NSW Bush Fires

Fire is moving towards the Corin Dam while  Bredbo has had a small reprieve but still under threat.
Tharwa has survived so far.
Good to be able to look out the window and not see fire approaching the outer South Canberra suburbs.
The water bombing and fire retardant spreading has had significant positive effect.

Went to Batemans Bay yesterday.
The fire damage between Braidwood and the Bay has to be seen to be believed. There are not enough words in the English language to describe it fully.

Saw burnt out homes and farms and people living in caravans where their house used to be.
Where has all of the funds raised for these people gone to, because they do not appear to be getting much of it??
The Red Cross , the Salvo's and the RFS seem to be doing ok out of it.....But seem reluctant to issue the money to those it was raised to help.

Whenever large sums of money are raised for people in desperate need of it as a result of disaster, there will always be those types of people who through pure greed will make a grab for the cash.

When people initiate these fund raisers they have good intentions but do not think about the legalities of it all and then the money raised gets caught up in red tape.

I find it a little strange that there has been no discussion anywhere about those people who are insured and those that aren't. A couple of years ago in SA we had a fire and half the people who lost everything had no insurance. Millions were raised by charities which the Labor government took control of. They then announced all those who had no insurance would get money from the fund while those insured would get nothing.

Why would anyone bother paying insurance premiums when you can get your house rebuilt and filled with furniture for free?

Maybe these latest bushfires wil move some people into examining the benefits of Berm Homes. Completely fireproof so you don't need to pay for insurance.

Some money maybe, but a little hard to believe there Jim, for by the time the charity raised funds, finish going through government officials hands, I doubt there'd be much left, for the un-insured.
As for the insured people that were entitled to lodge claims for fire damage, they too can look forward to a hefty bonus hike in their insurance premiums the following year.

Cheers Kon.

It's called peace of mind Granite,leaving your house and returning to find a charred mess caused by an electrical fault is my reason for insuring .
Playing Russian roulette 364 days of the year ain't fun.
Big disasters like this one do generate money and pity for a rebuild of non insured homes.
I very much doubt in a small event bush fire a charity would bail them out?? bad luck to them I guess & that's the gamble/risk they take.
Affording insurance can be tough on some,plain house insurance with no contents is do able/affordable I think.

cheers moredeep

some people will have insurance for the house and contents if they can afford it and if they have a top policy they will be given accommodation while the house is being rebuilt...These are the so called lucky ones and you will have to live for at least 12 months till completion.
If you are not so lucky you will be living in a tent or caravan or maybe a shipping container.on site (if the Council allows) until you can start to rebuild.
You will loose a hell of a lot more than just house and contents during a bush fire of these past proportions.
Also who is responsible for your loss when the fire was caused by miss managed official back burning etc.

True,PANDORA'S BOX does open when a fire is caused by a poorly managed electricity grid or a low life convicted of arson or as you say a back burn stuff up.
There is no quick fix when rebuilding in these area's,getting enough tradesman into these communities is mind boggling to say the least.
Councils are basically run by yes people who don't think out side the box,pity.

cheers moredeep

The spread of the disease after the fire is even more worrying

my heart goes out to all affected.

Good time to get out into the South Coast gold fields now that the fires have cleared the undergrowth out. Can get to all those previously inaccessable areas.

Good idea Adrian,but a warning DON'T BREATH IN THE BLACK SOOTY STUFF can't be good for your health/lungs?
And face masks will be hard to come by for obvious reasons.


cheers   moredeep

ps watch out for the widow makers

yeah although I reckon we have copped a fair bit already.
5000 years from now alien archeologysts will be sifting through a dig site on the south coast and will wonder about the thin layer of black ash, dust n bone that they just found all over NSW. They might conclude that the extinct people that lived there should have listened to Greta Thumberlina who thinks she has been been sent by God to tell everybody to change their anti planet ways......Not sure why God didn't tell us his/her /itself. Like I mean I would take notice of big G before I listened to an uneducated 17 year old grumpy bum.

The big G eh? I think It's the big MN [mudda nature] who's controlling our lives,she's trying to re balance the rubbish we are throwing at her
As with edumacation, having a high level of it proves nutting.
Some people have an IQ of a zillion but are unable to change a Tyre
Most of our pollies are highly educated, Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay no more


cheers moredeep

Very true. Hi IQ is useless without knowledge, common sense and wisdom.
Our most successful criminals have HI IQ as do some of our most notorious serial, killers.
With age comes wisdom.
High school drop outs lack both wisdom and knowledge and as such can be easily manipulated by cunning crafty types with hidden political agendas.

