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Wildfires

Fire

Crikey. Australian military preps for major evac operation from fire-ravaged Victoria


RT
Thu, 02 Jan 2020 11:10 UTC

Comment: It's 'climate change', sure, but there's nothing your govts can do to stop it...

At least they've found a productive use for the military.


australia wildfires mallacoota

Residents of Mallacoota in Victoria, Australia, prepare for emergency evacuation as wildfires reach the sea-shore
Plans to evacuate thousands of stranded residents from fire-ravaged communities in Victoria are underway; Australian navy ships are anchored offshore as air force vehicles brave the acrid smoke to evacuate the sick and elderly.

At least 18 people have died throughout the current bushfire season in Australia. Eight of the victims perished in the country's southeast on New Year's Eve, while 17 people remain unaccounted-for in Victoria State.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has declared a seven-day state of emergency and the fire service have created a roughly 200km-long "tourist leave zone."


Comment: Videos are emerging of the destruction some of these wildfires left in their wake:


What else is known, so far (summary courtesy of The Guardian):
  • The NSW government declared its third state of emergency, beginning on Saturday and running for seven days
  • The Australian Capital Territory has declared a state of alert
  • There are extraordinary delays and traffic jams on the roads out of South Coast regions, after authorities told all tourists and some residents to leave areas today and tomorrow
  • There are now four 'leave zones for tourists' and/or residents in Snowy Monaro, Shoalhaven, Batlow/Wondalga, and South coast
  • Evacuation orders were made for Kosciusko National Park, where the Dunns Road fire is taking hold
  • Exits were hampered by high crowds, road closures, and fuel shortages
  • Some service stations ran out, while others limited people to 50L of gas
  • Victorian authorities also urged people to leave the alpine and East Gippsland regions before the weekend
  • There is a total fire ban for NSW on Friday and Saturday
  • The Choulas Navy ship can take 500-1,000 people, but they will have to climb up a rope ladder to get aboard
  • Limited evacuations by air will be organised for elderly and infirm people
  • The conditions are predicted to be extreme in South Australia on Friday, with temperatures in Adelaide of 42C and 45C in the regions
  • Fire chief Mark Jones said the concern was already existing fires. "There are millions of sparks out there ready to go tomorrow if they break containment lines."
  • The prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, attended the funeral of firefighter Geoffrey Keaton, who died in December while fighting the Green Wattle Creek blaze
  • Some $21m in commonwealth disaster payments has so far been paid to fire victims in NSW
Is this scale of disaster-by-wildfire 'unprecedented' for Australia?

Update 19:00 CET

PM Scott Morrison has been visiting townships to 'lend his support'. It's not going too well...




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Fire

Thousands trapped on Australian beach by massive wildfire, turning skies RED and raining embers

Bronwen Weatherby
Evening Standard
Tue, 31 Dec 2019 03:04 UTC
Tourists and locals attempt to flee brush fires in Mallacoota, Australia, December 31, 2019
© Reuters / Instagram / @IDASHOPE4STROKE
Tourists and locals attempt to flee brush fires in Mallacoota, Australia, December 31, 2019.
Thousands of people have been forced onto the beaches in Australia as massive bushfires hit popular holiday resort towns.

Holidaymakers have fled into the water as the blaze moved into the Victorian town of Mallacoota in New South Wales on Tuesday morning.

Wildfires are now burning across the country's two most-populated states in what has been described as "apocalyptic" scenes.

Two are now confirmed to have died with five others still missing and feared dead with "significant losses" to property.


Comment: See also:

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Sun

Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Southern Hemisphere drought connection between Southern Africa and Australia


Adapt 2030
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 15:58 UTC
bushfire_sydney

Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
With all the talk of droughts and fires sweeping the Southern Hemisphere I found a connection to solar activity and drought cycles, which are with wildfire cycles. The connections between Southern Africa and Australia look as if its solar driven the changes. I will let you decide. Do you think this information is on the right track?


Comment: See also:

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Fire

Chile: 200 homes destroyed as wildfires tear through Valparaiso on Christmas Eve

Helen Regan
CNN
Wed, 25 Dec 2019 20:07 UTC

Comment: Again!? Valparaiso has been hit by major wildfires for the fourth time in just 5 years...


Chile fires

Houses burn during a forest fire at the Rocuant hill in Valparaiso, Chile, on December 24, 2019.
At least 200 homes have been destroyed after forest fires swept through a residential area in the Chilean port city of Valparaiso on Christmas Eve.

Hundreds of firefighters struggled to control the fast-moving blaze, which continued into Christmas Day and was made worse by dry weather and strong winds. Military units and helicopters were deployed to help battle the flames and residents were evacuated to shelters. The government regional leader of Valparaiso Jorge Martinez Duran said in a news conference on Wednesday that it is believed the fires were started intentionally.

Chilean Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel said in a post on Twitter that authorities were working to investigate and "there will be no impunity" for those found responsible. Images show dozens of houses completely destroyed by the flames and residents tried to salvage any belongings.

Comment: Jan 2017: Huge wildfire burns 100 homes in Valparaiso, Chile

Mar 2015: Thousands evacuated due to raging forest fire near Valparaiso, Chile

Apr 2014: Update: Final toll from devastating Valparaiso fire in Chile: 12 dead - 3,000 homes razed - 8,000 people homeless

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Fire

2 firefighters die as wildfires in Australia rage on - death toll rises to 8


Al Jazeera
Fri, 20 Dec 2019 13:14 UTC
Firefighters, many of them volunteers, are battling around 100 fires that have encircled Sydney amid drought and record-high temperatures
© Mick Tsikas/AAP
Firefighters, many of them volunteers, are battling around 100 fires that have encircled Sydney amid drought and record-high temperatures
The deaths of the two volunteer firefighters brings toll from the bushfires that have ravaged east for weeks to eight.

