Australia Wildfires

[Raj Ahten]

I recently heard that parts of Australia are having the highest levels of wildfire danger predicted in decades. Conditions are absolutely jaw dropping to me and very, very bad for firefighting. Temperatures of around 109 degrees Fahrenheit with high winds make for a bad day. Also this seems early in the year for such bad fires down under. I was wondering if our Australian members had any thoughts on these developments. Also here is a breif bbc story about the situation. Link

Australia PM Gillard visits fire-hit Tasmania

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is visiting wildfire-hit regions in Tasmania, amid warnings of more searing weather across the country.

No deaths have been reported in the fires, which broke out on Thursday on the island's south coast.

But more than 100 buildings have been destroyed and communities in some areas remain cut off.

Speaking in the state capital, Hobart, Ms Gillard said assistance would be provided for those in need.

"I've come to Tasmania today for one purpose, and that's to say to the people of Tasmania that the nation is standing with them at this very, very difficult time," she said.

Emergency payments would be provided to give people immediate help and damage would be assessed to enable communities to be rebuilt.

Fires were still being fought, she emphasised, calling for residents in Tasmania and also in New South Wales, where very high temperatures are expected, to stay alert.

"This is the time to be vigilant, and I do want to pass that message to the people of New South Wales as the temperature gauge starts to rise," she said.
Peak expected

Ms Gillard was expected to visit Dunalley, the town worst affected by the fires.

In their latest bulletin, Tasmanian police said that searches of fire-hit properties were continuing.

"Police have searched 245 properties in Dunalley and to the north of the town, including 90 badly damaged or destroyed buildings. The preliminary screening search has discovered no deceased people at this stage," a statement said.

Searches would continue in the Murdunna and Sommers Bay areas, where more properties were known to have been destroyed.

A number of people remained unaccounted for, police said, urging local residents and tourists who had not yet registered with them to get in touch.

Police said a convoy had delivered equipment and resources to the Tasman Peninsula - cut off by fire for several days - on Sunday.

The region's main access road was also expected to open partially on Monday, ABC News reported, and boats were due to deliver goods.

Several fires were continuing to burn across the state, according to the Tasmanian Fire Service, including three rated as dangerous that were not under control. Police said none of the blazes appeared to be the result of arson.

ate last week the Australian Bureau of Meteorology warned that the heatwave which has affected much of the nation would continue for several days. It said thick vegetation caused by two years of heavy rain could mean increased wildfire risk.

Both New South Wales and Canberra are braced for temperatures and winds to peak on Tuesday.

More than 90 wildfires are reported to be burning in New South Wales already. A total ban on the lighting on fires is to be imposed from midnight in New South Wales as well as the Canberra region, ahead of temperatures expected to climb beyond 40 degrees centigrade.

"Tomorrow is not going to be just another ordinary day," New South Wales State Premier Barry O'Farrell said. "Tomorrow will be perhaps the worst fire danger day this state has ever faced."

Australia faces wildfires each year as temperatures climb. In February 2009, on what has come to be known as Black Saturday, 173 people were killed in fires in the state of Victoria.

[Sathanas]

I live in Victoria, which is where the Black Saturday fires took place in 2009. Temperatures in Melbourne were around the 48-49 degree Celsius mark (120 Fahrenheit) with gusts of over 70 km/h. This combined with the lack of rainfall for a few years and the more restrictive backburning policies of the state Government, as well as local council beautification laws restricting land clearing around your house, really made the perfect bushfire conditions.

In Tasmania they have had their hottest day ever recorded as well as an unusual lack of rainfall. Its a heavily forested state as well. One of the main contributors to the problem is Australia is the eucalyptus trees, which have a tendency to explode during fires. The heat can get so intense that the trees explode in front of the flame front, speeding it up. This combined with people thinking they can defend their homes against a 50 meter high flame front with a garden hose means people tend to get caught out a lot.

[weemadando]

I've had friends who were trapped on the Tasman peninsula evacuated by boat back to Hobart and family members work with Red Cross and other support groups mobilised. It's bad, but is at least geographically constrained for the most part in the South East.

Look at fire.tas.gov.au for current maps etc. Lots of small vegetation fires all over the place today, hopefully they can all be controlled.

NSW sounds like it's turning bad today. Seeing lots of announcements about running fires and evacuation notices.

