Fire season has started early here

[WeetBix KiD]

As usual Australia is battling bushfires as the weather warms up. There are currently 56 fires burning in the state of New South Wales, and 12 are uncontained. The biggest issue at the moment is 3 uncontained fires burning in the Blue Mountains becoming 1 big fire wall.


The worst part of it all, is the NSW government decided that there will no longer be back burning.... This is what has caused most of these fires. Back burning are contained fires, started by fire fighters to burn of all dead grass in fire-prone areas. Because they can no longer do this means more fires will catch alight, and burn for longer and further, causing more damage..
So far there has been only 1 human casuality (i'm sure there has been animals) An old man suffered a heart attack trying to protect his house

 

 

 

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/10/21/10/32/fear-grow-for-blue-mountains-mega-fire

[Gorilla]

Doesn't look good. Whole of Sydney could be raised, which isn't the worst thing. But feel for people losing homes.

[WeetBix KiD]

Doesn't look good. Whole of Sydney could be raised, which isn't the worst thing. But feel for people losing homes.

Yeah the loss of Sydney is no loss lol

 

 

But you Kiwi's keep your eyes off our Island! lol

[RedBaird]

As usual Australia is battling bushfires as the weather warms up. There are currently 56 fires burning in the state of New South Wales, and 12 are uncontained. The biggest issue at the moment is 3 uncontained fires burning in the Blue Mountains becoming 1 big fire wall.

 

 

The worst part of it all, is the NSW government decided that there will no longer be back burning.... This is what has caused most of these fires. Back burning are contained fires, started by fire fighters to burn of all dead grass in fire-prone areas. Because they can no longer do this means more fires will catch alight, and burn for longer and further, causing more damage..

So far there has been only 1 human casuality (i'm sure there has been animals) An old man suffered a heart attack trying to protect his house

 

 

 

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/10/21/10/32/fear-grow-for-blue-mountains-mega-fire

We use slightly different terminology in the USA.  A "controlled burn" would be the term for "contained fires, started by fire fighters to burn of all dead grass in fire-prone areas".  A "back burn" would be a method of removing fuel from around a wildfire by starting small, containable fires.  The high winds shown in the clip on that site would forbid the use of either method. 

 

A longer version of that clip was shown on US TV news channels and I was struck by the density of the smoke.  My asthma would kill me in such conditions.  The recording from the helmet-cam that we saw showed the firefighter telling the civilians in the white car that the way forward was blocked and  that they all had to stay where they were, along with other fire apparatus, civilian cars, a house and wind-tossed trees.  It is high winds like those that have killed groups of firefighters in the US, Australia and elsewhere as they fought wildfires in recent decades. 

 

Fire in spring sounds like a drought symptom.  I had thought it was over for you 'down under', but from looking around the Web, I stand corrected.   Some parts of NSW have had their lowest recorded rainfall in history.

 

Good Luck on you all.