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Now, you Americans complain and moan when you get some fires. But believe me you ain't got shit on us.

Currently the East coast of Australia is in no small amount of shit. Fires abso-fucking-lutely everywhere and most of them are out of control or about to break lines and go out of control. To make things worse due to a nice 2 year long drought water reserves are LOW and the fucking El Nino weather patterns aren't making life any easier.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/ta ... 003-10.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/ta ... 2003-9.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/ta ... 2003-7.htm

Thats just in little 'ole Tassie. Feel sorry for Flinders Island, more than 50% of the islands been burnt already and the fires have just jumped the lines again.

Highways have been closed to all but emergency vehicles last I heard and yet more fires are being started by fucking wanker bogan children with nothing better to do. What really shits me is that because they are teenagers they can't be criminally charged with arson, despite the fact that they are endangering the lives of the firefighters (many of whom are volunteers), the people and our meagre supplies of livestock (which have already been all but wiped out by the drought).

When I headed out today for a walk the smoke that was covering Hobart was not that bad, but still enough to give my fucking allergies a run. And the hospitals are having fun with the asmhatics and the eldery suffering from the side effects.

Its looking like some of the fires might hit small towns and a few might even hit the cities. And believe me when I say that its not fucking pretty when that kind of thing happens.

We've lost some great monuments, only a few lives thus far, but have lost much property.

And did I mention that this fire season is likely going to last until late March? If not longer... Goddamn. Well, thats my rant. I'll keep you all up to date with stuff near me.

Trust me, Californians and other western states understand what you are going through. One big difference is that your trees can be really dangerous when on fire, although Euculyptus does exist in large numbers here because of Australian immigrants way back when.

Anywhoo, back to the topic, I hope a minimal amout of damage is done and no more lives are lost. Ive seen the fires and they are pretty damn scary. We had a huge fire in the east bay about a decade ago and I remember school smelled like charcol the next day even though I was 20 miles from the fires.

I think you still have firemen....ours keep on buggering off because they cant get a 40% pay rise AND keep thier second jobs....

Definately a tragedy

Tassie is gorgeous and even a fire that doesn't hurt people there would be tragic and this one is out of control. What loser children. There are signs posted everywhere about fire hazards during the summer, maybe they just can't read.
I am sad about the observatory too. Most places have too much light polution to observe and a great place like this is destroyed. Plus I can't imagine the toll it is taking on houses and people!
I hope Hobart stays safe for now until they get it under control, which I hope is soon.

The coordinates in my location, under my username, are of Hobart, Tasmania. If you want to get some idea how much I miss it, take a look in the Art & Photos forum at the thread Ando put together for me.

What I would do to those malodorous fuckwits who started some of the fires, if I was able to get my hands on them...

I've seen a little on the news about this. Bad shit, and I'm really sorry. We had a doozey of a fire season here in AZ last summer, and it looks as though this year might be worse.
El Ninos, if I'm not mistaken, affect your side of the Pacific in opposite ways. You get drought, we get storms. Except we haven't gotten jack-shit for rain yet this year. Some of our major resevoirs are at 20% capacity here around Phoenix, and I don't have much hope for it to get better.

Shit

I used to do hand crew firefighting....

Fucking assholes everywhere this week.

I've got friends living in Canberra, one of them used to live in the Duffy suburb but she moved away from there less than three months ago. Half her old neighborhood went up in smoke and she knew one of the people who died in the fires. The report she posted for us (at another board) was hair-raising. One of those fires was deliberately lit too, and when it was put out, the fuckhead went and relit it again and it went out of control... Fuckers like that should be shot.

Edi

Ewo was just telling me that Claire Danes was talking about the fires in Tasmania on Conan. And apparently Conan said that he could spend the rest of his life in Tassie, although he apparently hasn't been there. Hmm, weird.

Zaia wrote:Ewo was just telling me that Claire Danes was talking about the fires in Tasmania on Conan. And apparently Conan said that he could spend the rest of his life in Tassie, although he apparently hasn't been there. Hmm, weird.

No, Doh, now I look like a moron. She wasn't talking about the fires, just how she knew Aussie lingo. She talked about Tassie for a few seconds and Conan said he wanted to spend the rest of his life there. Since it is on comedy central in the middle of the day it means that the show is two days old. Still, they said Tassie and it was cool.

Keevan_Colton wrote:I think you still have firemen....ours keep on buggering off because they cant get a 40% pay rise AND keep thier second jobs....

Blair needs to get some balls and cut those bastards off at the knees...