[thejester]

Extreme heat plus fuel build up from the last couple of (relatively wet?) summers. At this point it basically is what it is. The major issue/concern as Sathanas suggested is making sure people are aware of the real danger. As Black Saturday showed, in really extreme weather conditions like this only those who are really prepared - house clear of foliage, independent water and power supplies, sprinkler systems on the house etc - stand a realistic chance. It's possible to survive a 'normal' fire within your house and for years the message from fire services was to do just that - most people who died in bushfires did so as they tried to flee at the last moment. But in conditions like today the only real option, unless you have a fire bunker, is to get out early and hope for the best.

[weemadando]

And even if your house is prepared, a fire like the Black Saturday ones melted fucking cars to slag puddles.

So, if it's maybe going to be that bad, get out the day fucking before.

[Sathanas]

And even if your house is prepared, a fire like the Black Saturday ones melted fucking cars to slag puddles.

So, if it's maybe going to be that bad, get out the day fucking before.

Thats true. The fire burns at such an insane temperature that sprinkler systems failed due to cast iron pipes filled with running water melting, cement tanks boiled dry etc. The only way to save your house was clearing the land around it (which was illegal in the most affected places). The only houses in Kinglake etc that survived were due to home-owners cutting trees down anyway, copping huge fines in the process.

[Raj Ahten]

I live in Victoria, which is where the Black Saturday fires took place in 2009. Temperatures in Melbourne were around the 48-49 degree Celsius mark (120 Fahrenheit) with gusts of over 70 km/h. This combined with the lack of rainfall for a few years and the more restrictive backburning policies of the state Government, as well as local council beautification laws restricting land clearing around your house, really made the perfect bushfire conditions.

That's an....interesting way to go about fighting wild fires. In California you can be fined if you don't clear brush from around your house. I guess even in wildfire aware Australia fools are still allowed make decisions. Also I'm curious about the backburning policy. Do you happen to know if backburns have gotten out of hand and destroyed private property in the recent past? I know that in the US landowners have recently been able to successfully sue firefighters when a backburn they start has destroyed property.

Also checking to see if we are on the same page on what backburning means (we probably are as the US and Australia use the same incident command system for fighting wildfires and even exchange firefighters occasionally so hopefully the terminology is the same!) My definition of a backburn is a fire lit away from the main fire in order to consume fuel and draw the main fire to it. This is instead of a burn out operation where you burn off fuel within an established fire line in order to strengthen the fireline and ensure there is no unburnt fuel between firefighters an the main fire which can create a hazardous situation.

[thejester]

He means fuel reduction burns ('burning off'), not backburns. So typically government agencies will light controlled fires in areas like national parks to reduce fuel before the onset of peak fire season - and yes, they frequently do get out of hand.

[thejester]

There's a good summary of the main Black Saturday fires here if anyone's interested. It's pretty devastating read although the only instance I could find of the fire being simply too powerful was in Strathewen - in Marysville and Kinglake residents who had it seriously together. It also makes clear the sheer number of variables - in Kinglake some houses appear to have survived because they had non-native, green vegetation surrounding the house that acted as a screen to ember attack.

[Phantasee]

Why doesn't the government do something to cut down on stupid beautification regulations that result in death traps?

[atg]

Iirc a man who lost his house in the 2009 fire launched a lawsuit against the council that forbade him from clearing his property - i've not managed to hear what came of it though.

I'm somewhat surprised that we've not had worse fires here in SA this year. The last week or so has seen some high temps and a lot of wind, guess weve just been lucky.

[thejester]

Why doesn't the government do something to cut down on stupid beautification regulations that result in death traps?

To be honest if you to create a ranking of the causes of Black Saturday I'm pretty sure regulations relating to the clearing of vegetation around houses would be extremely low on the list.

[Sathanas]

Definitely not the cause, but it sure didn't help when the firestorms hit the affected towns.

[Broomstick]

He means fuel reduction burns ('burning off'), not backburns. So typically government agencies will light controlled fires in areas like national parks to reduce fuel before the onset of peak fire season - and yes, they frequently do get out of hand.

In the US (at least in the Midwest) those are called "controlled burns". And yes, ours sometimes become "uncontrolled burns", too. It's a tool you have to use carefully.

[Alkaloid]

and the more restrictive backburning policies of the state Government, as well as local council beautification laws restricting land clearing around your house, really made the perfect bushfire conditions.

