10 Days in 100 years

[Lamingtons]

Goanna if you have not heard from your friend.

From the red cross website, it says to contact 1800 727 077 and see if they have information of survivors.

 

[auror]

This first-hand account of the fire moved me deeply:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25026912-2702,00.html

I think it reinforces just how suddenly it all happened.

 

[Bill.L]

Hi all,

After the immediate danger in our area had subsided, I've been to the Weerite fire blacking out.

At only 1200 ha in size and with no casualties, and only a few haysheds going up, this was only a 'minor' fire in the scheme of things. Whilst this fire is 'contained', it is in some very rugged country in the southern part, that is impossible to extinguish (baring 4" of rain). This fire will be an ongoing problem/threat for the Otways for weeks, given further bad fire days, luckily for the next week conditions are going to be fairly mild.

Talking to locals about this fire, it moved 4km in not much more 10-15 minutes, across grassland with the hot north-westerly. It kept spotting ahead of itself and exploding into flames. The rate of spread slowed as it entered the forest area of the stoney rises. The wind change occurred within an hour of this fire starting, yet it still spotted halfway to our place, 30-35km away. Those spot fires were quickly extinguished by local CFA brigades. We were in a direct line with the direction of this fire until the wind change.

I'm hearing all through the media about the lack of warning people were getting for some of the fires, people who went outside to start their fire pumps only to be confronted by flames and ran back to shelter.

I'm am sorry for those peoples losses, but there is a lack of awareness of what is going on shown by these people. As in all things, lots of people want to blame someone else. Communication seems to be popular over these fires, as well as advise on staying with homes or leaving.

I had my own fire pumps going by 11 o'clock in the morning. Sprinklers were wetting all the vegetation within 20-40 metres from our house and sheds. The lawn was green, (I've watered it over summer as fire prevention) the garden mulch was wet after an hour or so the sprinklers being on.

Whether it was enough if the fire had got to our place I'll never know, but it was all happening before there was even smoke in the sky or the Weerite fire started.

I welcome the Royal Commission announced by the Premier, as there will be so much information to come out of these fires. Maybe what was/is known about fire preparations has to change. I question planning laws/environmental native vegetation clearing regulations around residences.

From my personal perspective, some eucalypts that are 30 metres away from the house, on the southern side of the house, are going to go, They will be replaced by oak trees forming a buffer of vegetation from a bush area.

bye

 

[Perp]

I welcome the Royal Commission announced by the Premier, as there will be so much information to come out of these fires. Maybe what was/is known about fire preparations has to change. I question planning laws/environmental native vegetation clearing regulations around residences.

We can only hope that we learn a lot from this horrible tragedy, and reduce the impact of future fires.

 

[topcropper]

From my personal perspective, some eucalypts that are 30 metres away from the house, on the southern side of the house, are going to go, They will be replaced by oak trees forming a buffer of vegetation from a bush area.

bye

Great stuff Bill.

Our eucalypts have a lot to answer to. I'm in the camp of, either eucalypt forest and no people, or if people have to live there, get rid of the eucalypts within a certain distance.

I noticed on gardening shows, starting a few decades ago, people would proudly boast about pulling out the established annual european trees planted 150 years ago, and planting natives back. I think it's gone too far.

I've got a house surrounded by lawns, and trees of european annuals, like clarret ash's and other stuff. They drop their leaves in winter and allow the sun in, and provide shade in summer, and they're not full of explosive oil and dropping bark and leaves and crap everywhere. No flippen eucalypts for me.

See ya's.

 

[boomtown]

Bill

Do the oaks not burn? I imagine the eucalypts go off like small bombs with all the oil they carry.

 

[Bill.L]

Hi all,

I have some poplars, liquidambers, silver birches, and blackwoods as trees around/near (10 metres plus) our house and between the house and some sheds. Only on the south and east sides are there eucalypts 30 metres away. Our fire danger (greatest) is from the North west followed by the South westerly change. Everybody in bushfire prone areas knows this down here or is simply not paying attention.

Boomtown, one of the clearest memories I have from the 1983 fires was of an old mansion at Mt Macedon. An aerial photo of the area showed a blackened wasteland except for this house surrounded by green leafed European trees, oaks, elms etc. They may burn, but not like a eucalypt, and less likely if you can keep the water up to them, plus the dense foliage will capture a huge number of flying embers without exploding into flames.