Anyway.

That really sucks. Can't you get international help or something? I mean if your water supplies are running low couldn't America or some European country or whatever send in supplies or something? It can't be that expensive to get water there! There's enough of the stuff to go around heh.

I didn't realize the fires had gotten that bad. Reminds me of a few years back when Florida was in flames. Fires around here have this nasty tendency to turn into muck fires, where they smolder underneath layers of dead plants, only to flare back up when the wind peels away a layer. Took months for some of those fires to be contained. Didn't have schools closed, but a lot of people were having health problems for quite some time.

Have a clue what your going through man (summer times in NM invovle me having my stuff ready for quick evac living in a forest). But that still sucks, I hope nothing more gets destroyer (property or lives) and that things resolve themselves soon.

Keep up to date with the fires in Australia thanks to the CSIRO.

http://www.sentinel.csiro.au/mapping/viewer.htm

Check out the lovely smoke cloud over Hobart today in MODIS/LANDSAT views.

Well at least next years fires wont be quite as bad.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Well at least next years fires wont be quite as bad.

Incorrect.

Eucalypts are products of an environment that is prone to bushfires, indeed they require fires to reproduce.

After a bushfire the forests grow back really fast and really thick. So its down to whether or not we actually get any rain in the next year as to whether next years fires are going to be as bad.

weemadando wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:Well at least next years fires wont be quite as bad.

Incorrect.

Eucalypts are products of an environment that is prone to bushfires, indeed they require fires to reproduce.

After a bushfire the forests grow back really fast and really thick. So its down to whether or not we actually get any rain in the next year as to whether next years fires are going to be as bad.

That's where the defoliants come in. I'm sure the US could ramp Agent Orange production back up in time, one heavy spraying and your good for 30 years.

weemadando wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:Well at least next years fires wont be quite as bad.

Incorrect.

Eucalypts are products of an environment that is prone to bushfires, indeed they require fires to reproduce.

After a bushfire the forests grow back really fast and really thick. So its down to whether or not we actually get any rain in the next year as to whether next years fires are going to be as bad.

Sounds like our scrub palm. The seeds don't open unless they're exposed to extreme heat/flame.

Keevan_Colton wrote:I think you still have firemen....ours keep on buggering off because they cant get a 40% pay rise AND keep thier second jobs....

Ah you be British? well, ask your self this. Are you paying them a living wage? if not......
It is mildly amusing that the British army is using the old Green Godess's that were built in the late 50's.

If you drive up the F3 freeway now (The freeway that connects Sydney and Newcastle) the foliage is almost now fully scorched away.

TrailerParkJawa wrote:Trust me, Californians and other western states understand what you are going through. One big difference is that your trees can be really dangerous when on fire, although Euculyptus does exist in large numbers here because of Australian immigrants way back when.

Anywhoo, back to the topic, I hope a minimal amout of damage is done and no more lives are lost. Ive seen the fires and they are pretty damn scary. We had a huge fire in the east bay about a decade ago and I remember school smelled like charcol the next day even though I was 20 miles from the fires.

Oddly enough, unless we get some late-season heavy snows, the fire season in the Western US is gonna be even more of a bitch this year than last year. For example, it's been so dry where I live that one of our community's three wells has completely run dry.

Hobart is a little strange today.

The heat is intense (high 30's with a really strong wind). And the fires are getting closer.

Power has been surging and dropping for the past hour. Phone lines are inconsistant.

Due to the power surges the alarms in the city (I'm in the cafe in the dead centre of town right now) all the alarms have been going into reset mode and going nuts.

I've heard 1 car crash thus far (sounded like it was with a parked car due to the car alarm going off right after the THUMP).

People are on edge and the air quality is shitty, though the wind is meaning that the smoke isn't getting a chance to settle, though it is blowing the fires right towards the city.

More as it happens.

Man, you sure need to round up those koala and plug them. They're exploding all over the place.

But honestly, I feel really sorry for you. I have a friend who works for um... your version of 911 in Brisbane. He's all the time getting calls about the fires. Really terrible, that.

first steve irwin lost his privates in a motorcade accident, and now this

Stuart Mackey wrote:

Keevan_Colton wrote:I think you still have firemen....ours keep on buggering off because they cant get a 40% pay rise AND keep thier second jobs....

Ah you be British? well, ask your self this. Are you paying them a living wage? if not......
It is mildly amusing that the British army is using the old Green Godess's that were built in the late 50's.

For the second strike they broke out mothballed 70's engines as well, a big step up for them.