Australia Fire

Stan

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I was sending email to see if our tail light manufacturer was ok. His reply.

Hi Stanley,
Thanks for your concerns.

The closest bushfires to where I am based are around 30km away, some days cars out in the car park have a light coating of ash.
The ash also makes it into our factory unit, its very fine but noticeable.

On several days in the last fortnight, when stepping out of the family home or the factory, you can smell the strong scent of bush fire, like someone has been burning timber outside your front door.

Outdoors there appears to be a constant smog which is unusual as the skies are normally clear. Sydney is a humid city in the summer months but its has been a very dry humidity wise.

Also in the past 24 hours we have had light gentle rain. The rain has caught the dirty air and deposited this filth on every car you pass,
Its almost like its been raining mud on cars, they are putrid.

New Zealand is 2000km off the New South Wales coastline and their Glaciers have turned caramel in colour due to winds carrying our
Dirty air, quite amazing really

Fortunately there has been a minimal loss of human lives, considering the size of the fires, I guess things could be alot worse.

February is usually the hottest time for our summer, so we have 6 weeks to go before the weather cools off.

Thanks David
 

Bmachine

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All our best wishes to our Aussie friends in these very difficult times. The images we are seeing from those fires are daunting.
Having just gone through wild fires here a few months ago we can certainly sympathize!
 

Frankie123

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I have been doing some work in the fire effected areas and the level of devastation is nothing like anything I have ever seen before.
When you drive down a road which previously had dense bush land and now all that is left is black soot in the ground and thin black sticks coming up from the ground where trees once stood, it makes you realise the intensity of the heat that must have been generated when it was happening.
Houses which once stood proudly have been reduced to ash with only the chimney stack still standing in most cases.
We have heard of a few car collections which have been lost by locals, one was of over 100 cars...
Prayers go out to all those who have lost life, property and valuables through these fires, but we will get through this... Slowly but surely...
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Bmachine

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Thank you for that first person account, Frankie. Everything becomes so much more real when you hear from someone you “know”, even if it is just through a common interest.
Those pictures are amazing. When you say “ I have been doing some work in the area”, what was your involvement with it? Are you living in the fire area itself?
 

JayWltrs

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Watched the news for the first time in a while today and seeing so many horrible pictures. The firefighters seem spent & vacant, like they've run a month of marathons in a desert. Just watching one say it wouldn't have mattered if they'd had another 1000 tanker planes, but, like every interview, strikes an equally resilient tone. While a bunch of humans are doing their best to show we're worthless & irredeemable, some grizzled Cobargo fire captain and an old lady helping wildlife remind you otherwise. Take care.
 

Wes

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The only thing more depressing here than the rolling media coverage of a fire ground of almost unfathomable scale and intensity is the fact it was predicted decades ago and we didn't prepare. The scale of the devastation in terms of property loss and our natural environment is unprecedented. I saw a report yesterday that it's expected around half a billion (yes I said billion) native animals have been either lost or displaced, including several entire species - we wont know for sure until the fires are out.
My home state of Tasmania is more or less on top of the fires but conditions are expected to deteriorate again later in the week. We have escaped the worst of it so far.
For Victoria and NSW there has been some respite today but tomorrow is expected to see the fires spread again. On top of that there's no significant rain forecast for the east of the country for weeks to come. My thoughts are with all those impacted. Stay safe.
 

Gary Knox

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Wes,

Spent nearly a week in Tasmania a few years back. Lovely place, and SO SAD to know of the devastation from the fires.

I also understand your comment about 'preparation'. There was actually an article about that in one of my newspapers today. Dead growth left in forests is a tremendous fuel source to feed the fires (which are a part of nature). The result is that the tremendous growth of a small fire then kills the living trees and animals. Still - so sad.

Gary
 

Bmachine

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Frankie123

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Thank you for that first person account, Frankie. Everything becomes so much more real when you hear from someone you “know”, even if it is just through a common interest.
Those pictures are amazing. When you say “ I have been doing some work in the area”, what was your involvement with it? Are you living in the fire area itself?

I live about 20 minutes from the nearest fires but I have been working in the fire affected areas to help get the electricity grid back up and running
 

Wes

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Wes,

Spent nearly a week in Tasmania a few years back. Lovely place, and SO SAD to know of the devastation from the fires.

I also understand your comment about 'preparation'. There was actually an article about that in one of my newspapers today. Dead growth left in forests is a tremendous fuel source to feed the fires (which are a part of nature). The result is that the tremendous growth of a small fire then kills the living trees and animals. Still - so sad.

Gary

The other big issue here Gary is events like what we were seeing now were actually predicted from climate modelling years ago. Australia is now drier and hotter with fires happening earlier, for longer and with more intensity. Areas that had seen fuel reduction burns only two years ago have burned in the same manner as those that had no reduction. The mainland is getting it worse than us but our time will come.
Add in an increase in fire frequency and it's a perfect storm. I know we don't talk politics on here but anybody who thinks climate change is rubbish should have their next holiday in Australia :(
 

Aussiecsi

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...but on a positive note , local Perth lad and squillionaire Andrew "twiggy"Forrest has chipped in $70M big ones to the bushfire appeal ...yes, the nickname is somewhat ironic in the circumstances :
 

