Officials In Australia's New South Wales Celebrate: 'All Fires Are Now Contained' (npr.org) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Fire officials in Australia are celebrating a landmark moment, saying that for the first time in what has been a horrendous wildfire season, every fire in hard-hit New South Wales is now under control. Bushfires have destroyed more than 2,400 homes and burned 5.4 million hectares of land -- or about 13.3 million acres -- in the country's most populous state. More than a week of heavy rain has helped fire crews extinguish or control dangerous fires. And while the deluge has created its own problems, such as flooding and mudslides, firefighters welcomed the news that they finally have the upper hand in combating fires and can focus on the recovery process. "After what's been a truly devastating fire season for both firefighters and residents who suffered through so much this season, all fires are now contained in New South Wales, which is great news," NSW Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said in a video update Thursday. "Not all fires are out," Rogers added, noting that some fires are burning in the state's far south. "But all fires are contained, so we can really focus on helping people rebuild."
Re: Good! Now manage the forests... (Score:3)
That does happen. Extensively. But eucalyptus fires are notable for spreading via treetops due to the volatile oils. Plus have a look at australi on a map. So you *really* think it'd be possible to do fuel reductions for THAT.each year. There's cheaper and more effective options
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Fuel reduction near population centers, absolutely.
You are aware that there was fuel reduction programmes that couldn't be implemented because it was too dry (dangerous) to burn - even in the cold/wet seasons?
These fires came on the back of unprecedented drought & heat.
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Re: Good! Now manage the forests... (Score:5, Insightful)
Aaaah, another American armchair expert who thinks that Australian conditions are somewhat analogous to Southern California.
Firstly, we give similar fuel reduction advice to the LA county advice you linked to above (example [sa.gov.au]).
I think you just don't understand the scale of this problem - the area [wikipedia.org] burnt in Australia was around one hundred and seventy times bigger than the area [wikipedia.org] burnt in the Californian wildfires.
The fuel was so tinder dry & ambient temperature so hot and the winds so strong that a rare phenomenon -
pyrocumulonimbus [abc.net.au] (essentially fire tornadoes) was observed more during this (still ongoing) fire season than all past seasons combined.
The idea that you can bulldoze some sort of containment line around towns in the face of this is ridiculous. The fires jumped rivers, roads, EVEN LAKES. Ember attacks [vic.gov.au] can start new fires up to 1/4 mile from existing fire fronts, We even have things like firehawks [australian...hic.com.au] - birds that deliberately spread fire to flush out their prey. The temperature and speed of the fires in the US just doesn't come close to what Australia experienced (and to a lesser extent in 2009)
The scale & sparse / distributed population of the south-eastern states (outside of the capital cities) are hard for an American to grasp - you need to understand from our perspective, you are analogous to a European lecturing an American on the lack of inter-city trains. You just. dont. get. it. Your clueless advice is unwanted. Please stop offering it.
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"a European lecturing an American on the lack of inter-city trains"
An excellent analogy.
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Dude, it is like a car analogy!
But I have no car you insensitive clod!
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We even have things like firehawks - birds that deliberately spread fire to flush out their prey.
We already knew that all of the wildife in Asutralia is out to kill you. That's a whole new level though.
Re: Good! Now manage the forests... (Score:1)
If your continent has evolved firebirds, doesn't it seem that fire is a regular and natural thing, why are humans trying to control it?
Sounds like California - treehuggers trying to protect the forest causing more damage in the long term by not allowing younger trees to grow and allowing old trees to grow into spaces where it could more easily catch fire.
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BINGO.
Put up decent firebreaks around properties that need to be protected, do regular clearing of the land (either harvesting or controlled burns) around population centers to buttress those firebreaks, and then let nature do what it wants to do elsewhere.
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Re: Good! Now manage the forests... (Score:2)
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Essentially, your clueless comment is the same as the other clueless comment.
Please refer to my reply [slashdot.org] to them.
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Which "green laws" are you talking about? Give me the statutes?
Stop parroting Murdoch's lies
https://www.theguardian.com/au... [theguardian.com]
Re: Good! Now manage the forests... (Score:5, Informative)
They did in the past before the demand for green laws...
