Needless to say, the volunteers who staff the rural fire departments are not trained to deal with wild fires and don’t have the necessary off-road equipment. Every time there’s a cold spell the humidity drops below 35% and there is a fire warning posted.

With the down turn, the forests are not going to be logged for paper or lumber, so it is going to get worse.

Controlled burning has only been recognized relatively recently as a fire control tool and a necessity in forest management.

After every disaster the government “discovers” they were warned, but ignored the problem.

I would note that the main reason that the military carries out controlled burns is so they can test weapons, like the MOAB fuel-air bomb, without starting a wildfire. I’m fairly certain that if the Pentagon could demonstrate an ability to “blow out” fires, they would market it as another reason to give them a bigger share of the budget. Explosives are used in oil well fire fighting, but those are rather contained as compared to fires measured in square miles.

I’m proud of the people of Australia today. The Red Cross began a donations appeal this morning, and have so far collected about $8.7 million. The Salvo’s (Salvation Army) has raised over $2 million. The five banks and some major companies have donated $1million each, and some have pledged to add $1 for every $ donated by their staff. Coco-Cola Amatil is leading the charge to get beverage and food companies to donate whatever they can and have shipped pallets of water and other items as fast as they can (amazing, I know!) One of our biggest canneries, SPC (they can fruit and vegetables, mainly) are shipping all the food they can. Insurance companies even have pledged to farstrack insurance claims and to help people who have lost everything even their ID and papers. Lawyers are offering their services for free to help with insurance claims and other legal settlements etc. The army has unloaded bivouacs (tent villages), Bulldozers, comm’s systems and tracked APC’s (to get into hotspots and give forward scouting and comm’s relays to the fire services and to evacuate people in hotspots), and field hospitals. It truly is like a war zone. Would you believe, Bryan, they there was even the discussion of using a fuel-air bomb where the biggest fire is still burning to suck up all the oxygen and extinguish the fire? Thankfully, it’s not really possible for several reasons and the plan was quickly rejected. *shaking head*

The official death toll was 131 about two hours ago, and is now expected to top 200.

Vic bushfires death toll ‘could top 200’

It is so very difficult to comprehend the conditions Saturday that precipitated this disaster. Remember that Victoria is the furthest State in mainland Australia South. The only *State* further towards the antarctic is the Island state of Tasmania. Saturday the temp in the city of Melbourne (the capital) rose to 46.6C (116 F), and in other parts of the State it rose to 48.8C (120F)! And remember, these temp’s are recorded in the shade. One recording made in the direct sunlight in Melbourne was 54.3C (130F)! It has now been confirmed that these are the hottest temperatures for any City or State ever in our History, even hotter than the Northern territory and Darwin (the furthest City North in Australia). It was very dry and the hot southerly wind was gusting to 90km/h.

A researcher (Bushfire Scientist) predicted this could happen.

A bushfire scientist who predicted the weekend’s deadly bushfires in Victoria has compared the intensity of the inferno to a nuclear strike.

David Packham, a bushfire researcher of 50 years experience currently at Monash University, said the “worst weather conditions ever known about in Victoria” had combined with “horrifying fuel levels” to create the devastating fires.

“Victoria has never had higher fuels in my opinion in the last 30,000 years of [human] occupation,” he told ninemsn.

“We have allowed our fuels to reach enormously dangerous levels.”

Mr Packham wrote a letter to The Weekly Times on January 25 describing the dangerous state of Victoria’s forest fire fuels and warning that 100 people could die.

More than 330,000 hectares were destroyed in Victoria’s “hell on earth” bushfires and according to Mr Packham each hectare contained 30 tons of bushfire fuel — adding up to 9.9m tons.

“That equates to the energy release of 660 Hiroshima bombs,” he said.

Mr Packham said “horrifying fuel levels” and steep terrain had created “awesomely scary” flames up to 80m high.

He predicted Victoria’s worst fires in 50 years last Thursday after seeing “extremely accurate” forecasts from the Bureau of Meterology for Saturday’s extreme conditions.

“I thought this is a really bad thing,” he said of the extremely low humidity, high winds and temperatures in the 40s which indicated a fire danger index double that of Black Friday in 1939.

Currently about one percent of Victoria’s forests undergoes fuel reduction burning each year, which reduces containment of fuel from 30 tons per hectare to 3 tons per hectare, according to Mr Packham.

He said the weekend’s tragedy could have been significantly lessened if 8 to 10 percent of forest had been burned back.

“Instead of losing 100 [lives] we might have lost well less than 10,” he said.

Victoria’s bushfires compared to Hiroshima

And just guess who is responsible for lobbying for the reduction in burn backs? Idiots.

Who needs nukes when you have tunnel visioned, narrow-minded greenies pushing their agenda’s.

Their efforts were assisted by a fire break of ice plant instead of brush near the top of the canyon, but sprinkling was necessary because too many still had cedar shake roofing.

cookie jill´s last blog post..Fabio Viviani

After hurricane Ivan my power was restored by workers from New Jersey. We have a lot of mutual assistance agreements in place. One of the reasons I have good fire protection is that anyone of three different departments may respond, depending on what is going on in the south end of the county. Unfortunately, I have to wait for a Sheriff deputy because I live in their jurisdiction and am a half block outside of the crossover zone between the Sheriff and the police in the neighboring city.

More than 4,000 local firefighters are battling blazes across Victoria, backed up by volunteers from New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

Country Fire Authority (CFA) Deputy Chief Fire Officer Steve Warrington says the interstate reinforcements are much appreciated.

“It’s interesting in this part of the world, and I’m talking about Australia, that sense of mateship and camaraderie, we all stick together,” he said.

“Victoria’s gone to NSW and it’s great to have NSW down with us, and that goes for every state, Western Australia, Queensland, they’ve all rung up and offered support to us today.

“From that point of view, it’s quite heartwarming that we have this sense of culture and can-do in this country.”

Amen to that. 🙂

And yes, we will rebuild and it IS necessary! For so many reasons, some personal. LadyMin will understand what drives me in this. 🙂

And seriously my friend, thanks, for many things. You have a great community here, it makes my life better.

Some people want to forget, and others want to remember. There is no one “right” answer. If you weren’t directly affected, the best you can do is ease the load after the decision is made.

Rebuilding will be necessary to overcome the tragedy, and to help the wider area rebuild itself.

Thanks aren’t necessary. The last time I checked we are all humans here, and worrying about others is built-in.

What Jill said about the fighting spirit here is true. 🙂 Aussies just don’t know how to give up, some would say we don’t know when to quit. 😉 Ask any nation that’s ever had to face us in battle! 😉 That ANZAC spirit (as I’ve stated before) is very real. 🙂

It turns out that my housemate, whose daughter recently married, married a farmer who knows many people in Marysville also, and is a member of the CFA (Country Fire Authority). He said that he and many others will give everyone who has lost everything two weeks to come to grips with it and then they will help them rebuild Marysville. I plan to help with that also. He knows the owner of a local sawmill and he has agreed to help, as have many others, even from other devastated area. Marysvill was the hub and an important part of the much wider community. Loosing Marysville was a severe blow. But she will be rebuilt. 🙂

It’s strange in a way that the bakery survived. I loved that place. It was the first place I took LadyMin when we went there! I hope the owners survived too! 🙂 And we’ll need the bakery if a couple hundred of us are going to rebuild Marysville. 😉 Can’t work on an empty stomach. 🙂

I was in shock yesterday. Today I am still sad and angry of course, but dealing with it now. Thanks again friends. 🙂

I’m adding that link, Lady Min, and another that’s a larger version of what Jill posted at skippy’s.