Gary Knox

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I am a firm believer in Climate Change. The climate of the earth has been changing for eons. 12-20K years ago, much of the upper US and nearly all of Canada was covered in a sheet of ice that was up to 2-3 kilometers deep. Not there now, so I guess we've been getting warmer for the last 10-15K years!!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (A US agency) has done research on the polar ice caps that trace average global temperatures back 500K years. There are about 80 'laws of physics' type cyclical changes in the amount of heat that reaches the earth from the sun (the first 3 were identified by a Serbian astrophysicist ~100 years ago - Dr. Milankovitch - https://eos.org/research-spotlights/how-variations-in-earths-orbit-triggered-the-ice-ages ). Those cycles are caused by earth's wobble, the effect of gravity from other planets (and even other galaxies) on earth's orbit, dictating how close or far away we are from the sun. The variations are now called Milankovitch cycles. The oscillations up and down in heat received caused by each of the ~80 effects accumulate to maximums and minimums about every 100-125K years (clearly shown by the NOAA data). It has been about 125K years since the last 'high heat' cycle, and the max temp in that one and the two previous ones was about 3-5 degrees C higher than we are now experiencing. The minimums of course result in a large part of the globe being covered with ice - primarily the northern hemisphere. There was a time when our planet was entirely encased in ice (referred to as snowball earth).

Unless someone can figure out how to repeal the laws of physics, I believe these cycles will continue. We may be near the current 'peak', or it may still be tens, hundreds, or even a thousand years before the cooling starts. As I recall, the cooling comes pretty rapidly when it starts (well, even a thousand years is pretty rapid in a cycle of 125,000!). It is my 'opinion' that there will be a lot fewer humans surviving the next great freeze than currently occupy our planet. Foodstuff does not grow well in icy terrain.

I will not address the impact of 7 billion people and the heat we produce, carbon dioxide we exhale, atmospheric changes we cause, etc.. To me, there is at least as much political agenda as scientific agenda in that topic. There were less than 2.5 billion of 'us' when I was born.

Cheers,

Gary-
 
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CSteve

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I am a firm believer in Climate Change. The climate of the earth has been changing for eons. 12-20K years ago, much of the upper US and nearly all of Canada was covered in a sheet of ice that was up to 2-3 kilometers deep. Not there now, so I guess we've been getting warmer for the last 10-15K years!!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (A US agency) has done research on the polar ice caps that trace average global temperatures back 500K years. There are about 80 'laws of physics' type cyclical changes in the amount of heat that reaches the earth (the first 3 were identified by a Serbian astrophysicist ~100 years ago - Dr. Milankovitch - https://eos.org/research-spotlights/how-variations-in-earths-orbit-triggered-the-ice-ages ). Those cycles are caused by earth's wobble, the effect of gravity from other planets (and even other galaxies) on earth's orbit, dictating how close or far away we are from the sun. The variations are now called Milankovitch cycles. The oscillations up and down in heat received caused by each of the ~80 effects accumulate to maximums and minimums about every 100-125K years (clearly shown by the NOAA data). It has been about 125K years since the last 'high heat' cycle, and the max temp in that one and the two previous ones was about 3-5 degrees C higher than we are now experiencing. The minimums of course result in nearly 25% of the globe being covered with ice - primarily the northern hemisphere. There was a time when our planet was entirely encased in ice (referred to as snowball earth).

Unless someone can figure out how to repeal the laws of physics, I believe these cycles will continue. We may be near the current 'peak', or it may still be tens, hundreds, or even a thousand years before the cooling starts. As I recall, the cooling comes pretty fast when it starts. It is my 'opinion' that there will be a lot fewer humans surviving the next great freeze than currently occupy our planet. Foodstuff does not grow well in icy terrain.

I will not address the impact of 7 billion people and the heat they produce, cause, etc. on our atmosphere. To me, there is at least as much political agenda as scientific agenda in that topic.

Cheers,

Gary-
Gary, I am focused on your last sentence. Warming and cooling, feeding and sheltering, transporting and entertaining, birthing and healing 7 billion people takes an enormus amount of energy. And this makes an enormous additional contribution to climate change that was not present in eons past.

Steve
 

Gazz

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It may take some time to come to findings as to why the current fires here in Australia are so prevalent. It was alarming that even rain forests, many of which are in my area were so vulnerable to ignition. There is plenty of anecdotal conjecture and the usual scapegoating and finger pointing. "Well whose fault is it, huh?"

Maybe it's mine. Maybe s**t just happens.

It's very hard to argue against the evidence as presented by Gary. There was an ice age and there isn't one now - that's climate change, a change in the climate. But that presentation of facts is somewhat redundant in current discussions about human influence on climate.
My personal feeling is that I cannot have an "opinion" on the science when discussing so called climate change, any more than I can have an "opinion" on geology or physics or chemistry? Climatology is a science as much as any science. How the science is interpreted and used, well that's something else again. Still above my pay grade though.

And another thing - "Climate Change" is such an ill defining term in the context of current debates about human effect. I would prefer something like Human Induced Climate Aggravation, or HICA to use a convenient acronym. If ever that comes into common use then you first heard it here folks.
( Is it correct to say that this is in essence what you were saying Gary? That climate change, in the natural sense, is separate from human influence? )

For me to have an opinion as an ignorant lay person reminds me of the scene in Monty Python's quest for the holy grail where a mob of peasant villagers is baying for the witch to be burned.
Anecdote, supposition and back fence gossip ( read - the internet ) do not constitute science. It seems to me that science has to dictate the evidence, not politicians, big business, economists, clergymen, Facebook, village idiots, emotional teenagers, et al..
If the evidence as presented scientifically shows that human interaction with the environment is detrimental to the extent we are on a path to ruin then it will serve us right if we ignore that evidence.
 
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