In the areas with the greatest losses like Kinglake, there are predominantly stringybarks in close proximity to each other (and very close to houses). In a fire when the undergrowth catches up to the base, the bark of these trees catches and races up the trunks. They give off radiant heat at the same time as superheating the leaves above. It takes very little time for this type of vegetation, say 30 metre high trees, to explode into flames from the ground to 50-70 metres high. Areas with this type of vegetation over housing are disasters waiting to happen, yet there are planning rules in place that make it illegal to remove them.

One day, these bad conditions will match up with fires in some north/north-east/east outer suburban areas, say Eltham, Warrandyte, Mooroolbark, Ferntree Gully and the Dandenongs. The casualties will be the current ones times 10. I have 2 sisters who live in 'suburbs' that I would not take a fire truck near in the event of a suburban firestorm, due to narrow windy roads, continuous eucalypt canopy, potential lack of water and lots of native gardens.
Yet they worry about me and my family because we live in the bush.

bye

 

[Sunfish]

Doesn't sound as if you have any pine plantations Bill. They must be as bad as eucalypts.

I have a theory that the eucalypt would not be so prevalent but for 40 thousand years of "fire-stick agriculture".

An interesting study for any anthropologists out there.

 

[topcropper]

I have a theory that the eucalypt would not be so prevalent but for 40 thousand years of "fire-stick agriculture".

.

That's what wikipedia reckons anyway,.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus


........."Eucalypts originated between 35 and 50 million years ago, not long after Australia-New Guinea separated from Gondwana, their rise coinciding with an increase in fossil charcoal deposits (suggesting that fire was a factor even then), but they remained a minor component of the Tertiary rainforest until about 20 million years ago when the gradual drying of the continent and depletion of soil nutrients led to the development of a more open forest type, predominantly Casuarina and Acacia species. With the arrival of the first humans about 50 thousand years ago fires became much more frequent and the fire-loving eucalypts soon came to account for roughly 70% of Australian forest"........


See ya's.

 

[topcropper]

Eucalypts and fire?

Marysville was totally destroyed from the fires. I've been cruising around the streets of Marysville on google maps, and while the town was certainly surounded by eucalypt forests,

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=-37.511922,145.743899&spn=0.023863,0.038452&z=15


once inside the town limits there was not many eucalypts, but plenty of lush looking european annuals. Using street view, you can check out the whole town. Doesn't look like a huge fire risk to me, but looks like most other pleasant leafy suburbs I can think of.



http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h...bp=12,84.51727771922286,,0,1.3101104317889573



Maybe we have to live right away from dense eucalypt forests?

Maybe we have to get everyone out, rather than giving the option of staying and trying to save the house?

See ya's.

 

[Perp]

I've been cruising around the streets of Marysville on google maps

LOL... I did the same thing

It's awesome, isn't it? Likewise, although I've not yet seen the property I'm planning to purchase in the USA, I've drive around the suburb quite extensively. The buyers' agent was most surprised when I asked questions like "is the furniture store across the road still operating? Is there a tenant in the shop next door now?"

 

[topcropper]

It's awesome, isn't it?

Well, sort of. But it's a bit weird looking at a town that was vaporised and now doesn't exist.

This is all just so bad.

See ya's.

 

[our obsession]

TC:

Maybe we have to live right away from dense eucalypt forests?

Maybe we have to get everyone out, rather than giving the option of staying and trying to save the house?

I think the investigations will help with some future planning and management.

The extreme weather conditions, not sure how widespread the heatwave had extended throughout January but we had just come off 3 weeks of close enough to 40c hot, dry, windy conditions. Before that, about a good 10 to 12 years of drought. Victoria, (at least rural/farming areas anyway) is 100% drought declared.

Bendigo too is (many places) surrounded by natural forest, a lot of these places, the Bendigo's, Marysville's, Kinglake were settled/established as goldmine service centres/towns. Gold finished, but such the love for the (natural) beauty of these towns/cities, population stayed, grew, flourished, tourism kicked in...surrounded by natural vegetation, so dense in places, imagine it after, ?what? best part of a decade droughtlike conditions, weeks of hot, dry, summer, then a weather event that only happens 10 in a hundred.

Some of the firies said the force and speed was over 128kph, fireballs, momentum, nobody stood a chance, a lot of the areas, just like the Grampian/
gariwerd National Park are difficult to access, to contain, to try and fight the fires.

We hit 47.8c here last Saturday, the winds did not reach the expected 50 to 80kph but 30 to 40 was bad enough, we are on flat, treeless terrain, almost desert apart from the direct drill stubble surrounding the farmhouse, if fire had of started we wouldn't have stood a chance either.

