfires, and the father of my great grandson is in Royal North Shore Hospital being treated for severe burns while trying to save his house and his deceased neighbour.

Nearly 50 per cent of our able adults are members of the Wytaliba RFS, a figure envied by many other brigades. Over those 40 years on our 3500-acre property, we have had more than a dozen out-of-control bushfires that were successfully controlled, the majority in recent years.

Over the last three years, in co-operation with NSW Forestry, National Parks and the RFS, we have had very extensive controlled burning in the state forest and national park on our perimeter.
On September 14, after an outbreak of fires across the Northern Tablelands, high winds caused embers to spot more than 10 kilometres onto the the centre of Wytaliba.

After an initial emergency the fire weather abated, but over the next week the fire spread across much of the property.

In a large operation more than 20 RFS trucks, more than 100 fire fighters, bulldozers and waterbombers were successfully deployed to help defend our homes. All were saved. Much of Wytaliba was blacked out.

Carol (Glen Innes mayor with 20 year RFS service medal) and I have a large cleared area around our double brick house.

That September fire burned to our perimeter. This was just two months ago.

Everything that should be done, was done and lots more.

The fire that came last Friday was of another order of magnitude altogether. A crown fire roaring in from the west on a hot afternoon with an 80km per hour wind, it wasn't on the ground, it was a firestorm in the air, raining fire.

There was no fuel on the ground, it was already burned.

The heat ahead of the fire front ignited nearly everything in its path.

Before he saw any flame my neighbor's car exploded. They just escaped with their lives...see live footage on Monday's ABC 7.30.

Our house was severely damaged but not destroyed. We weren't home. Others were not so lucky.

Wytaliba has lost two lives and more than half our homes, our school, our bridge our wildlife and 40 years of work to build a community. What was our paradise is now ash.

Thanks to the heroics of Wytaliba RFS and residents, and the Reddestone RFS who incredibly crossed the burning bridge to help us, some was saved.

"Today's not the day to talk about climate change".....No, yesterday was the day, or the day before, or the month before, or the year before,....but it didn't get a mention.

Now we have the reality and the mention it gets is, "don't talk about it now".

So, the politicians (and the media) turn the talk to hazard reduction burns, or the lack of them, as something else to blame on the inner-city raving lunatics.

We had a bushfire two months ago that burned most of our property. It didn't matter. It burned again.

This is climate changed. We're in the worst drought recorded. A million hectares of bush has burned. Barnaby says it's Green voters and the sun's magnetic field.

Originally Posted by terry57

Yer, blame it all on climate change and Sco-Mo because the coont fooked off on a Holiday.

Fookin emotional wankers.

Yep Not climate change. Well not burning carbon type climate change. I think it was called Black Thursday or something. 12 people died in bush fires in 1851.

Maybe 6 years ago in Perth the authorities conducted a controlled burn off. The fuker got out of hand and burned a town down. No loss of life bit the town was fooked.

Out of control burn offs has happened many times.

Australia is a tinder box and fire spreads so quickly that in a lot of cases 10 million fire trucks won't stop it. Add on top of that lot that these fires start in forrests where little water is available and we have the perfect storm such as now.

Climate change means fook all to fires in Australia.

That's unless you are a fookin Greenie, Vegan or some other fookin fool.

True story bitches eh.

On top off that every year we have have had volunteer fire fighters lighting shit up so they can get their kicks.

The vast majority of volunteers are brilliant and Australia would be fooked without them but there have been a few nutters amounst them.

Only last week they caught a feral fuker burning shit down.

Originally Posted by terry57

On top off that every year we have have had volunteer fire fighters lighting shit up so they can get their kicks.

Maybe that is a sign for you to be the good coont and go back and help out. Since you are supposedly an experienced fire fighter it should be your duty I would think. Right?

Na,

I've done 34 years front line service Snubby resting bitch face wank stain and now my job is to be a cashed up fuko having an awesome life.

Yourself may want to help out on the Septic fire front line but i highly doubt a faggot like you could cut the mustard.

Just sayin the bleedin obvious eh.

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

Yep Not climate change. Well not burning carbon type climate change. I think it was called Black Thursday or something. 12 people died in bush fires in 1851.

Record temperatures nationwide baking everything to tinder?

Nah, nothing to do with climate change.

Originally Posted by terry57

I've done 34 years front line service Snubby resting bitch face wank stain and now my job is to be a cashed up fuko having an awesome life.

Right. So toot your horn and leave those in need because you are a petty greedy shitbag. Viva la drumpf.

Originally Posted by terry57

Yourself may want to help out on the Septic fire front line but i highly doubt a faggot like you could cut the mustard.

I have been on the Cascade fire line since I was a kid you worthless coont. I have seen more than one die on the fire line. The Craven family are still close to me and they are original pioneers of the area. Several young kids died. Maybe if you were not so obsessed with being cashed up you could prevent young volunteers from dying.

Thirtymile Fire deaths not forgotten


Memorial services this weekend will be a chance to remember four young wildland firefighters who died 10 years ago at the Thirtymile Fire in the North Cascades.
Two public commemoration services are planned for Sunday, one in Winthrop and the other in Roslyn.

