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Our thoughts are with all our Australian friends.
I don't know how its done but I hope you catch some of the bastards who started the fires.
Comments
what can we expect next?
I've got to say it's been the most depressing week that I have lived being in Melbourne. My wife's cousin's house was in the firing line and he decided
to stay and protect the house and got his wife to evac with the kids. She didn't want him to stay so she called his siblings to try and convince him otherwise. His brother in-law turned up and said you either leave now with me or I will stay and fight with you. If we die then we die together. Well they ended up leaving. Ironically his house didn't burn down, but every other house in the street did. When I say street, each house in on 5 acres, so its a big street.
I was caught in a bush fire when I was about 7. The fire front was about 300 metres away, and I still remember the radiant heat from that distance. This is why I will never live in the country, in this country.
I cannot describe how bad Saturday was. It was 30 degrees at about 7am. 46 by midday with this very hot dry wind blowing from the north at about 100kph. It was like you opened the door to a fan forced oven that's been cooking for an hour and stuck your head in. Never in my life have I experienced such conditions, and I live in the city. It was much worse in the bush.
At about 3pm the wind moved and came from the south. I thought thank God some relief, cooler conditions. Little did I know that that change in wind direction was what caught out most people and caused most of the deaths.
As for the sick arsonist, well they have set up a taskforce to catch him and they believe they know who they are looking for. Hope they get him and make an example of him.
Mother nature has a habit of being very cruel in this country. She really doesn't need any help...
Hearing the increase in fatalities with every news bulletin was quite simply mind-numbing.
Saw an excellent report on the ABC last night and the conclsuion so far is that there really was nothing that they could do to prevent the devastation and loss of life. This was not a case of authorities failing to plan, or to warn. They did, but the fires came from all directions faster than news of their progress could be broadcast.
Roo's cousin was wise to get out when he did. Unfortunately, many people made their decision to flee too late, but not through any fault of their own in most cases. The decision to flee early or fight has to be based on good information on the status of escape routes, as well as the resources available to fight. Hard decisions to make when animals are roasting in the bush and paddocks, and viz is cut to nil.
The forensic investigations are going to take months as every location with a fatality has been declared a crime scene. They will catch most of the arsonists, but that won't matter really. I don't think that those idiots ever consider the potential magnitude of their actions.
To get an understanding of the conditions that Roo described, in the report I saw last night, they talked of a Bushfire index that takes into account things such as lower atmosphere moisture content, wind direction & strength, ambient temp etc. In this index 100 is extreme. They had readings approaching 200 forecast on that day.
There's a little known song by Eric Bogle written many years ago and a verse extract is worth repeating:
Arrogant Man, struts upon the land
He buys and he sells, and he zones it
Plants his seeds, cuts down his weeds
and imagines that he owns it
but where the bushfire has passed
there's only black ash
and nature has reclaimed it.
Another thing to factor in is that a lot of people in those area's are actually city dwellers who also have homes in the bush. A lack of knowledge on a lot of things, including local fire trails won't have helped. Can't help but wanna kick seven shades of shit out of the "greenie" I see either. Don't get me wrong I'm not anti-conservation, but some of these teddy bear cuddling, dope smoking, Jesus loving, tree huggers must also carry their share of the guilt. F@#$ING HIPPIES!!!!!