NSW Bush Fires

Three weeks ago my stepsons house at Ashby Heights, west of Maclean NSW was completely surrounded by the fires but so very luckily not engulfed.
The top section of a half empty plastic watertank beside the house was melted, wheely bins now just a strange sculptural shape and the surrounding house grounds area.......a blackened waste.
Today he sent a pic. of how grass trees have sprouted back, wattles and paperbarks sprouting from the base and tea tree greening over the tops. The only trees not showing much sign are the eucalypts but they will. It has however, been assisted by 14mm of rain 7 days ago.
Its an arid land, but the regenerative power of the bush is quite incredible.
mike

I hope the hundreds of thousands of dead and fried wild life will be so lucky to regenerate.

Adrian, they had to evacuate for 5 days. When the were able to return the first thing they saw were two wallabies hopping around on the burned ground. They cant work out where they went to survive, the fire had travelled about 30km. from the north with a 15km. frontage. The fire passed over/around their and several other homes (only 1 lost) to be eventually controlled about 5km. south.
The survival of those two remains a mystery but no doubt others survived too.
I feel sad for all the creatures perished, particularly Echidna's which compared to the Koala are quite unloved.
mike

I know what it is like to look at your property totally blackened and burnt, from past exp.
   When the fires ripped through the Brindabella's into Canberra in 2003 the country was burnt down to the tree roots and into the ground. Animals dead and dying everywhere and birds totally fried. That was quite a while ago now and the brindabella range is devoid of a lot of wild life. Some have returned  over the years but not a patch on what it used to be like. I can drive through through the Tidbinbilla nature reserve and am lucky if I see or hear a cocky or parrot. Plenty of kangaroo of course. Some emu survived by hunkering down amongst big boulders.  Even the tree regrowth on the tops of the hills is sparse with plenty of rocky round boulders very visible. The top soil is blowing away. A few more years and there will not be much left up there.

This country has survived many wild fires and floods over thousands of years but these current fires are worse than any I can recall. Of course over the next 4 or 5 years the bush will regenerate but not so the wild life ( especially birds and other flying critters, they have had nowhere to flee to that has not been burnt

Does anyone recall when all we had to fight bush fires with were knapsacks, shovels, bucket brigades and long strips of canvas attached to the end of a long wooden handle? (fer beating the flames out)
Now we have high tech water trucks equipped with water cannons, high capacity water tanks and powerful pumps, Water bombing air craft and fire retardent chemicals, airborn fire spotters, and a vast array of life saving equipment....Yet the fires today have us almost beaten, even after the unbelievably extraordinary bravery and  efforts of our fire fighters. ...... I said "Almost beaten". Aussies are never ever down and out and we never quit.

Yes Adrian I do remember and have actually even done that, and on most occasions actually managed to put the fire out mind you we never used to fill in a mountain of paper work first and do a pre risk assessment of what the fire may or may not do while watching it, we just went and put the fire out.

That's not the way to do it now. What is the answer?

regards dave

Maybe there is no answer Dave. We will always have bush fires.
    Maybe a fire extinguisher bomb needs to be developed that can be dropped by aircraft onto the fire front. A wave of aircraft could attack the entire fire front in one go and then mopping up could take place?
  Fire extinguishing bombing could knock out spot fires in inaccessible areas.

Aborigines are said to have used fire to control undergrowth and to chase animals out into the open.
Trouble is they had no way of putting the fires out and so they just let them go and now they claim they were caring for the country ....Give me  break.

Victoria bush fire history.
https://www.ffm.vic.gov.au/history-and-incidents/past-bushfires

Bush Fire History in Australia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/lets-tell-the-burning-truth/news-story/ae30e22c69a0a9a7fe4141bc4e9442a8?sv=6026a1a17db53634a49100e7c0d0db6f

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/aerial-fireys-satellites-capture-monster-nsw-bushfires-from-above/news-story/320c810947f8d7fbb07139c1a9b9a843

I was in our local CFA when young. We used to go out and do fire break burns around farm houses and sheds. The farmer would plough two lines of fire breaks and we would burn the grass off between the ploughed lines to protect the house and machinery sheds. We had one old Bedford fire truck for this job. It would take every evening for weeks before we had made safe as possible every home in the brigades district.