One of the dead was Tom Craven, 30, a native of Roslyn living with his wife and two children in Ellensburg at the time of the fire. He was working for the Naches Ranger District on the blaze.

Craven was a Cle Elum-Roslyn High School and Central Washington University graduate.

The other victims were from Yakima: Jessica Johnson, 19, a student at CWU, Karen Fitzpatrick, 18, and Devin Weaver, 21.

The two Sunday ceremonies are set on the anniversary day of the wildfire that trapped the firefighters in a narrow canyon of the Chewuch River Valley north of Winthrop.

Living with it

The first service is 10 a.m. Sunday at the Red Barn, 51 North State Highway 20 at Winthrop, and will include officials from the U.S. Forest Service and the Okanagon-Wenatchee National Forest.

A remembrance service is set for 8 p.m. later that day at the Mt. Olivet-Roslyn Cemetery in Roslyn. Those planning to attend are asked to gather at the memorial for Tom Craven and the others who died.

"We don't want anyone to forget their lives," said Tom Craven's mother, Virginia Craven, earlier this week. "When you lose someone you love, you never forget it, you learn to live with it."

Virginia Craven, 62, of Roslyn said the Roslyn Cemetery service is not only in remembrance of those who died in the Thirtymile Fire but for all firefighters who have died in the line of duty across the nation.

"Whenever I meet a firefighter I tell them to, please, be safe," she said.

She and her husband, Will Craven, 72, developed the memorial to their late son and the three other firefighters with much help from others. They maintain it and a connecting walkway.

Looking back

Tears welled up in Virginia Craven's eyes as she said every once in a while she takes out photos of Tom and looks back at his life.
"It upsets me, but it's a way to remember all the good things that have happened," she said.

Tom Craven also is survived by his widow, Evelyn, and a son and daughter, TShaun and Tomisha, now 14 and 17 years old, respectively.

At the Roslyn gathering, longtime state Department of Natural Resources wildfire suppression manager Gary Berndt of Cle Elum will speak.

In addition, Mike Starkovich will give the "Wildland Firefighter Prayer," Jeanne Coady will sing "Wind Beneath Our Wings" and "Angel," Cheryl Ficele will read "Given the Choice" by Captain Espy, and time of sharing is planned.

Berndt, 63, retired from 39 years with the DNR on May 30. He has served as an incident commander on many wildfires.

"It is an often spoken axiom in our business that fire gives the test and then it gives the lesson," said Berndt in a prepared statement. "When lives are cut short, families are changed forever, and brothers, sisters, fathers or mothers, sons and daughters are lost, the lesson must be somehow figured out and passed to next generations and made a part of our culture."

Berndt said he managed a wildfire in the Chewuch River drainage in 2002 near the 2001 Thirtymile Fire site.

At that time, the Winthrop Ranger Station had T-shirts with a simple phrase printed on them that Berndt said still says it all: We Will Never Forget.

https://www.dailyrecordnews.com/news...cc4c002e0.html

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

This is exactly whats gets lost in the era of Drumpf. Dumbfucks are conditioned to think that they no longer have a civic obligation to the nation and world. They are obsessed with themselves and being "cashed up".

Fucking pathetic.

Twerry has forgeten almost every reason he became a firefighter in the first place and is blinded by prejudices, racism and petty hatreds.

Why are you two in the usual TD pissing contest when neither of you have any intention of getting involved, just shut the fuk up and lets feel for those involved in the catastrophe ffs.

Originally Posted by bsnub

This is exactly whats gets lost in the era of Drumpf. Dumbfucks are conditioned to think that they no longer have a civic obligation to the nation and world. They are obsessed with themselves and being "cashed up".

Fucking pathetic.

Twerry has forgeten almost every reason he became a firefighter in the first place and is blinded by prejudices, racism and petty hatreds.

Get on a plane and offer your services.

Originally Posted by NamPikToot

Get on a plane and offer your services.

Actually ...

Overseas firefighters arrive to assist in Victorian fires

A contingent of emergency management personnel from the US have arrived to assist in managing Victoria’s ongoing and significant fire threat.
Thirty-nine firefighters and two liaison officers from across the US, including from Phoenix, Georgia and Idaho, will join Victorian crews in eastern Victoria following their arrival in Melbourne on Thursday.

“We are extremely grateful for the expertise and support provided, and thank our North American colleagues for responding so quickly to the call for assistance, and to their families and employers for supporting this deployment.”

This contingent of 41 is the first of two groups from North America to arrive in Victoria this week, with 71 firefighters (61 from the US and 10 from Canada) set to arrive next week.


https://www.emergency.vic.gov.au/new...ictorian-fires

Australia fires: The public ire falling on Australia's 'absent' PM (video)

"I don't really want to shake your hand."

"You won't be getting any votes down here buddy... you're out."

"What about the people who are dead now, Mr Prime Minister? What about the people who have nowhere to live?"

As Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison toured a bushfire-ravaged town on Thursday, he was loudly heckled by locals. The anger towards him in Cobargo, New South Wales, was palpable. But most awkward - and attention-grabbing - were two quieter encounters.