It's not quite that simple. The CFA and DSE almost never, even before Black Saturday, burn off as much as they are technically allowed to because burn offs are really really hard. The vegetation moisture index gives between 14% and 16% as being able to perform controlled burns, any more and the vegetation you need to clear wont burn, any less and the fire is uncontrollable. The moisture index can change by more than that 2% in a few hours with a change in the wind, so getting the right conditions to actually burn off much of anything is very very rare.

In the US (at least in the Midwest) those are called "controlled burns". And yes, ours sometimes become "uncontrolled burns", too. It's a tool you have to use carefully

Yeah, we'll call them that as well. Back burning is also a thing, but it's rarely used because with these sort of fires you often need fire breaks kilometres wide, and if you've got a fire capable of burning that much in less than a week or so there are pretty good odds your aren't in control of it. It's like most bushfire survival tactics, you have to be prepared in advance, once it's in motion there is very little you can do to stop it.

To be honest if you to create a ranking of the causes of Black Saturday I'm pretty sure regulations relating to the clearing of vegetation around houses would be extremely low on the list.

Definitely not the cause, but it sure didn't help when the firestorms hit the affected towns.

Most of the houses that survived would probably have survived anyway because they were prepared by people that actually knew what they were doing and prepared appropriately, and there is much, much more to that than clearing trees. It helps, but low scrub and grass running up to the house is a bigger problem and is normally not affected by land clearance regulations, and of the houses that were lost and didn't clear an appropriate area most didn't have other preparations made anyway, so outside flukes like the evergreens saving a house mentioned above, in isolation its effectively useless for any serious sort of fire.

Really, living in a regional, bushfire prone area is a lot like living on a flood plain outside Brisbane. You can live there, but you need to accept that these things will sometimes happen because of where you are living, keep you stuff insured and be aware of what's happening so you can evacuate when you need to. Otherwise you need to know what you have to do to be prepared, spend the not inconsiderable amount of time and money making sure your house is properly prepared and be willing to take the risk of staying to defend your house and actually seeing it through come what may, because while that might kill you running for it halfway through almost certainly will.

I was actually working for the CFA while I was on holidays from uni that weekend, and went back the year after. The one thing I kept hearing was how after the event, when local brigades herld events to educate people about what to do in the case of bushfires the first question they were always asked, generally angrily, was why didn't you do this before Black Saturday? The answer was always we did, it's just no one ever turned up.

[Alkaloid]

Also, this is alarming.

Temperatures off the charts as Australia turns deep purple

Australia's "dome of heat" has become so intense that the temperatures are rising off the charts – literally.

The Bureau of Meteorology's interactive weather forecasting chart has added new colours – deep purple and pink – to extend its previous temperature range that had been capped at 50 degrees.

The range now extends to 54 degrees – well above the all-time record temperature of 50.7 degrees reached on January 2, 1960 at Oodnadatta Airport in South Australia – and, perhaps worringly, the forecast outlook is starting to deploy the new colours.
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"The scale has just been increased today and I would anticipate it is because the forecast coming from the bureau's model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees," David Jones, head of the bureau's climate monitoring and prediction unit, said.

While recent days have seen Australian temperature maps displaying maximums ranging from 40 degrees to 48 degrees - depicted in the colour scheme as burnt orange to black – both Sunday and Monday are now showing regions likely to hit 50 degrees or more, coloured purple.

Clicking on the prediction for 5pm AEDT next Monday, a Tasmania-sized deep purple opens up over South Australia – implying 50 degrees or above.

Aaron Coutts-Smith, the bureau's NSW head of climate monitoring, though, cautioned that the 50-degree reading is the result of just one of the bureau's models. "The indications are, from the South Australian office, that we are not looking at getting any where near that (50 degree level)."

Still, large parts of central Australia have limited monitoring, so the 50.7 degree record may be broken.

"The air mass over the inland is still heating up - it hasn't peaked," Dr Jones said.

Australia's first six days of 2013 were all among the hottest 20 days on record in terms of average maximums, with January 7 and today likely to add to the list of peaks. That would make it four of the top 10 in a little over a week.

National record smashed

And the country has set a new national average maximum of 40.33 degrees on Monday, beating the previous record - set on December 21, 1972 - by a "sizeable margin" of 0.16 degrees, Dr Jones said, adding that the figures are preliminary.

"Today is actually shaping up to be hotter - and it could be a record by a similar margin," he said.

