Actual Random Chat Thread I

[roos_fanatic08]

We were fighting fires between Drake and Tenterfield and had to either fill up from trucks or drive for an hour off the fire line back to Tabulum to one spot we could fill up on the Clarence river.

that was a wild spring for NE NSW. I was up in the Hastings River Gorge just before Christmas and it was so green and lush you would have thought a fire hadn't been through there in the last 20 years, yet that whole are was burnt to a crisp in the same year you were fighting them!

 

[ferball]

ferball said:


They should have resourced their own fire department properly.


you blokes have your own thread to argue in..

I was talking to someone else but I moved my response to Chuddles anyway.

FWIW Cal Fire is a state organisation, like the CFA and funded by the state. The LAFD, which was complaining about funding cuts in recent months, is more like Fire Rescue Victoria but funded locally by the city of LA not the state. And it wouldn't have mattered how many people or vehicles were on the ground if there's no water available, like what happened in LA.

People don't realise but what happened in LA could have happened in Melbourne in 2009.

Someone said upthread that its like having Fitzroy next to the Grampians. That's not quite true. Melbourne has places that can burn like LA is now - Templestowe, Croyden, Ringwood - and they might have in 2009 if that wind change hadn't come. If you find the right high ground in Balwyn and look north or NE it looks like bushland with the odd house in it, not somewhere where a million people live.

It already happened in Canberra over 20 years ago.

 

[ferball]

that was a wild spring for NE NSW. I was up in the Hastings River Gorge just before Christmas and it was so green and lush you would have thought a fire hadn't been through there in the last 20 years, yet that whole are was burnt to a crisp in the same year you were fighting them!

I drove from Melbourne to the Far North Coast just before Christmas 2018 and Tamworth was green and had grass two feet high by the side of the road. Drove back a month later and everything was dead. Throughout that area in Central NW NSW they had something like 6 weeks where the maximum temps didn't drop below 38C and most of the time they were over 40. Apparently a series of storms went thru all the way to the coast and dumped a heap of rain that led to heaps of growth in December. Then it all died.

On the drive from Melbourne it was crazy. Nothing was alive, waterholes and dams were dry and there were dead animals around them. You could see big, eerie clouds of red dust rising into the sky on the horizon. Then North of Dubbo everything started turning green. I stayed in this motel halfway between Coonabarrabran and Siding Springs in the Warrumbungles. We always stayed there when we travelled that way.

They have a massive grass area behind the motel with an oval and play stuff for kids etc. It was bright green. The Castlereagh River runs directly behind the motel, out of the mountains and was going off. I spoke to the owners about how wet it was and how green everything looked and they said it was the first time the river had flowed properly since I was last there, which was two or three years earlier!! And it was only like that cos of the storms in the last week or two.

Sure enough I drove back with the family a month later and everything was dry and dead and the river was empty.

 

[Themanbun]

I was talking to someone else but I moved my response to Chuddles anyway.

FWIW Cal Fire is a state organisation, like the CFA and funded by the state. The LAFD, which was complaining about funding cuts in recent months, is more like Fire Rescue Victoria but funded locally by the city of LA not the state. And it wouldn't have mattered how many people or vehicles were on the ground if there's no water available, like what happened in LA.

People don't realise but what happened in LA could have happened in Melbourne in 2009.

Someone said upthread that its like having Fitzroy next to the Grampians. That's not quite true. Melbourne has places that can burn like LA is now - Templestowe, Croyden, Ringwood - and they might have in 2009 if that wind change hadn't come. If you find the right high ground in Balwyn and look north or NE it looks like bushland with the odd house in it, not somewhere where a million people live.

It already happened in Canberra over 20 years ago.

Nearly ran through us in Greensborough. We were evacuated. Winds turned at the last minute and then it swept up through St Andrews.

 

[ferball]

Nearly ran through us in Greensborough. We were evacuated. Winds turned at the last minute and then it swept up through St Andrews.

It just missed St Andrews but wiped out Stathewen.

I had a mate in St Andrews on Youngs Rd. I used to coach his kid up north and he was down visiting his old man. They spent the day in St Andrews at an evacuation point and were given the all clear to go home at 4pm!!!

They got home just as the fire started coming down the mountain, went to evacuate again but were cut off at both ends of the road. The wind change saved their lives. When I was visiting the dad a little while later he was breaking down in tears every 20 minutes. He'd spent most of that intervening time attending funerals of people (in some cases whole families) he'd known. Some of the stories he told me were so heart breaking I was in tears just hearing them.

If the change hadn't come it would have burnt all the way to the Dandenongs, maybe to the coast.