In one, Mr Morrison approached a woman and asked "how are you?". When she failed to meet his hand, he reached down and lifted hers for a limp handshake.

She responded: "I'm only shaking your hand if you give more money to RFS [Rural Fire Service]. So many people have lost their homes."

"I understand," he replied. As he walked away, she added: "We need more help."

Read more
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50979169

It really is quiet stupid all the out pouring of angst against Sco-Mo. The fat religious fuk is simply a hand shaking politician the same as all before him.

So he fooked off on a little holiday at the get go . Big fookin deal, it did not matter one fook if he was in cuntry or out.

The shit house was burning down and fook all he could do about it. All power was shifted to his deputy who made calls whilst he was chonking it up his Hand bag.

It's quite understandable that he is now seen as the villain because punters want to take their pain out on the easiest target and he is it at the moment.

Just wait around for a few more days and it will be the Greenies or some other coont getting the short end of the stick.

Australia's bushfire crisis in pictures

The story hits closer to home



ABC photographer Matt Roberts is used to being behind the camera, but he couldn't have anticipated his family would soon be a part of the story.
While covering the aftermath of the fires in Quaama on New Year's Day, Roberts discovered the burnt remnants of his sister's home.

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Australia's wildlife fights to survive








A tiny kangaroo, scorched by the blaze that tore through Cudlee Creek. Credit: Brad Fleet/The Advertiser


Credit ... https://time.com/5753584/bushfires-a...ic-fire-alert/
(good embedded video)

Bushfires raging across Australia have burned more than 12 million acres—an area approximately the size of the U.S. states of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. The smoke from the blazes in the southwest of the country is visible from space, and it is spreading so far that it is causing haze in New Zealand more 1,000 miles away.


The fire season in Australia is far from over, and already it is shaping up to be one of the most intense in the country’s history.
“The intensity, the scale, the number, the geographical range, the fact that they’re occurring simultaneously, and the sorts of environments that are burning are all extraordinary,” David Bowman, a professor of pyrogeography and fire science and the director of the Fire Centre Research Hub at the University of Tasmania, tells TIME.


“We’re in the middle of a war situation…mass evacuations, the involvement of the military, hugely exhausted firefighting campaigns, it’s difficult to explain.”

https://time.com/5758186/australia-bushfire-size/



https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/jan/03/australia-nsw-fires-live-news-victoria-bushfires-rfs-tourist-leave-zone-south-coast-cfa-traffic-near-roads-closed-sydney-melbourne-latest-updates

Unobscured by smoke, aerial footage taken with a thermal aerial video at Mallacoota on 31 December, at around 11pm shows the extent of the bushfire front in the East Gippsland area.

The deadly fires have burnt through more than 766,000 hectares across Victoria.

There are 47 fires currently going statewide, mostly in East Gippsland

https://tinyurl.com/wxbjpe9

The fires continue to burn.

Currently, an area approximately the size of Holland has been turned to ash.

Dave, the toll on peoples lives is bad enough but i've read they think 500,000 animals could have been killed or critically injured...staggering numbers and very sad.

Ozzies 3rd largest Island ..Kangaroo Island is almost 1/2 gome.





Some kind souls

When Day turns to Night.

Live shot from a few minutes ago to try and demonstrate just how thick the smoke pall is.

The TV reporter has some lighting directed towards him so it's actually darker then appears in the photo.

He's at the Beach, in Australia at 9.40 am. The poor guy next to him has just learnt that his house has been 'lost'.



---

One firefighter reported that he stood on the step of his truck, raised his arm up into the eerie blackness and couldn't see his hand.

The situation is complicated by the fact that it's Christmas/New Year holiday period and tens of thousands flock to the beaches and waterways near the populated areas of Sydney and Melbourne ... or the coolness of the Alps.

Both regions which are on fire.

Until just recently there were 4,000 people who had to head to the beach to evade the massive fire approaching the township.

Four thousand!

Roads are blocked and they are trapped.

Currently the Navy is being used to slowly remove them from the beach area.


https://www.theguardian.com/australi...navy-called-in

The estimate is that the particular area will be fire locked for the next month.

One of the issues are that the forest near the roads/highways has, of course, burnt.

But long after the fire danger has passed there remains the danger of 1/2 burnt trees falling across the roads.

Heat records around Australia continue to tumble, with Canberra reaching 43.6 degrees and Penrith 48.9

Heat records around Australia have continued to tumble today, with the ACT reaching its highest-ever recorded temperature and Penrith topping 48.9 degrees Celsius.


Key points

• The ACT reached its highest-ever recorded temperature today, topping 43.6C at Canberra airport
• Penrith also toppled its record high, at 48.9C this afternoon
• Those in Greater NSW are also sweltering through immense heat

https://tinyurl.com/ubgtto3


For those who don't were 'Penrith' is ... western edge of Sydney.

So, we aren't talking the Aussie sandpit any more ... one of the most populated city in Australia, a mozzie dick shy of 50C

49 Celsius is 120 farenheit !

Penrith is a poorer suburb. I wonder how many old people with no air-con died from heatstroke ?