No. Stop spreading that meme. It was the Liberal government at a federal and a state level that cut the firefighting budgets. Which is why none of the firefighters or survivors without homes wanted to shake the prime ministers hand after he came back from a holiday from Hawaii whilst firefighters were working around the clock and sleeping fully clothed on peoples front yard.
NSW is a state three times the size of the state of Victoria which has double the firefighting budget. Straight out neglect and incompetence got us into this mess whilst prayers and good luck sent rains around before the entire state was turned to a cinder.
So no, it wasn't green laws or any other asshole propagated stories made up by the Liberals, it was their neglect and complete failure to allocate another $800 million dollars to the fire service so that they could do the burning off that they normally do.
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Just to point out, for the benefit of the global readership, that down under - Liberals are the conservative right-wingers. [wikipedia.org]
I know, right?
Also...
Which is why none of the firefighters or survivors without homes wanted to shake the prime ministers hand after he came back from a holiday from Hawaii whilst firefighters were working around the clock and sleeping fully clothed on peoples front yard.
PP is referring to this. [theguardian.com]
If there are small children, pets or people allergic to cringe you should get them out of the room first, before playing the video on the link above.
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Just to point out, for the benefit of the global readership, that down under - Liberals are the conservative right-wingers. [wikipedia.org]
Not by American standards. It would be comparable to the US Democrat party, minus the drug-law reform.
The current PM is socially conservative, but the previous Liberal PM was not. (And the conservatives outed him in a coup.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au] You've been fact checked.
Thanks for the information. I read the parliamentary transcripts [nsw.gov.au] because I can't access the budget estimates directly. There is a question that forms the basis of the fact check that remains unanswered about a 35% deficit in spending despite record spending in the previous fiscal year. Technically the fact check is correct however it is only addressing state government expenditures, not federal expenditures that I also reffered to.
I suspect what the unanswered question is referring to is the *standard*
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Firefighting budgets were not cut. They were increased.
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Firefighting budgets were not cut. They were increased.
For one time purchases in the previous fiscal year.
Re: Good! Now manage the forests... (Score:4, Informative)
Those treetop fires are scary.
It's a primal feeling watching the fire jump from treetop to treetop. You know you just can't do anything but flee.
There's a couple of things I'd like to remind our american friends. Our country is almost as large as yours (albeit mostly desert), but the population is less than 10% of yours, and that's concentrated in the eastern side of the continent - where most of the forests are also concentrated. We *can't* live in the desert, so we have to live close-ish to the forests. We just don't have the people, or the tax base, to effectively manage our forests with regular, large-scale pre-emptive burns.
I'm not interested in arguing with climate change deniers - this season's fires were extra bad for a couple of reasons - because of drought drying out the fuel loads of sticks and leaves on the ground. Enough rain, and they're too wet to burn much, if at all. The above-average temperatures also helped to dry it all out. Trying to do reduction burns on the sheer scale needed just isn't going to happen with our resources - human and financial.
The drought - lack of rain - and higher temperatures are matters of scientific record, not opinion. If you're going to argue that the Bureau of Meteorology is lying about weather records, there's not much hope for you.
P.S. we're grateful for those firefighters from other countries who come to help us. We're also very sorry about those who lost their lives - the recent air tanker crash was just awful.
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It's a primal feeling watching the fire jump from treetop to treetop. You know you just can't do anything but flee.
I know many a Californian cringed when they read the words "eucalyptus groves." They were imported to Ca as well by Australians during the Gold Rush looking for a cash crop, and they burned mighty well in the Oakland Hills firestorm 30 years ago. There's work going on to remove them over time and let native trees grow in their stead.
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The firefighters make that sort of decision all the time. Many smaller fires are "watch-and-wait" because that's the best option. Obviously many factors will go into that decision, and if circumstances change, so will the management plan.
A fire in the forest next to my place late last year was contained initially by the usual water hoses from tankers, and while that was happening, by bulldozing a containment line around the burning area. It was then left to burn itself out.
Which took a total of two weeks be
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In most fire-prone places, those containment lines are MANDATED to be maintained by the homeowner, so that it doesn't have to be a rushed emergency action.