As it was the change turned the entire NE flank into the fire front in what was possibly the most insane wild fire in human history up till that point. There's this thing in fire fighting called the "dead man zone". Its the area along a flank within five minutes of the new front if there is a potential wind change. Its one of the most dangerous places to fight a fire, if not the most dangerous. That day everywhere from St Andrews to Kinglake became the dead man zone.

In fact that incident changed the way fires are described. In those conditions the front is no longer called the front because spotting covers such a huge area that the term "front" referring to a line of fire is no longer applicable. There's an area possibly up to five km wide (maybe even bigger if condition are bad enough,) called the "area of fire" where spot fires grow to immense size in a minute or two and move in from all directions. So you might be watching the fire come toward you from miles away and suddenly you're surrounded by flame 50m high in all directions. Nightmare fuel.

 

[Themanbun]

It just missed St Andrews but wiped out Stathewen.

I had a mate in St Andrews on Youngs Rd. I used to coach his kid up north and he was down visiting his old man. They spent the day in St Andrews at an evacuation point and were given the all clear to go home at 4pm!!!

They got home just as the fire started coming down the mountain, went to evacuate again but were cut off at both ends of the road. The wind change saved their lives. When I was visiting the dad a little while later he was breaking down in tears every 20 minutes. He'd spent most of that intervening time attending funerals of people (in some cases whole families) he'd known. Some of the stories he told me were so heart breaking I was in tears just hearing them.

If the change hadn't come it would have burnt all the way to the Dandenongs, maybe to the coast.

As it was the change turned the entire NE flank into the fire front in what was possibly the most insane wild fire in human history up till that point. There's this thing in fire fighting called the "dead man zone". Its the area along a flank within five minutes of the new front if there is a potential wind change. Its one of the most dangerous places to fight a fire, if not the most dangerous. That day everywhere from St Andrews to Kinglake became the dead man zone.

In fact that incident changed the way fires are described. In those conditions the front is no longer called the front because spotting covers such a huge area that the term "front" referring to a line of fire is no longer applicable. There's an area possibly up to five km wide (maybe even bigger if condition are bad enough,) called the "area of fire" where spot fires grow to immense size in a minute or two and move in from all directions. So you might be watching the fire come toward you from miles away and suddenly you're surrounded by flame 50m high in all directions. Nightmare fuel.

It definitely went through parts of St Andrews as I helped repair some houses there, just missed a lot of the more populated areas and then ripped through Strathewen, where I had some mates who luckily survived.

Terrifying and horrific hey. Thank you for all your work you do.

 

[ferball]

It definitely went through parts of St Andrews as I helped repair some houses there, just missed a lot of the more populated areas and then ripped through Strathewen, where I had some mates who luckily survived.

Okay. My mate was even luckier then. I was at his place on Youngs rd. It is a hardwood place, on top of a ridge, surrounded by bush which was untouched a couple of months later.

Terrifying and horrific hey. Thank you for all your work you do.

Cheers, there are over 100, 000 of us in Australia, its one of the greatest things about this country. It sounds trite to say but it really is a privilege and an honour to be involved. If you ever get the chance do it. Its one of the most rewarding things and you see people at their best in the worst circumstances you can imagine. Apart from having kids its the best thing I've ever done with my life.

I love it, but I'm getting a bit too old for it these days.

 

[roos_fanatic08]

I drove from Melbourne to the Far North Coast just before Christmas 2018 and Tamworth was green and had grass two feet high by the side of the road. Drove back a month later and everything was dead. Throughout that area in Central NW NSW they had something like 6 weeks where the maximum temps didn't drop below 38C and most of the time they were over 40. Apparently a series of storms went thru all the way to the coast and dumped a heap of rain that led to heaps of growth in December. Then it all died.

On the drive from Melbourne it was crazy. Nothing was alive, waterholes and dams were dry and there were dead animals around them. You could see big, eerie clouds of red dust rising into the sky on the horizon. Then North of Dubbo everything started turning green. I stayed in this motel halfway between Coonabarrabran and Siding Springs in the Warrumbungles. We always stayed there when we travelled that way.

They have a massive grass area behind the motel with an oval and play stuff for kids etc. It was bright green. The Castlereagh River runs directly behind the motel, out of the mountains and was going off. I spoke to the owners about how wet it was and how green everything looked and they said it was the first time the river had flowed properly since I was last there, which was two or three years earlier!! And it was only like that cos of the storms in the last week or two.

Sure enough I drove back with the family a month later and everything was dry and dead and the river was empty.

Have a couple of mates that live west of Dubbo. They are farmers, and it's one of the most ruthless livelihoods there is, with little to no support from the powers at be (unless you are a cotton farmer). They have had plenty of good years when things boom, but when things go bad it (drought years) it's so dire. After hearing some of their experiences I'm not surprised the suicides rates for middle aged men in regional farming communities is far higher than the average.