While in the CFA I never had to fight any very big fires. A few scrub fires and several grass fires as well as some haystack fires that had caught alight from spontainious combustion. This is caused by the hay being baled too green and bacteria action causes the grass to become very hot and eventually bursting into flames. The smart blokes would, if they thought there was a chance of their hay burning would thrust a long crowbar into the heart of the stack. They would then check it every day for excess heat.

We certainly did not have the gear the fireies have today but we managed and I don't remember anyone being badly hurt. One event I do remember was at the last farm for the night. We were invited in for a cup of tea leaving the slow burning fire creeping along in short grass. The dew keeping it cool. But that little fire crept under the truck and damn near burned all the tires and exploded the petrol tank. You never saw so many blokes move so fast as we did to get that truck moving.

And I can well remember those Knapsacks, boy, were they heavy when full. We'd reduce the load as fast as we could. And I have used the long poles with the canvas strips when guarding the edge of a controlled burn. Controlled roadside burns made great firebreaks but I don't know if they are still done.

We were lucky and even today there have been no really big fires in that district that I know of.

As for the Aborigines, from all I have researched they simply lit a fire and left it burn itself out, maybe weeks later when it rained.

.bom is predicting a low off the NW coast may develop by Sunday. Lets hope we will see another develop off the East coast and bring heavy rain to relieve the firies and residents and flora and fauna. Enough is enough. Hopefully when this is all over and families grieving their losses it will be a wake up call to return to fire prevention procedures from days gone by. Morrison will need to lead from the front foot and tell all Australians that we will protect Australia from another disaster like present.

Would be nice to see a bit of rain but I doubt it will happen any time soon.
The 16 day forecast for Canberra indicates 40mm rain on the 13 Jan...I think the BOM is hallucinating or just wishful thinking.
Tomorrow will be a scorcher on the South Coast and there are a few fires just across the Ranges from Canberra that although are smallish and are a good distance away are going to be a problem if not got under control real soon, like bloody yesterday.
    OK so they are small fires but so was the fire that barrelled into Canberra in 2003. It was not given enough attention right from the get go.

In my opinion one of the biggest problems we have with these fires are the amount of people living on bush blocks with trees growing right up to the walls. Councils not allowing clearing to be done on these blocks so the owners went ahead and built between the trees. Along comes a fire and there you go We saw it in the big Victorian fires a few years ago and lately in the Cuddlee Creek fire in SA.

And I saw Morrison getting a bollocking from some townsfolk who had lost most of their town. Even the firies refused to shake his hand. I can understand how upset they were but it was never his fault they were burned out. Mostly I think it was the media beating up that he had taken a few days holiday with his family. Now both Qld and Vic premiers have done the same thing and no one is on their case like they are on Morrison's. And it is the states who are responsible for the fire control in their respective states, not the Federal government.

Unfortunately it has all happened before and will happen again no matter how hard we try.

If NSW or VIC or WA or QLD or SA were under attack from "another" source, would Scomo just say nothing, and its that state has to get the job done......

I don't think so, the Armed forces would be called on immediately, well these states are under attack and have been for months now and the Armed forces could have, and should have been commanded into action to put the damn fires out when they were small.

There are reports of people telling the authorities about small fires from "lightning" or whatever, and the fires are let burn for weeks and in some cases months until it is a raging inferno and of course it is not possible to put out then.

A few planes or helicopter droping fire retardant or water on a small fire up in inaccessible country within a very short time of it being reported and put the bloody thing out.

Scomo is supposed to be the leader of this country then bloodywell lead

I agree to a certain extent but these fires are going to get ya even if your house is in the middle of footy field, especially here in Canberra where the streets and suburbs are lined with flaming gum trees...and I do mean flaming. Of all of the trees to cover your city with in a fire prone country, Gum trees are the worst due to their flamability

davsgold wrote:If NSW or VIC or WA or QLD or SA were under attack from "another" source, would Scomo just say nothing, and its that state has to get the job done......

