NSW Bush Fires

PJT,Who are we talking about?? balamain greenie mocha??? enlighten me

cheers moredeep

Known her for years, son was involved I selfstaining  environmentally friendly Palm Oil plantations, just a comment on the type of hypocrisy you meet from those who are not out there and fail to see you just can't blame Scomo or climate change for whats going down. By the way I spent over 30 years in the Riverina and saw the creation and lock up of National Parks as rangers were put off and woody weed, pigs , goats etc prevailed. Also saw desert turn into great country with total recovery of plants , animals etc after drought broke in Hay in 2010. Will be a while till access granted to forests etc for fossicking in NSW, and other states but it will come. Lives in inner Sydney Balmain, okay misspelt, inner city latte set.
regards

Call me a little thick PJT,but still none the wiser who we are talking about.
Agree that lock up of national parks is crazy and the environment does make a recovery after rains, be it slow at times and may take several decades to fully recover in some cases/area's.

cheers moredeep

City centric groups with a mindset that is locked into get rid of all resource use yet are themselves major uses of resources and hence contribute to the problem but want others to solve it. Example if all the protesters yesterday cut electricity use and stopped driving cars using transport etc they could help to make a change but they will not disturb their lifestyle. Any way we need to keep out of off limits areas until all is okay and then go back to fossicking
regards Phil

gotcha phil,agree .
They're probably unaware that the polyester clothes they might be wearing won't rot down for hundreds of years [basically plastic].
unfortunately we/they become blind to our/their own bad habits .
Keep safe

Cheers moredeep

Ok so burning the bush creates new re growth...Blimey who'd have thought!
How about not letting it burn in the first place ?...... Result is no loss of habitat, no loss of animals, no loss food supplies, no loss of farms and private buildings. no loss of life, no loss of anything.
How do we stop the bush from burning during drought?? Well unless you are God it could be a bit tricky, but then again, relying on God seems to have failed miserably aye?!
Certain peoples say that they cared for the country by letting the bush burn?/ BWAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAAA HAAAAAaAAAAAAAA etc

If you can stop natural bushfires burning in Australia you'll be doing well Adrian.

Geoscience Australia wrote:Bushfires are an intrinsic part of Australia's environment. Natural ecosystems have evolved with fire, and the landscape, along with its biological diversity, has been shaped by both historic and recent fires. Many of Australia's native plants are fire prone and very combustible, while numerous species depend on fire to regenerate. Indigenous Australians have long used fire as a land management tool and it continues to be used to clear land for agricultural purposes and to protect properties from intense, uncontrolled fires.

Historically, bushfires have caused loss of life and significant damage to property. While naturally occurring bushfires cannot be averted, their consequences can be minimised by implementing mitigation strategies and reducing the potential impact to areas which are most vulnerable

They are a part of Australia's natural cycle. By populating high risk areas & not putting in or maintaining risk mitigation actions to help reduce their intensity we've inadvertently caused what we're seeing this year IMO.
It's these massive intense fires that aren't needed but we've done little to prevent them or reduce the impact with good planning.
Although one wonders how intense & relatively unstoppable these fires burnt prior to 1788 or the recording of bushfires from around ~1850. I doubt these current fires are the worst in Australian history - just unprecedented in our short recorded history made worse by increasing population.

What can we do about them? Hopefully something better is put in place after this years mess.
The willful lighting of, careless/reckless or accidental caused fires (i.e. man-made) well we can work to prevent or stop them to a certain extent? They'll still get lit by our willful actions or stupidity though.
Can't stop the natural fires i.e. lightning
We can only really mitigate the risks & that means hazard reduction burning or land clearing in high risk areas as a part of that. It will never stop bushfires here altogether though & it will never stop catastrophic bushfires in areas now populated/getting more populated.
Maybe more stringent building codes, fire sprinkler systems etc. in high risk areas like Gippsland & the Blue Mountains?
Staged firewood collection areas in Parks & Forests + other Crown Lands to reduce fuel loads?
Storm water capture, more RO plants for water treatment/desalination & increased water storage facilities in high risk areas?

 Well written mbasko

To implement your suggestions 'mbasko' the environmental act would have to be put aside or amended.
It also depends on the terms of reference in the upcoming royal commission.

That's where they stack the deck...THE TERMS OF REFERENCE.

A lot could be implemented under current legislation if not with minor amendments.
The red/green bureaucratic tape is what needs to be streamlined or removed.
Don't know if another Royal Commission is the answer? Been done before at state level without much change?
At the end of the day I don't know what the answer/s is but I know we need to change things. What we're doing isn't working.
Common sense & good practice needs to come before personal ideology or opinion to move forward. I'm not holding my breath.

Don't think logic comes to mind,common sense what's that!
In a fire storm the one of the main contributing factor for a house burning down is embers getting inside.
Change building codes for high risk area's for sure. no 1, External window shutters,once a window breaks it all over, No spouting? water collection from sheds only??
Metal fly wire around base boards[ i think that is already a reg in some places ]
Better off with a sprinkler system inside the house or in the roof space , High winds would blow any spray away.[ would be like peeing into the wind ]
As heard on the radio ,one women stated that towns that have one road in and out should have 20 or so meters cleared on each side of the roads into these places.
Fallen trees would then not block access in or out, makes sense?
That's my two bobs worth.

cheers moredeep

Religious F F has not read the bible at James chapter 1 verse 13.