The conditions were extraordinary, a nightmare, on top of that we a very small percentage of humankind, nuffnuts, if you will, that get kicks out of starting fires. Nothing definite on what or where they caused grief, but Police are closing in on those, I believe Bendigo, Gippsland at least. In the Wimmera, it was a power pole or line that blew over.

Extraordinary dry, gale force winds, ready forest fuel available, perhaps? some people underestimating the warnings? sheer force and speed of the fire front when it got momentum, communication blackspots, but others that had every precaution ready for days and still got caught. A combination of factors.

Hopefully we will find out some answers.

 

[boomtown]

We hit 47.8c here last Saturday, the winds did not reach the expected 50 to 80kph but 30 to 40 was bad enough, we are on flat, treeless terrain, almost desert apart from the direct drill stubble surrounding the farmhouse, if fire had of started we wouldn't have stood a chance either.

I would have thought you would have been ok if just stubble to burn - no trees?

 

[The Y-man]

I would have thought you would have been ok if just stubble to burn - no trees?

In past situtions - yes. Unfortunately on Saturday, fires were spotting kilometres (like ten plus?) ahead of the front. One lady was saying on the radio how her parent's house were in the middle of 20 cleared acres, sprinklers, pumps, dams, the lot - they were prepared best they could, and just got wiped out.

The Y-man

 

[topcropper]

TC:

we are on flat, treeless terrain, almost desert apart from the direct drill stubble surrounding the farmhouse, if fire had of started we wouldn't have stood a chance either.

.

Are you sure about that?

Cereal stubble and grass 2 foot high would only create flames 20 foot high or so. You would be able to quickly bulldoze in some breaks and back burn from them. Anyone on treeless plains, or with sparse trees would survive with common sense.

To me it looks like Marysville, surounded by eucalypt forest 70 feet high was hit by an exploding 100 foot high fireball. It may as well been hit with a nuclear bomb, there wouldn't be that much difference.



In my parts in summer, the treeless plains are two thirds covered in green summer crops and lucerne which won't burn anyway. The ridges are sparcely treed, and heavily grassed, so they are a worry. The mountains are thick with eucalypts, but hardly anyone lives there. When a fire gets into the mountains, it's difficult to put it out by fighting it. It's generally just a matter of bulldozing in breaks and backburning till it's out.

I suppose I've never seen 46 degrees and 50 k winds though. That would change everything.

See ya's.

 

[ffc1883_1996]

...I suppose I've never seen 46 degrees and 50 k winds though. That would change everything.

Saturday’s weather was amazing. Hot. Really, really hot and dry. The very strong and gusty North-Westerly winds were suddenly replaced by an even stronger Southerly late in the afternoon/evening.

That was my observation from suburban Melbourne. Normally, weather can vary quite significantly across Victoria but, on that day, I think the description above would apply everywhere.

 

[The Y-man]

I suppose I've never seen 46 degrees and 50 k winds though. That would change everything.

See ya's.

TC, we had sustained gusts up to 100kph. The doppler image at the BOM site was amazing - going off the scale from the NW direction....

The Y-man

 

[our obsession]

TC:

I suppose I've never seen 46 degrees and 50 k winds though. That would change everything.

Yes, it does. Extraordinary conditions.

"Normally", it is what you say.

NB: I think I love lucerne, for many reasons, another one is, there was a guy who had lucerne around his farm house up near the Grampians, fire took out many of those around him, his lucerne was a wonderful-big-fire-break. His farm/home was saved.

 

[chrispy]

I can only reiterate what the others have said, the conditions on Saturday were incredible, very scarey from the minute you woke up, you knew it was going to be bad after years and years of drought with suburban gardens looking like a desert. I live near Eltham where the Council insist on indigenous plants, they have cleared the local river of the weeping willows and push the planting of australian natives.

I have always had native gardens at home and at the ips but have had to pull out the eucalypts as they were dropping branches on roofs and had become a real danger in this drought.

In such fire prone areas we need the ability to water around the houses long before it becomes a danger zone. What a pity the Government of the time cancelled the dam at Panton Hill, local water would have been a blessing in these fires.

So many from this area are related to or were friends with people lost in the fires, you can feel the change in the atmosphere at the local shops and this will be reflected right across the suburbs and country areas. People look so sad.

I have just been to my local supermarket and had to wait while one women bought up loaves of bread, milk, etc to take out to Diamond Creek refuge centre. No one said a word, just helped her pack the goods into bags.

7th of February will be in our minds forever as a day of devastation for Victoria.

Chris