I don't think so, the Armed forces would be called on immediately, well these states are under attack and have been for months now and the Armed forces could have, and should have been commanded into action to put the damn fires out when they were small.

There are reports of people telling the authorities about small fires from "lightning" or whatever, and the fires are let burn for weeks and in some cases months until it is a raging inferno and of course it is not possible to put out then.

A few planes or helicopter droping fire retardant or water on a small fire up in inaccessible country within a very short time of it being reported and put the bloody thing out.

Scomo is supposed to be the leader of this country then bloodywell lead    

Agreed mate 100%.
Trouble is that our Prime Minister comes across as just a Public Servant and not a country leader
Does the American President go on a school holiday with his kids (coz he promised them) when there are tornadoes, floods n fires ravaging the country.

exactly

Actually, Obama did.

Morrison is not Tony Abbot. Tony was, in my estimation one of our best PMs. He is out there many days now fighting fires and supporting the fire fighters. But Tony is a trained fire fighter and has been at it for many years. Morrison, like most city folk have no flamin' idea about fire fighting and would only get in the road if he tried to become to involved.

I see many TV presenters who cannot tell the difference between back burning and fire reduction burning. All they want to do is sensationalise the fires with words like unprecedented and fire storms and fire tornadoes and unstoppable walls of flame.

What is totally unprecedented is the absolute rubbish people are being fed 24/7 about these fires. They are scaring the shiit out of people who have never experienced sever bush fires. As a result people are believing anything that the media throw at them like these fires are Climate Fires, how the devil do you burn the climate. It is crazy stuff designed to sell more papers and air time. I can see how people are worried. They turn on their TV, especially the ABC at any time of the day and night and all they see is a wall of flame behind the presenter. Even I was beginning to think the entire country was on fire.

And every summer it is the same, people not readying their homes for the summer. Gutters full of leaves from the gum trees overhanging their homes and then complaining because their house burned down. People not insuring their homes against fire while living in fire prone areas. Having a good deal of interest in all this due to my country up bringing I have noted how you can actually fire proof your home and it isn't that expensive.

If you have a bore, or a large pool you have a water source. Attach a diesel powered remote self start fire pump to your water source. Attach plenty of sprinklers on the roof of your house. You can then remote start your pump from your mobile phone while at work if you have to. Build a fire proof bunker. You can build this yourself if your are fit enough. Keep the ground around your house clean of debri and fuel. Your house is now reasonable safe and fire proof.

I learned most of this from a friend who not only survived the Marysville fire in Victoria but saved 7 people who were his unprepared neighbours while other perished trying to flee leaving homes with bores and swimming pools full of water behind.

granite2 wrote:Actually, Obama did.

I doubt that you would find many Americans with a good word to say about Obummer.

granite2 wrote:Morrison is not Tony Abbot. Tony was, in my estimation one of our best PMs. He is out there many days now fighting fires and supporting the fire fighters. But Tony is a trained fire fighter and has been at it for many years. Morrison, like most city folk have no flamin' idea about fire fighting and would only get in the road if he tried to become to involved.

I see many TV presenters who cannot tell the difference between back burning and fire reduction burning. All they want to do is sensationalise the fires with words like unprecedented and fire storms and fire tornadoes and unstoppable walls of flame.

What is totally unprecedented is the absolute rubbish people are being fed 24/7 about these fires. They are scaring the shiit out of people who have never experienced sever bush fires. As a result people are believing anything that the media throw at them like these fires are Climate Fires, how the devil do you burn the climate. It is crazy stuff designed to sell more papers and air time. I can see how people are worried. They turn on their TV, especially the ABC at any time of the day and night and all they see is a wall of flame behind the presenter. Even I was beginning to think the entire country was on fire.

And every summer it is the same, people not readying their homes for the summer. Gutters full of leaves from the gum trees overhanging their homes and then complaining because their house burned down. People not insuring their homes against fire while living in fire prone areas. Having a good deal of interest in all this due to my country up bringing I have noted how you can actually fire proof your home and it isn't that expensive.

