Victorian bushfires and heatwave thread

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
The death toll is now officially 108. It just keeps going up. This is ... beyond comprehension.

And to add to the death toll, there are also the victims of the heat wave. 33 deaths in Victoria and 75 in South Australia attributed to it thus far.
 
I can't believe what I'm hearing about these fires. We have them here in SoCal, but not on this scale and never ever with so many people dead.

I just can't believe it. :|

I'm so sorry for all those poor people who have lost so much.
 
A_Wanderer said:
The fires are a statistically inevitability, of course they may become more frequent with climate change, it may well have been a lot worse (in terms of lives lost, families and communities broken down, and property loss); I'd hate to imagine what it would be like with these conditions 20 years ago.


Fire is an intrinsic feature of the Australian bush | Germaine Greer - Times Online

Fire is an essential element in the life cycle of Australian forests. Season by season sclerophyll or “hard-leaved” woodlands build up huge amounts of detritus, shed leaves, bark and twiggery, which must burn if there is to be new growth. Many Australian species, including most of the eucalypts, need fire if they are to complete their reproductive cycle. Seeds encased in woody receptacles need their capsules to be split by fire before they can be released to germinate.

For 40 or maybe 60 millennia, Aboriginal peoples managed fire proactively, setting alight woodland, scrubland and grassland, so that they could pass freely, so that game was driven towards them, so that fresh green herbage was available. Aboriginal languages have dozens of words for fire. As the Endeavour sailed up the eastern coast, Captain Cook noted that the skies were darkened with smoke by day and lit up by fire at night.
The most disheartening aspect of the Kinglake disaster is that since its foundation in the 1880s the township has suffered regular bushfires, in 1926, in 1939, in the 1960s, in the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983; two years ago almost to the day 1,500 hectares were destroyed by fire, but nothing was learnt. The cause of these disasters is not global warming; still less is it arson. It is the failure to recognise that fire is an intrinsic feature of eucalypt bushland. It cannot be prevented but it can and should be managed. Unless there is a fundamental change of policy across all levels of government in Australia, there will be more and worse fires and more deaths.

(Bold added by me)
 
Turns out the smoke from the fires was enough to darken the sky thousands of kilometres across the Tasman in New Zealand.

they had to be fast moving fires to kill that many people.

To put the speed into context, the fires are so fucking fast that they have caught people trying to escape in their cars. The firefighters and emergency personnel are finding numerous people dead in the charred remains of their cars.

Is there any evidence for arson?

Yep, some cunts are even relighting fires that have been contained.
 
Logic and rationality are more more likely to produce a correct result than emotionalism and kneejerk reactions.
 
Turns out the smoke from the fires was enough to darken the sky thousands of kilometres across the Tasman in New Zealand.



To put the speed into context, the fires are so fucking fast that they have caught people trying to escape in their cars. The firefighters and emergency personnel are finding numerous people dead in the charred remains of their cars.



Yep, some cunts are even relighting fires that have been contained.

Yeah, also with all the thick smoke around, people were driving around, and with little or no vision of the road at all, some of them have died from crashing into trees ect......the heat from these fires would be enough to kill you even before the flames went through the car. This is fucked up.

Fires still going everywhere: Statewide Current Incident Summary - Country Fire Authority
You have photographic evidence for these claims?

Fuck off.

+1
 
I repeat: fuck off.

This thread is no place for you to try to prove some dumbarse FYM point. Take it elsewhere. Start your own goddamned thread and keep your tacky posturing out of this one while those of us who actually fucking live here try to come to terms with the enormity of what happened. People I know have lost friends and family. I could get to Kinglake in under an hour. Wineries I know well in the Yarra Valley have been destroyed. I don't give a shit about your "logic and rationality" bollocks.

As if I or any other ordinary members of the community are going to breach the roadblocks to take photos of arsonists anyway, and if the firefighters and police happen to have such imagery, that's obviously going to criminal investigations. They obviously have evidence and can identify arson when it happens. For god's sake, don't be dense.
 
Yeah, also with all the thick smoke around, people were driving around, and with little or no vision of the road at all, some of them have died from crashing into trees ect......the heat from these fires would be enough to kill you even before the flames went through the car. This is fucked up.

Fires still going everywhere: Statewide Current Incident Summary - Country Fire Authority

It's utterly unimaginable. The stories coming out of Kinglake and Marysville are terrifying. Those who stayed to fight the fire stood no chance in some cases ... stay and die in your home or perish escaping.

I'm just thankful the next few days are forecast to be a bit cooler than the last two weeks. Hopefully that will help the firefighters. We may even get a spot of rain.

And just an update on victims - besides the 108 dead, there are at least 20 in critical condition in hospital, 9 on life support or intensive care. Amongst the deceased is someone who may be known well to some Australians, former Channel 9 newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife.
 
It's utterly unimaginable. The stories coming out of Kinglake and Marysville are terrifying. Those who stayed to fight the fire stood no chance in some cases ... stay and die in your home or perish escaping.

I'm just thankful the next few days are forecast to be a bit cooler than the last two weeks. Hopefully that will help the firefighters. We may even get a spot of rain.