Two volunteer firefighters died while battling blazes around Sydney, authorities said on Friday, forcing Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison to cut short a holiday in Hawaii that had fuelled public anger at the government's response to the crisis.

Australia has been fighting bushfires across much of its east coast for weeks, leaving eight people dead, more than 700 homes destroyed and nearly 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) of bushland burned.

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Fire

Australia's raging bushfires intensify: Sydney engulfed in 'extremely' hazardous smoke


Sputnik
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:56 UTC
sydney opera house bushfires smoke
© AP Photo / Rick Rycroft
Thick smoke from wildfires shroud the Opera House in Sydney, Australia, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019. Hot dry conditions have brought an early start to the fire season.
The air quality in Sydney, Australia, continued to deteriorate severely Tuesday as about 100 bushfires burned in New South Wales and strong, north winds sent more smoke into the city.

According to a report by AP, the air pollution in some parts of the city was 11 times worse than a 200 reading on the Air Quality Index, the threshold considered "hazardous," due to fine particulate matter being released by the burning fires. Fine particulate matter consists of microscopic solids and liquid droplets in the air that can be inhaled and even absorbed by the bloodstream.

Comment: Australia bushfires merge to form 'mega fire' north of Sydney

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Fire

Australia bushfires merge to form 'mega fire' north of Sydney


Al Jazeera
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:10 UTC
australia wild fires 2019
© Reuters
The blaze was burning across 300,000 hectares within an hour's drive of Australia's largest city
Several Australian bushfires have combined to form a "mega fire" that is burning out of control across a swath of land north of Sydney, authorities said, warning they cannot contain the blaze.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers on Friday said "there are probably more than eight fires in all" that have merged to form what has been dubbed a "mega fire" in an area of the national park forest.

The blaze was burning across 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) - with a front roughly 60km (37 miles) wide - within an hour's drive of Australia's largest city, which was again subsumed in a soup of toxic smoke.

"There is just fire that whole way," said Rogers, who added that firefighters could do little more than get any residents out, protect property and hope for an end to fire-friendly dry and windy conditions.
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Fire

Santa Barbara fire burns 4,200 acres, threatens thousands of homes

Carla Herreria
HuffPost
Wed, 27 Nov 2019 06:13 UTC
santa barbara fire
© Noah Berger/AP
A helicopter drops water on the Cave Fire burning in the Los Padres National Forest above Santa Barbara, Calif., on Tuesday.
A brush fire that broke out in Santa Barbara County, California, on Monday had grown to over 4,200 acres by late Tuesday morning after winds fueled the flames throughout the night.

The Cave Fire, as it has been named, started out in the Los Padres National Forest and swept over parts of Highway 154 near Santa Barbara's city limits, forcing officials to shut down the highway until further notice.

Firefighters were unable to contain the blaze as of Tuesday afternoon, officials said at an afternoon press conference.

Thousands of people had to evacuate their homes just days before the Thanksgiving holiday.

An incoming winter storm, expected to hit this part of Southern California late Tuesday night and last to Thursday, may help firefighters rein in the blaze.
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Fire

Too much fuel causes extreme bush fires, not climate change

Jo Nova
Joannenova.com.au
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:50 UTC
bushfire_sydney

Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
What was Australia's Environment Minister thinking?

Melissa Price succumbs to pagan witchcraft:
"There's no doubt that there's many people who have suffered over this summer. We talk about the Victorian bushfires; (in) my home state of Western Australia we've also got fires there," [Melissa Price] told Sky News this morning. "There's no doubt that climate change is having an impact on us. There's no denying that."
Let's look at her home state. After 67 years of fire management in the giant, hot, dry state of WA, the trend is clear — the more prescribed area we burn, the less wildfire does. In the graph below the prescribed burns declined for forty years and wildfires increased for thirty. After the Dwellingup Fire in 1961 the state ramped up the preventative burns, and reduced wildfires.

As the BushFireFront team say:

"We can't control the weather but we can control the fuel loads"

Tough call — what do we do, redesign our energy system, pay billions, change our cars, our houses and our light globes in the hope that bush fires will be nicer, or do we just go back to doing what we used to do that worked?

Australia bushfire data
© Jo Nova

Comment: 'Uncharted territory': Out-of-control bushfires rage across Australia's eastern regions

Meanwhile Sydney is facing a 'catastrophic' threat as the Australian state declares a wildfire emergency.


NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said 'It's going to be a long, difficult fire season,' adding about a million hectares of land had already been scorched in the biggest firefront ever recorded in Australia.

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Fire

'Uncharted territory': Out-of-control bushfires rage across Australia's eastern regions


Deutsche Welle
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 11:12 UTC
bushfire_sydney

Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
Australia's east is being ravaged by a record number of intense bushfires in a dramatic start to the country's fire season, with scientists warning of worse to come.

More than 100 blazes were registered in the states of Queensland and New South Wales on Friday, with 17 fires in the latter state being described at one point as out of control and dangerous amid high temperatures and gusty winds.

"We are in uncharted territory," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told public broadcaster ABC. "We have never seen this many fires concurrently at emergency warning level."



Comment: Poor koalas. Humans too: 3 dead and 4 missing so far. November is Australia's 'May', so their summer hasn't even officially begun, yet the sky looks like this:

bushfires australia sky red


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