Greta might be right and you may be wrong Adrian. Errr, you must have been wrong at some time, surely? No? ....... You mean you have always been right??? Always????

I have been wrong about everything all of my life. That is why I am sitting at this dip Shite computer typing crap and with no money in the bank.

  It is probably why I am still scratching around in the dirt and sand looking for coins that when I find them they are so stuffed as to be useless.
It is why I had to listen to another self righteous fruit cake at the beach last Sunday telling me that what I was doing was illegal and that I have to hand in to the police every coin I find coz they are not mine. I took the coins out of my pocket and handed them to him and said Break a leg mate, see if you can find the owners of that corroded crap. He dropped them on the sand and walked away....Dumb ass pansy....I should have shoved my fist down his throat and ripped his lungs out.
but I didn't coz I am a nice person and besides it would have been messy.

Greta believes she is right about whatever she is going on about and will not listen to any other opinion that differs from her own.

Correct decision Adrian,we don't condone acts of gratuitous violence on the forum.
Besides,it's very difficult to remove a set of lungs through a persons oral cavity, in fact near impossible,the tongue would be a easier choice.

cheers moredeep

More power to you Adrian. When faced with idiots just smile and say, "God loves you" and walk away. It confuses the crap out of them. I know it does me.

moredeep wrote:Correct decision Adrian,we don't condone acts of gratuitous violence on the forum.
Besides,it's very difficult to remove a set of lungs through a persons oral cavity, in fact near impossible,the tongue would be a easier choice.

cheers  moredeep

Like I said. It would have been messy.

We have heard a lot of talk these days from global warming and climate change extremists telling us how all of the carbon in the air is going to do all manner of harm to the planet.
    Something I have noticed lately here in and around Canberra is that all of the grassland  that is normally brown here is  now the greenest I have ever seen it and I have been here for 40 years. Tidbinbilla and the surrounding countryside is post card perfect displaying  the most amazing greenery that I have ever seen here. Even the new tree growths that are sprouting are greener than ever seen before in this area.
    What has caused this this occur?.......It has been caused by the latest bush fire smoke and ash settling into the ground feeding the grass roots with much needed nutrient and add to that the latest burst of rain and we have what is looking like a miracle.
      The air is amazingly fresh with more oxygen being given of by the trees and grass.

Sort of shoots down in flames the notion that carbon and carbon dioxide in the air is bad for the earth.

I suppose next you will be saying just how good it was for the animals, birds and insects that were incinerated.

Blimey mate, you have clearly misinterpreted  everything I said and meant.
    I meant that the enormous amount of carbon and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere has had a great beneficial effect on the grasses and other plant life around the Canberra area.
I did not say or mean let's burn Australia and kill of all of our wild life.   I did say in what I thought was a very clear way,  that maybe man made carbon and carbon dioxide can be  of significant benefit to the plant life. Plants take in carbon dioxide and give of oxygen. That and water is what keeps this planet liveable for all animal life.

adrian ss wrote:Blimey mate, you have clearly misinterpreted  everything I said and meant.
    I meant that the enormous amount of carbon and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere has had a great beneficial effect on the grasses and other plant life around the Canberra area.
I did not say or mean let's burn Australia and kill of all of our wild life.   I did say in what I thought was a very clear way,  that maybe man made carbon and carbon dioxide can be  of significant benefit to the plant life. Plants take in carbon dioxide and give of oxygen. That and water is what keeps this planet liveable for all animal life.

More C02 can only benefit plants when they have sufficient moisture and nutrients. C02 induced climate change is leading to declining rainfall in some regions like SE Australia. Plants under stress from rising temperatures and drying conditions can also not utilize higher C02 levels! Higher C02 levels may also be of most benefit to weeds and noxious invasive species rather than native species or food crops.The negative effects of rising atmospheric C02 levels far outweigh any benefits. The earths last mass extinction event the Palaeocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) occurred when C02 levels rose rapidly and if we persist with business as usual we will reach these C02 levels before the end of this century.
https://interestingengineering.com/scientist-predicts-mass-extinction-caused-by-breach-of-carbon-threshold
https://climateandcapitalism.com/2018/10/23/greenhouse-gases-and-mass-extinctions-speed-kills/

Oh well no point in arguing the point. Those who believe mankind is changing the climate will never change their opinion.
      Hell could freeze over and still they would blame it on man made global warming.
As for Canberra; it and the surrounding countryside is looking fantastic.
One other small point is that I have not had to mow my back and front yard lawns for several years because there has been no lawn to mow,
Now a few weeks after the pollution caused by the recent fires has settled combined with a bit of rain, I have a nice green lawn to mow.