That doesn't work in areas under heavy drought. When the land and trees are so dry, embers from fires start new fires with unstoppable ease. It only works in places already not tinderbox-dry.
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And stop producing coal for dumping extra CO2 into the atmosphere instead of opening a new coal mine near the Great Reef, or what's left of it after the Australian oiks have destroying part of it.
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Re: Global warming burned Australia (Score:1)
Why the salt?
Well, to be fair, he was responding to a known idiot.
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Bushfires don't spontaneously combust from an extra couple of degrees average temperature.
What you don't factor are the following. The Australian native Eucalypti produce oil that hang in the air like a haze and is flammable, the tree sheds dry leaves and bark building up a layer of fuel around it to kill competing flora. When charges build in the air the lightning strikes created start fires burning the undergrowth and creating a dry sterile and fertile soil for a new Eucalyptus to grow. Australia is also very dry.
So yes, a couple of degrees does matter.
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"Australia is a desert"
MOST of Australia is a desert, but not the eastern seaboard from the coastline to the Great Dividing Range (and a little bit west of that). Which is where these forests are.
Extra-long droughts and extra-hot seasons are both conducive to fiercer fires, and to a higher likelihood of fires. It wasn't an army of fucktards, it was drier conditions.
Re: Global warming burned Australia (Score:4, Informative)
C so people stop repeating this idiotic myth. There where 120 arrests. Almost all of them for *littering*, a number for backyard bbqs during a fire ban and just 20 for arson.
And all this has been an improvement over previous years. The fire services have said less than a fraction of a percent of the fires where caused by arson. The rest from lightning and the fact Australia was in its hottest summer in history
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That was for the entire year...
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JFC your user nick is out of touch with reality.
I don't make broad generalisations about fires in California and the rest of the world, because I DON'T LIVE THERE. Please restrict your blathering to subjects you actually know about.
If you're not immersed in the local conditions, with local news and weather reports, your statements are nothing but hot air.
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the arson thing isn't new. bush fires have often been started by "arsonists" in australia (although it's often some kids with a box of matches). perhaps more have been started by arsonsists this year than in previous years -- but there's plenty started by natural causes too.
it's been hotter and dryer recently, so these fires have been much worse than usual.
it would be great if we could have programs to encourage young people not to start fires. and it would be great to have something
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I'll accept your _only_ 20 arrested for arson. That's a huge fucking number of arsonists.
No, it's about average.
It only took 1 dumb ass tossing a lit cigarette out the window of his car to start one of the bigger California fires a few years ago.
That's what happens when you introduce Australian native plants, they burn everything around them. That's how they evolved.
My point remains.
Your point, like your pseudonym, is an oxymoron.
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Yes they would be. If one is a right-wing loon... (Score:4, Informative)
...with poor reading comprehension, who gets his news primarily in the form of frog-memes and animated gifs on twitter.
And on an occasion, directly from right-wing loon """""""""""""""""""news""""""""""""""""""" sources like PragerU, [factcheck.org] which deliberately and intentionally spread and create misinformation and lies.
Meanwhile, back in reality...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
Were 'Nearly 200' People Arrested for Deliberately Starting Australia Bushfires?
Misinformation spread wildly as bushfires devastated Australia in late 2019 and early 2020.
Rating
False
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It never was listed as "arson". That was always made up nonsense. It was "fire related" offenses, the majority of which involved small fines.
24 people where arrested in total for arson. The rest where people breaking the total fire ban (back yard BBQs and the like), and littering.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
Just 24. Keep in mind *every year* there are literally thousands of arson related arrests. Now most of those are people trying to burn down their house or workplace for insurance, but theres a small
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My dog takes shits that are "way smarter than you."
Re:Global warming burned Australia (Score:5, Insightful)
The greatest conflagration ever in Australia had -nothing- at all to do with the 128 people they arrested for arson related to these fires.
You have no idea what you are talking about. There were no more or less arsonists than any other year.
Nothing. None. Nope. Not at all.