If you have a bore, or a large pool you have a water source. Attach a diesel powered remote self start fire pump to your water source. Attach plenty of sprinklers on the roof of your house. You can then remote start your pump from your mobile phone while at work if you have to. Build a fire proof bunker. You can build this yourself if your are fit enough. Keep the ground around your house clean of debri and fuel. Your house is now reasonable safe and fire proof.

I learned most of this from a friend who not only survived the Marysville fire in Victoria but saved 7 people who were his unprepared neighbours while other perished trying to flee leaving homes with bores and swimming pools full of water behind.

For sure some people do not ready their homes against bush fire. Many are hindered by rules and regulations and being threatened with 50,000 dollar fines if they cut trees in their yard down without first obtaining a permit that can take months to obtain. and then you have to get a bloody qualified tree surgeon to do it! Ye Gods and little fishes!!

On the other hand if you are in the suburbs of a fire threatened town or city watching a wall of flame charging towards your house and your neighbours houses. The wind howling and the sky near totally black with sheets of almost liquid fire flowing through the black clouds over your head and then to see it leap into the air and roll and enfold itself into a huge fire ball as it leaps out of the bush, across the road and to then to crash down into yours and your neighbours houses totally obliterating six houses in an instant. If you could see this you would see that no amount of tree clearing in your yard would have been of any use whatsoever.
Then you go back after a couple of days to check out what is left and you see a cat that somehow survived this hell on earth, sitting in the middle of a pile of smoking vitrified brick and melted glass and  rubble that was once its owners house, meowing plaintively and no doubt wondering what the hell just happened.
Then down the road a bit there was a Veterinarian whose animals were not so lucky.

Of course not everybody will live to see something like that and no matter how futile you might think your attempts to fire proof your house may seem to be, it is better to do something than nothing.

Agree Adrian,if radiant heat can kill a person from 300 meters away what hope has a house got,windows shatters,embers get into the roof space ,under the house, ect.
The fire generates it's own wind energy,enough as we heard to flip an 8 tonne fire truck [rip m8].sprinklers on houses would be rendered mostly useless.
If it were a simple scrub fire then yes a house could be saved,these fires have been described as monsters ,even the most experienced/veteran firefighters have not seen
any thing like it.

cheers   moredeep

granite2 wrote:Morrison is not Tony Abbot. Tony was, in my estimation one of our best PMs. He is out there many days now fighting fires and supporting the fire fighters. But Tony is a trained fire fighter and has been at it for many years. Morrison, like most city folk have no flamin' idea about fire fighting and would only get in the road if he tried to become to involved.

I see many TV presenters who cannot tell the difference between back burning and fire reduction burning. All they want to do is sensationalise the fires with words like unprecedented and fire storms and fire tornadoes and unstoppable walls of flame.

What is totally unprecedented is the absolute rubbish people are being fed 24/7 about these fires. They are scaring the shiit out of people who have never experienced sever bush fires. As a result people are believing anything that the media throw at them like these fires are Climate Fires, how the devil do you burn the climate. It is crazy stuff designed to sell more papers and air time. I can see how people are worried. They turn on their TV, especially the ABC at any time of the day and night and all they see is a wall of flame behind the presenter. Even I was beginning to think the entire country was on fire.

And every summer it is the same, people not readying their homes for the summer. Gutters full of leaves from the gum trees overhanging their homes and then complaining because their house burned down. People not insuring their homes against fire while living in fire prone areas. Having a good deal of interest in all this due to my country up bringing I have noted how you can actually fire proof your home and it isn't that expensive.

If you have a bore, or a large pool you have a water source. Attach a diesel powered remote self start fire pump to your water source. Attach plenty of sprinklers on the roof of your house. You can then remote start your pump from your mobile phone while at work if you have to. Build a fire proof bunker. You can build this yourself if your are fit enough. Keep the ground around your house clean of debri and fuel. Your house is now reasonable safe and fire proof.

