We've been discussing this in the Superthread but I think it deserves a thread of its own here. Yesterday was the hottest day in Victoria since records began 150 years ago. It struck 46.4 in central Melbourne; 46.9 at Essendon Airport near me; 47.9 to Melbourne's west at Avalon Airport (for those of you still using Fahrenheit, we're talking around 116-118). As if the extreme heat wasn't enough, the relative humidity was a paltry 6% and we were experiencing wind gusts of above 80km/h. My house stayed surprisingly cool throughout it, I barely even needed a fan on, but I walked out the door at the height of it and it was like stepping into a blast furnace.
So ... inevitably, there were fires. The place is dry enough as it is. Melbourne recorded a single millimetre of rain for the entirety of January. Victoria was like a tinderbox. And it fucking went up.
At the moment, 65 people are dead. That's probably going to climb. To put things in context, the highest death toll from an Australian bushfire was Ash Wednesday, 1983, with 75 dead, 47 of them in Victoria. The highest death toll in Victoria from a bushfire was Black Friday in 1939, when 71 died. This ... could be worse.
Kinglake is gone. Marysville is gone. Narbethong is gone. All of them are to the north of Melbourne. They were just completely razed by an inferno with flames over forty metres high. Fires burned across the state - east of Melbourne through Gippsland, to the west around Bendigo and Horsham, elsewhere too. The Hume and Princes Highways were closed in multiple places; the Gippsland, Seymour, Warrnambool, and Belgrave railways were cut, as was the main line to Sydney ... only the Gippsland and Belgrave lines have reopened yet.
It's just indescribable. I don't even know what to say, really. I'm rattled by it all, even though I'm safe in Melbourne's inner suburbs.
There are still some fires burning out of control too, but the worst of the heatwave is over. It was only about 20 today. It was actually raining in Marysville.
Links to coverage:
The Age - Business, World & Breaking News | Melbourne, Australia
Bushfire Emergency - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
So ... inevitably, there were fires. The place is dry enough as it is. Melbourne recorded a single millimetre of rain for the entirety of January. Victoria was like a tinderbox. And it fucking went up.
At the moment, 65 people are dead. That's probably going to climb. To put things in context, the highest death toll from an Australian bushfire was Ash Wednesday, 1983, with 75 dead, 47 of them in Victoria. The highest death toll in Victoria from a bushfire was Black Friday in 1939, when 71 died. This ... could be worse.
Kinglake is gone. Marysville is gone. Narbethong is gone. All of them are to the north of Melbourne. They were just completely razed by an inferno with flames over forty metres high. Fires burned across the state - east of Melbourne through Gippsland, to the west around Bendigo and Horsham, elsewhere too. The Hume and Princes Highways were closed in multiple places; the Gippsland, Seymour, Warrnambool, and Belgrave railways were cut, as was the main line to Sydney ... only the Gippsland and Belgrave lines have reopened yet.
It's just indescribable. I don't even know what to say, really. I'm rattled by it all, even though I'm safe in Melbourne's inner suburbs.
There are still some fires burning out of control too, but the worst of the heatwave is over. It was only about 20 today. It was actually raining in Marysville.
Links to coverage:
The Age - Business, World & Breaking News | Melbourne, Australia
Bushfire Emergency - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)