There were a number of factors, including that the state Fire Services had their budgets cut by two thirds ($800million) by a government who then blamed the reduction of controlled burns it would have paid for on their political adversaries.
It was all AGW. Pure and simple. The science is in.
Absolutism, you are demonstrating the Dunning Kruger effect I've seen in some of your other posts. People died, a US fire crew that came to help lost their lives, billions of native animals lost and massive property loss. Like any disaster there were multiple factors beyond how you framed your obvious agenda to produce outrage.
And yes there is a lot of evidence this is AGW related. Ten years of record breaking hot temperatures with no rain, the fire season starting three months early which was then put out by what's described as a 1 in 20 year storm that Australia's had two of in the last ten years.
That's what climate instability looks like.
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Thank you for showing more patience with that "way smarter than you" cocksucker than I've been able to muster. I'm at the point where I don't invest any more in them than the ridicule and invective they deserve. I reserve intelligent discussion for people capable of understanding it.
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Thank you for showing more patience with that "way smarter than you" cocksucker than I've been able to muster. I'm at the point where I don't invest any more in them than the ridicule and invective they deserve. I reserve intelligent discussion for people capable of understanding it.
He is an example of outrage culture, those who are addicted to the endomorphine release in the brain from the outrage they cause with a pseudonym like that. There are dozens of them here evidenced by how they resort to emotional communication over rationalizations because they have the communication skills of a child when making their "argument".
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The greatest conflagration ever in Australia had -nothing- at all to do with the 128 people they arrested for arson related to these fires. Nothing. None. Nope. Not at all. It was all AGW. Pure and simple. The science is in.
You stop to think that if the land hadn't dried out so much (a few degrees makes a difference in how quickly a healthy tree loses its moisture), maybe a few small fires can't turn into a firestorm that engulfs a continent?
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Yeah, 2019 was the first year arsonists existed.
Also, there were only 20 arsonists, you've been manipulated into believing that there were more than that and you gobbled that up because you're a moron.
Six percent of the sate (Score:4, Interesting)
5.4 million hectares is equivalent to 6% of the state, or a quarter of the state's forest.
The area does not mean a lot as there is a regular cycle of bushfires, and the ecosystem is adapted to that.
It does not convey the ferocity of the fires this season, and the difficulty in defending homes and infrastructure from them.
In the past we have seen much larger areas burnt, but never such great damage to farms and towns.
Re: Six percent of the sate (Score:1, Interesting)
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In the past how many farms and towns were as close to the burned out areas as they are today. Humans expand over all available land areas. We do not sit still.
Much of rural NSW has a lower population than in the past, including timber country, while coastal areas are booming.
A lot of the destruction has been old homes in old towns. The 2003 Canberra bushfires affected a lot of newer homes on the fringes of the city, but that is no explanation this time.
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In the past we have seen much larger areas burnt, but never such great damage to farms and towns.
No you haven't. There has never been as large of an area burnt in one season as there has been this season, and the season isn't even over.
There has never been as large of an as large of an area burning concurrently as there has been in this recent set of fires.
The areas which burnt are all prone to burning, they have all burnt before. They have never all burnt in the same season before.
This isn't about farms or towns. The devastation to the country is absolutely unprecedented. The damage to wildlife is unp
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No you haven't. There has never been as large of an area burnt in one season as there has been this season,
Maybe I'm older than you think. 1,170,000 square kilometres in 1975.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
On behalf of Australia fuck you for downplaying what has been the single worst country scale disaster we've experienced.
"Fuck, you" must be feeling stupid now.
Worse than the rabbit plagues? Worse than the smallpox pandemic of 1788 that killed half the indigenous population? Polio, World War 2? The heat waves that killed hundreds?
Were you born yesterday?
Some compassion required... (Score:1)
I see posts about "clear the brush" (blame the victim)
"Global warming" (denialists)
etc.
Stop blaming the victims or the weather. Fires happen. We don't blame the victims. We are humans who should be compassionate and helpful.
If you can't contribute, don't. That includes with your ass-talking mouth.
E
From the Auz Dept of "Thoughts & Prayers" (Score:5, Informative)
We present Get Fkn Used to It [youtube.com].