I learned most of this from a friend who not only survived the Marysville fire in Victoria but saved 7 people who were his unprepared neighbours while other perished trying to flee leaving homes with bores and swimming pools full of water behind.

Yes very bad situation with the media politicalising the fires and using scare mongering on the people.
By the way they are behaving they wan't SCOMO to act like some kind of a Moses, and instantly shut all those Coal fired power stations and coal mines.
Glad Bill Short fuse lost the 2019 election or else we would have ALP / Greens declaring a climate emergency, which will allow Petrol & Diesel to be sold at $10.00 a litre and rationed for civilian use.

The bushland has been poorly managed by government policy since the green influence started to control things.
If any lessons need learning out of this it would be good if the green lobby can be silenced for their lies and distortions.

The Greens should be silenced totally as a party. They have demonstrated time and time again that they are incapable of sane environmental management.

In the 1960's,70's I was a senior level employee with what was then the largest sawmilling organisation in NSW.
The company operated sawmills/logging operations on the Eastern side of the Great Divide between Bega in the South and Grafton in the North. In between were many, many both large and small sawmilling organisations, including the family of past Premier Nick Greiner.
The industry was controlled by the State Forestry Commission, very competently based on a managed, sustainable extraction of mill logs. The Commission was a large employer of both professional and ground force workers with a vast inventory of road building equipment and forest management resources.
Logging was carried out on a rotational basis with logged areas being subsequently burned to negate a build up of fuel load in summer conditions. Quite simply, forests generated a very substantial source of State income through royalties, grazing rights for cattle producers, whilst being properly "managed" in perpetuity.
Come the 1980's and politicians started to notice the increasing noise from the Green movement, "rent a crowd" demonstrations had started against logging, so to maintain the political status quo the Forestry Commission was wound down, vast tracts of State Forest converted to National Parks, Commission employees hived off to NPWS, Commission offices closed, new NPWS offices built and (very sadly) logging quotas sold off to the highest bidder(s).

Where we now live in NSW, from Armidale to the Qld. border, what were once a continual succession of managed and logged State Forests are now a string of NP's, locked off, with the smoke finally clearing after yet another total conflagration. The fire had to be allowed to burn, after years of neglect, lantana, blackberry and other ground cover growth, any fire control access is simply impossible.
Unfortunately, 2 properties were destroyed plus many kilometres of boundary fencing which the property owners will have to replace then lodge a claim against NPWS.

Looking at the map of areas burned in this recent bushfire episode at least 90% has NP's as a major contributor as to the frontal propagation and total area of completely inaccessible country
One also wonders how much the Government sponsored, income producing "carbon credits" scheme has contributed to the fires burning over private freehold or leasehold land, the scheme is very popular in the NT and NW WA

2020....Land Management by Crisis.....well done Australia

Hazel Hawke quote: "A mixture of empathy and brainstorming can move mountains"
If anything is learned from our present disaster, replace the mountains with under storage and our fire threat will be reduced dramatically.
Cattle (natural under storage removalists) were removed from national parks because of "Greens" Maybe bring back the cattle and lay all the greens on the ground in the parks, will get rid of both problems.

Back in Winter 1969 I visited WA's SW state forests and climbed the famous Diamond & Gloucester lookout trees.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-11/iconic-diamond-tree-to-close/11299332
These trees were manned daily to keep an eye on the surrounding karri forest where managed logging was in place and small farm plots.
In the cabin at the top of these trees the lookout had a map table and means for triangular map reading. The operator pointed to some smoke in the distance and asked me to estimate how far it was away? Had purely a guess and said 12 miles. The operator then explained he would demonstrate the need for these spotting platforms in vast areas of forest.
He took a plot on his map and then rang two other towers asking for their information. He transferred that detail onto his map and with this triangular navigation he established the fire was on a 20 acre farmlet. (No GPS, satellites etc back then.)
His words stuck in my mind to this day. "Just a settler doing a cool burn!"
Of course logging is almost completely banned now. If you now drive the SW highways the forests are growing up to the edges of the roads with under storage metres high.
Residents in Perth have spread out into the Darling Range and building their homes. Their plot of land can only cleared the size of their building plot. A fire several years back started by a resident using an angle grinder destroyed many homes. Residents asked that the clearing regulations be altered to allow them to clear a fire break around their homes. The "shiny bums" came back and said the regulations will allow owners to trim trees (not remove them) if the foliage is overhanging the top decks/verandas.
** It is only a matter of time and you will see and read about a fire disaster in the Darling Ranges over looking Perth**
Our Federal Government needs to intervene in light of this present disaster and over rule State legislation and bring back "cool burns" to reduce fire intensity.