And just an update on victims - besides the 108 dead, there are at least 20 in critical condition in hospital, 9 on life support or intensive care. Amongst the deceased is someone who may be known well to some Australians, former Channel 9 newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife.

Its too scary. I was listening to the ABC all the way home yesterday, and driving up the hume freeway hearing about all the horror stories, the survival stories, made the drive even more eerie.

The Cooler forecast will help, but hopefully the wind dies down, thats the big problem at the moment. I'm praying for rain, but I hope we don't end up with storms, apparently there were lighting strikes near the fire in Beachworth this morning.
 
Logic and rationality are more more likely to produce a correct result than emotionalism and kneejerk reactions.

You're such a fucking idiot.

It boggles the mind.

Why even post in here? Just how badly do you feel the need to be right? As if there needs to be a right or wrong when people are simply reporting on and sympathizing over a disaster, natural or otherwise.
 
Are you familiar with a typical raging Australian bushfire in peak fire season?


Have not experienced it, no. When I visited Melbourne a few years ago, it was actually quite cold, so it's hard for me to understand the whole thing. But I've been reading articles for the last week or so that there was a big likelihood of a major fire in the region, so I stand by my point, to be honest - and Germaine Greer made the point better than I did, and she'd be more familiar with the region than I would.

Perhaps, in a few weeks or months, some examination can be conducted of what caused this and why the death toll was so high.
 
Everything that's been unfolding over the past couple of days is just unbelievably horrific. All the stories of escape have just been terrifying. Over 100 people confirmed dead and rising by the hour, towns completely wiped off the map, 20 people with critical burns (some said to be far worse than the Bali Bombings), countless livestock and wildlife killed... i just can't comprehend any of that...


I hope they get the bastards who started them.
 
While it was insensitive to pick a fight over the speculative cause of these fires from a safely removed distance...can we collectively back off from that one now, please.
 
Have not experienced it, no. When I visited Melbourne a few years ago, it was actually quite cold, so it's hard for me to understand the whole thing. But I've been reading articles for the last week or so that there was a big likelihood of a major fire in the region, so I stand by my point, to be honest - and Germaine Greer made the point better than I did, and she'd be more familiar with the region than I would.

Perhaps, in a few weeks or months, some examination can be conducted of what caused this and why the death toll was so high.

Go get a life buddy. Melbourne can go from about 15C to 45C and back...in one day....its a bit like 4 seasons in one day, more to that....these fires started on the hottest day on record. It got to around 46-47 Degrees on Saturday. These were temperatures all around the state.

None of these fires actually effect the CBD of Melbourne (some have hit the north eastern suburbs).....the entire state of Victoria is experiencing one its worst droughts in history....the grass is that fucking dry, as soon as fire starts and we get a day off 100 km/h winds....the place is gonna go up IN A FUCKING HURRY!
 
Have not experienced it, no. When I visited Melbourne a few years ago, it was actually quite cold, so it's hard for me to understand the whole thing. But I've been reading articles for the last week or so that there was a big likelihood of a major fire in the region, so I stand by my point, to be honest - and Germaine Greer made the point better than I did, and she'd be more familiar with the region than I would.

Perhaps, in a few weeks or months, some examination can be conducted of what caused this and why the death toll was so high.

Ah, yes, Germaine Greer. I forgot to highlight this point. Are you familiar with her? Dude, save yourself the time. Read something credible.

Look, either way, your information is faulty in numerous areas. My opinion is by no means expert, however, I've lived with them each summer like many people on here. For starters, you're reading media reports. You might want to try to cfs website for vic or rfs for nsw. Reading there was a big likelihood of a major fire means nothing. They've got cycles. Around every 5-7 years, bush regions have huge fires which are out of control in a shockingly small amount of time. In a few years, the memories for those not directly affected by these fires will dim, and once more people will report, "oh, we're due for some big fires soon" and look toward the next lot, rather than behind to the last. The death toll for these is explained already by the sheer speed and ferocity of some of these. if you have a fire wall of 10, 20, 30, 50 metres, you've got a smoke cloud god knows how many metres taller than that. In that very angry ball of heat, hot enough to melt cars, you get embers. Lots of them. The heat pushes upward, wind gusts carry the smoke kilometres away. Embers travel so fast, you'd not believe it. Dry kindling ignites spot fires randomly over the place, firefronts join up in minutes. 6-10 small fires join into one, carry over a huge distance, jumping over the place, they meet another fire, a few km's away. Soon you have an out of control inferno that is racing toward populated areas. Someone forgot to clean the leaves out of their gutter. They're watching the smoke from the front yard thinking it is still a few km's away, but it's lit their back gutter. It's jumping over house to house, maybe missing a few. Suddenly, the fire is there - in their street. They jump in the car, scramble to gather kids, pets, a jumper or tee shirt, blankets. They hope the road isn't blocked by oncoming firetrucks and neighbours fleeing. They stop briefly at an elderly neighbour to see if he got out in time, but he doesn't answer so they speed on assuming he is safe. He isn't. He perishes. He is in an electric wheelchair. He had no chance. He's one of the 108 lost so far. Keep in mind that the smoke is so thick at this stage that visibility is at a low, real low. Its as dark as early evening. You've got no power, you've forgotten your mobile, in the chaos and confusion, there are other people you simply cannot account for. People without cars, people who got trapped in their houses, the young, the elderly, people are going to die in a huge one like this. Who starts them? Arsonists frequently. Sometimes idiot kids. Sometimes sexual deviants. Sometimes it is a careless cigarette butt out the car window. Sometimes it is spontaneous combustion. God knows, there's enough undergrowth in the surrounding thousands of hectares of bushland to ignite. Fire inspectors will determine the cause of them. Police will investigate. It will be the usual culprits. Some have already been arrested, at least in the nsw fires. I'm sure you read some arsonists were re-lighting some contained fires. It's not a stretch at all to say arson.
 