I don't own a bible dundiggin and have never read it, you'll have to elaborate .

cheers moredeep

Tut, tut, moredeep you heathen. At least I will have you to talk to 'down there', as I wouldn't know any bugger 'up there'.

It's raining in Sydney ! 50 m.m. and more at Terry Hills , closest to me , but very coastal and some places missing out .

74 m.m. of rain at Terry Hills , so far , suburb of Sydney. Stopped raining but more could come .

So now we have a fire at Orroral Valley approx 20 clicks West of my front yard. This fire appears to have started down on the valley floor, no doubt from a bbq fire or a cig butt tossed out the window of a car. I do not know if any controlled burns were being carried out down there.

No way did this fire  start by natural cause. No lightning within a bulls roar of the place and a bit of broken glass focussing the suns rays into the leaf litter is very very remote.
The fire started within metres of a fire trail and another small fire started a bit later further up another track (The Link Track)and just a few metres from it of f to the side. There is a nut case out there.

There is plenty of water in the nearby Corin Dam for water bombers, even tho  the level is well below capacity.
The Cotter dam is at a good level.

Even though the fire is moving SE it  has the potential to travel into Thawa and North along the brindabella's and threaten Canberra.What I can see out of my front room window is reminding me of what  could see back in 2003 a couple of days before the Canberra fires.
The fire crews are out there attacking it with everything they have. Let's hope it is enough.
    There is just millions of dry as a fart gum trees and difficult terrain between the fire and us.

So this fire that was just a small fire a couple of days ago is now more than half the size of Canberra CBD area and is out of control and Tharwa is under direct threat from spot fires.
  Why the hell could this fire not be stopped when it was small???
Water bombers, many fire tankers and plenty of water and still this fire is fast becoming a runaway fire.

Just now a huge fire tanker bomber flew low over the house and disappeared into the smoke.
Jet engines need oxygen. There is not a hell of a lot of oxygen in very thick fire smoke cloud.

Thinking of you all up there,very grim scenes indeed.
stay safe,leave if you have to Adrian.
I have friends also in Canberra they're kacking their dacks at present .

cheers moredeep

Starting to look grim now. The fire is in Tidbinbilla nature reserve and a serious threat to the outer subburbs.

I can see a very sleepless night coming up Adrian.
Block those down pipes m8, hopefully you won,t get any ember attacks.
Its a scary feeling,experienced it during black Saturday when suburbs in Bendigo went up.
Stay alert.

cheers moredeep

Funny thing is that nobody around us seem to be all that fussed about the fire.      
    Bonython, Tharwa , Gordon are being threatened. Tharwa was evacuated earlier in the day.
Looking out the front room window now I cannot see any fire. Either because it is out (unlikely) or the smoke is so thick that the fire is hidden from view.

No way on Gods little earth was this fire started because of global warming or climate change or too much undergrowth fuel load. This was caused by human error or insanity.
Heard a rumour yesterday in my doctors clinic that it was started by an army chopper.  
What ever the case may be someone will answer for this.

Looks like your rumour was factual Adrian
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-28/namadgi-orroral-valley-fire-to-canberras-south-easing/11907438

Interesting reading. Blame it on the chopper. I wonder what was meant by doing "Ground Clearance work" ??
If the chopper was on the ground why were the landing lights on?
One of the several reasons you turn them off while on the ground especially in tinder dry grassed areas is that they can start fires quite close to the chopper.

The best solution for fire preparedness is to build Berm Homes, or as some call them, underground homes. People living on bush blocks or acreage should consider this option. They can be made 100% safe which is more than can be said for normal type homes. Berm Homes can also be made entirely self sufficient as well but that can cost a bit more depending on the availability of bore water.

If you Google Berm Homes you will see what I mean. They may cost a bit more but if you are living in a fire prone area they are well worth the investment. I for one wouldn't ask my family to live a bush fire prone area in a normal house.

The sun was not naked eye visible when I took this shota few minutes ago  but the camera could see it through the smoke.
Cropped in the camera from a larger pic.

Flying jet turbine powered aircraft into a bush fire zone especially at low altitude if fire bombing, comes with considerable risk of engine power loss or total flame outs due to oxygen starvation and also flying through super heated air above a large fire can cause engine damage and surging. Flying through the thick acrid smoke can clog up various engine and aircraft sensors that can also result in engine failure. clogging the pitot tube air speed sensors can result in incorrect airspeed indications that can result in stalling. (Airspeed reads high pilot throttles back, stall warning sounds pilot gets confused and ac stalls)
The recent C130 crash could have suffered one or more of these conditions)

The fires have flared again in the Namadgi and are very very close to Tharwa.
Temp is 41.3 in the shade of my wattle tree and tomorrow will be hotter.
Fire fighters have done well to contain this fire as well as they have but unfortunately it is still expanding although mainly towards the SE
. The fire reached  the top of the ridge overlooking the town.