Another record to be smashed on Monday was Australia's mean temperature. The country averaged 32.23, easily eclipsing the previous record - set on December 21, 1972 - of 31.86 degrees. Just 0.13 degrees separated the previous four highest mean temperatures, underscoring how far above average the day was.

The scorching temperatures could last into the weekend and beyond, Dr Jones said, potentially breaking the country's all-time high of 50.7 degrees.

"The heat over central Australia is not going to go anywhere," he said, noting that the northern monsoon and southern cold fronts have all been weak recently.

"We know the air mass is hot enough to challenge the Oodnadatta record."

While the national data goes all the way back to 1910, the bureau views the figures are most reliable from about 1950.

Prior to today, six of the 20 hottest days in Australian records have been in 2013 - with that tally likely to rise to seven out of 20 by the day's end. Here are the rankings:

Hottest national averages on record (prior to today).

1 January 7 2013 40.33 degrees
2 December 21, 1972 40.17
3 December 20, 1972 40.01
4 December 22, 1972 39.82
5 January 1, 1973 39.79
6 January 6, 2013 39.71
7 December 17, 2002 39.7
8 January 2, 1973 39.65
9 January 3, 2013 39.55
10 December 16, 2002 39.54
11 December 30, 1972 39.48
12 December 31, 1972 39.43
13 January 27, 1936 39.4
14 January 1, 1990 39.39
15 January 4, 2013 39.32
16 January 5, 2013 39.26
17 January 2, 1990 39.22
18 January 2, 2013 39.21
19 December 18, 2002 39.2
20 January 13, 1985 38.98

[hongi]

Prior to today, six of the 20 hottest days in Australian records have been in 2013 - with that tally likely to rise to seven out of 20 by the day's end. Here are the rankings:

What are the chances that this has something to do with climate change? Not this particular event in question, but it's interesting to look at that data.

[LaCroix]

You'd need more data than this. You see 2013 has a record summer, but the other front runners are 2002, 1990 and 1972/73. This only shows you the peaks.

But the data here indicates that the very hot days increaing and the very cold days are decreasing during the last decade, and all cyclic weather patterns are well above the prior pattern - which does indicate climate change as reason.

If it were just one thing, it could be an statistical abberation, but this is change over the whole spectrum, and all in the same direction.

[Vympel]

The heat was pretty unbearable. I was in an air conditioned office most of the day but when I went outside the Sydney CBD was practically cooking. It was like swimming through hot air. It didn't let up until well after midnight (when a change blew through - its only going to be 25deg today max) - had the A/C on at home until midnight, which I've never done before.

[hongi]

I didn't want to complain here but yeah, it was terribad. We didn't even have aircon. I just had to make do with closing all the windows and eating lots of ice cream.

[weemadando]

I wore a polar fleece vest on my commute this morning. Global warming is a hoax.

[Phantasee]

How are the electrical grids handling the extra load from all the A/C running?

[weemadando]

Fine so far. We've got a shit load of coal just sitting around waiting to be burned.

Generally the issues happen when the lines sag so badly and wind gets high enough that they have issues.

Or, you know, the poles are on fire.

[tim31]

I captured this image on Friday night of last week. This was among the worst of it; during the course of the day one small town was practical slate-wiped. This town was the choke point to the popular Tasman Penninsula, and thus as Anders pointed out, people were trapped down there and had to be evacuated by boat. Cremorne Beach, nearer to Hobart, apparently looked like Omaha Beach in mid June of 1944, boats disgorging people right at the tideline.

[The_Saint]

Didn't help the that whilst one fire was consuming a township and cutting off thousands of people on the peninsula there were three other major fires going around the state, albeit with less direct danger to people.

@Raj our common use of the term back-burn is what you described as a burn out, to burn back towards a fire front in an effort to clear fuel.

Twas only just before Christmas when my parents house (still in Tasmania here) was threatened by a fire that is suspected (there's a legal argument building) to have been started by an idiot neighbour who decided to have a fuel reduction burn on a recognised high fire danger day. The fire got rapidly out of hand (as they quite often do) and spread rapidly through gullys cutting off roads to the township. I knew the fire would be difficult to control due to the location (steep gullys, LOTS of fuel) but when my mother sent me two pictures taken several hours apart of deliberate back burns in the SAME place you start to wonder just how bad the situation is. As it turned out a weather change made the difference and the fire was left to burn around the township in a semi controlled state to clear out the vegetation.