On a happier note news just to hand is a tropical low developing in the NW will most certainly now develop into a cyclone bringing rain to the very dry West.
Lets all hope that it is a sign and one will develop on the East coast and bring relief to the suffering!

Yes Nightjar, in NSW the fire watch towers, erected by the Forestry Commission for the same purpose you mention, were all burned to the ground by NPWS because they wanted the NP to be "pristine"......then they lock the gates anyway........
Still quite a few around here, bit older than me, who just sadly shake their heads in the shame of it all.

If you need to know what the weather and fires are doing around Canberra.
https://ozforecast.com.au/cgi-bin/weather.cgi?station=Canberra.ACT

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me

BOOBOOK ; that post was absolutely spot on .I'm just sorta west of you ,a hr or two ,and surrounded on all three sides by forestry up in the hills ,now a couple of years ago when I shifted here ,I cleaned my block up ,couple of acres ,with chain saw and excavator and matches ,and finally I managed to meet the forestry ranger for this area ,and he reckoned i'd done a good job of cleaning the block up ,then I explained that was just the first stage ,the 2nd one was to clear a 4m break around the out side of my boundary ,which i'm legally intilted to do ,but then I said the 3rd stage was then I wanted to then start clearing out the suckers only ( pine ) going into the forestry ,now far as he was concerned ,he said go your hardest ,wear as many saws out as you like BUT HE SAID AS WELL ,for  gawds sake don't tell any one I said that ,and don't start till I come over and go over it with you ,to cover both our asses ,.cause there are some people who think differently .Now I also mentioned that I then wanted to burn that felled timber ,a joint effort between Forestry ,RFS  & myself ,in which he replied ,Good luck with that one Now I also went and approached the RFS commander ,and explained what I've been talking about ,and he reeled back in shock ,horror ,and he replied as well that he couldn't see that happening .Now i'm NOT taking a shot at either of these chaps , top fellas ,but of course there only to carry out what there instructed to do by there superiors and the beauracratic legality's
  It's also only come to my attention in the last 18 mths around my part of the world ,and down at the Upper Horton and else where the staggering amount of country being bought up for Carbon Farming

Quite a bit of carbon lying around on the ground at the moment. Maybe those twits should farm that. Not to mention what has gone up into the atmosphere as a result of these fires, caused by the very people who call themselves environmentalists..... Oh yeah, that's right, the weather had a bit to do with it as well. The overall carbon pollution level in Australia has risen measurably as a result of the current fires and a hell of a lot more than what it would have as a result of man made pollution over the next 200 years at a rough guess.
When is this country going to get rid of all the Dip Stick tree huggers  in positions of environmental power control..
Maybe they should became people huggers, then they would feel much better, need less pot and crack, be a lot more relaxed and not have to think about what they should demonstrate about

Adrian,
You would be surprised how many "tree huggers" moved to the vacant houses in logging towns after the business were closed by the "white ants" who moved in.
Short walk into the forest to tend their they grew with very little chance of being discovered.

Currently know a Balmain greenie mocha set person who has never set foot in a forest and jetted off to Spain and UK over Xmas to escape Sydney smoke Who is against fire reduction and wants us to get rid of all fossil fuel. By the way a multimillionaire thanks to a developer father who destroyed wetlands to build his empire. These are the sort of self interested grubs we are all up against, also thinks all stateforests should be converted into national parks and surprise surprise thinks detecting and panning is destructive to the environment. Unfortunately that is what we are up against. By the way rural fire service are doing their best and good on them