One detail I forgot to mention earlier is that Hopetoun recorded Victoria's hottest ever temperature on Saturday - 48.8. The previous record was held by Mildura reaching 47.2, unsurprisingly back in 1939 just before Black Friday.

Its too scary. I was listening to the ABC all the way home yesterday, and driving up the hume freeway hearing about all the horror stories, the survival stories, made the drive even more eerie.

The Cooler forecast will help, but hopefully the wind dies down, thats the big problem at the moment. I'm praying for rain, but I hope we don't end up with storms, apparently there were lighting strikes near the fire in Beachworth this morning.

Damn, yeah, that'd be bloody eerie. At least the road was opened for you - I see trains to Seymour and Shepparton won't be back until Tuesday at the earliest, and the same applies to the Warrnambool line. All major highways and the Gippsland and Belgrave railway lines have been reopened now.

Oh yeah, I've heard some thunder around too. Last thing we need now.
 
Is there any evidence for arson?
Arsonists have been brought in for NSW fires and the authorities are investigating the Victorian fires, ABC radio has had first and second hand reports of Country Fire Authority volunteers bringing arsonists to the police.
A 15-YEAR-OLD boy has been charged with lighting a scrub fire in the NSW Blue Mountains.

The charges relate to a fire in bushland behind a community hall at Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains on Sunday afternoon.

The small scrub fire was believed to have started after an explosive device was ignited, police said.

The blaze burnt a small area of bush before being extinguished by the Rural Fire Service.

No one was injured and no property was damaged.

A 15-year-old Faulconbridge boy was charged with damage property by fire, cause or set fire to property of another and possess explosive.

He was bailed to appear at Parramatta Children's Court on March 2.

In a separate case, a man charged with arson over a fire on the NSW central coast will appear in Gosford Local Court today.

The 31-year-old man from Somersby was charged yesterday with intentionally causing a fire and setting fire to another person's property.
A POLICE task force will be formed as early as today to investigate the suspected arson attacks that caused Saturday's firestorms in Victoria.

Police say the death toll is certain to rise when remote and burning areas are checked, and some fear initial figures will double as the full extent of the devastation becomes clear.

Firefighters reported driving past burnt cars containing unknown numbers of victims who tried to flee the fire fronts.

The Victorian Coroner's Court morgue is full, and hospitals have been asked to store their own dead during the crisis.

In NSW a man has been charged with arson for allegedly lighting a fire on the Central Coast. The man, 31, was arrested yesterday and charged with intentionally causing a fire and setting fire to another person's property.

He was refused bail and is to appear in Gosford Local Court today. The fire at Peats Ridge, near Gosford, burnt through 175 hectares of bush.

Some of the Victorian fire areas will remain closed for days as police disaster victim identification teams check the most devastated spots. Two teams from NSW arrived in Victoria late yesterday. More teams from interstate are expected today as a national disaster plan, designed to respond to a terrorist attack, is invoked.

Police say the intense heat means some victims have been in effect cremated and can be identified only through jewellery or circumstantial evidence.

The number of victims means identification will take several days. Priority will be given to victims found in cars on roads so areas can be reopened. Then the teams will move to damaged and destroyed farms and houses.

Victoria's chief police commissioner, Christine Nixon, urged the public to be patient. "This will take some time. We will do this as fast as we can so that people can return to their properties, but it is a complex matter, and we must be accurate."

It has been revealed that arsonists were lighting fresh fires in the most devastated areas already under siege.
 
the thought of trying to outrun a fire in a car and not making it ... what a horrible way to die.

/shudders
 
the thought of trying to outrun a fire in a car and not making it ... what a horrible way to die.

/shudders

There was a video on the news, I can't seem to find the clip of it...where the fire was about probably 100 Meters from a house, and with the extreme winds it moved and got really close to the house in a matter of seconds. I did notice its still standing though.

Its a horrible way to go.....some of the effected areas are dirt tracks in Hilly areas with plenty of bends, so its not so easy to escape.

Was it Kinglake that, whomever was left, was trapped...because the town was basically surrounded by fire.
 
That image keeps giving me nightmares too...it was the main reason why my first reaction was 'I can't believe how fast these moved.' I've watched enough news stories about devastating wildfires out West to know how dangerous the combination of wind, dry scrub and sparks can be, but I can't remember hearing of anything quite like this.
 
Back
Top Bottom