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Politics Climate Change Paradox (cont in part 2)
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- May 8, 2007
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Proportion of deliberate bushfires in Australia
The Australian Institute of Criminology recently completed an extensive analysis of bushfire data collected by Australian fire agencies (Bryant 2008).
Approximately 280,000 vegetation fires from 18 Australian fire and land management agencies were included in the analysis, representing around five years of fire data from each agency. The analysis focused on spatial and temporal trends in deliberate vegetation fires - when and where fires occurred, particularly in comparison with non-deliberate fires.
Although the analysis was carried out on an agency and state/territory basis, the availability of national fire data allows some conclusions to be drawn on the proportion of deliberate fires Australia-wide. It was found that the proportion of vegetation fires that were deliberate varies between agencies and regions, as well as across time of day and time of year.
However, on average across the country, approximately 13 percent of vegetation fires are recorded as being deliberate and another 37 percent as suspicious. That is, for all vegetation fires for which there is a cause recorded, 50 percent may be lit deliberately (Figure 1).
Figure 1 : Proportion of vegetation fires in Australia by assigned cause
Some caution should be taken when considering these figures. Just over 40 percent of vegetation fires across Australia do not have a cause assigned by the responding fire agency. Furthermore, inconsistencies exist between and within agencies in recording data. For example, different agencies may have different thresholds as to when they consider a fire to be deliberate, suspicious or unknown. Despite these uncertainties, it is clear that natural fires are actually quite rare and that the vast majority of vegetation fires arise from human causes, including deliberate arson. These figures suggest that reducing deliberate bushfires can have a significant influence on the total number of fires in Australia.
Bryant C 2008. Understanding bushfire: trends in deliberate vegetation fires in Australia. Technical and background paper no. 27. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology
The Australian Institute of Criminology recently completed an extensive analysis of bushfire data collected by Australian fire agencies (Bryant 2008).
Approximately 280,000 vegetation fires from 18 Australian fire and land management agencies were included in the analysis, representing around five years of fire data from each agency. The analysis focused on spatial and temporal trends in deliberate vegetation fires - when and where fires occurred, particularly in comparison with non-deliberate fires.
Although the analysis was carried out on an agency and state/territory basis, the availability of national fire data allows some conclusions to be drawn on the proportion of deliberate fires Australia-wide. It was found that the proportion of vegetation fires that were deliberate varies between agencies and regions, as well as across time of day and time of year.
However, on average across the country, approximately 13 percent of vegetation fires are recorded as being deliberate and another 37 percent as suspicious. That is, for all vegetation fires for which there is a cause recorded, 50 percent may be lit deliberately (Figure 1).
Figure 1 : Proportion of vegetation fires in Australia by assigned cause
Some caution should be taken when considering these figures. Just over 40 percent of vegetation fires across Australia do not have a cause assigned by the responding fire agency. Furthermore, inconsistencies exist between and within agencies in recording data. For example, different agencies may have different thresholds as to when they consider a fire to be deliberate, suspicious or unknown. Despite these uncertainties, it is clear that natural fires are actually quite rare and that the vast majority of vegetation fires arise from human causes, including deliberate arson. These figures suggest that reducing deliberate bushfires can have a significant influence on the total number of fires in Australia.
- Project information: Bushfire arson in Australia
- Topic: Arson
Bryant C 2008. Understanding bushfire: trends in deliberate vegetation fires in Australia. Technical and background paper no. 27. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology
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I'm afraid not.
https://caldronpool.com/abc-deletes...ion-burns-prior-to-devastating-bushfires/amp/
These campaigners successfully stopped the planned controlled burn of 370 hectares and had it reduced to 9. Fires have swept through many of the areas where the controlled burns were cancelled.
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19 November 2019 -
As fires continue to burn in different parts of Australia, investigators work to provide answers on the exact causes of devastating blazes.
Last week we learnt that the Binna Burra fire, which destroyed the historic Binna Burra Lodge in South East Queensland, was started by a carelessly discarded cigarette.
And the Gold Coast hinterland bushfires the week before may have been started by army live-firing exercises at the Kokoda Barracks, a spokesperson for the Australian Defence Force has conceded.
We know that hot, dry and windy weather increases the risk of fires starting, but here's what we know about what actually provides the spark.
The nine categories of bushfire ignition
Fire investigators have nine categories for the ignition sources of fires:
www.abc.net.au
As fires continue to burn in different parts of Australia, investigators work to provide answers on the exact causes of devastating blazes.
Last week we learnt that the Binna Burra fire, which destroyed the historic Binna Burra Lodge in South East Queensland, was started by a carelessly discarded cigarette.
And the Gold Coast hinterland bushfires the week before may have been started by army live-firing exercises at the Kokoda Barracks, a spokesperson for the Australian Defence Force has conceded.
We know that hot, dry and windy weather increases the risk of fires starting, but here's what we know about what actually provides the spark.
The nine categories of bushfire ignition
Fire investigators have nine categories for the ignition sources of fires:
- Smoking: Smoking isn't as common a source of bushfire ignition as we might think. There have to be some really specific conditions for a flicked cigarette to spark a fire — temperatures generally need to be above 27 degrees Celsius, and humidity below 22 per cent. And the cigarette needs to land in a loose fuel bed, and at a quite specific angle, according to Richard Woods, who runs Wildfire Investigations and Analysis consultancy.
Fires that start by the roadside are more likely to be ignited by burning pieces of carbon ejected from car exhausts than a cigarette butt, said Mr Woods, who is also an adjunct lecturer in wildfire investigations at Charles Sturt University.
However, he warned that we're currently facing weather conditions in which a cigarette could cause a fire, and we need to take every precaution we can to avoid providing a spark.
Police have said that two local teenagers have been questioned about the fire that destroyed the Binna Burra Lodge, and that a discarded cigarette was likely the cause. - Burning off/debris: Burning off is a regular source of bushfire ignition.
Two men were charged with ignoring a fire ban and "setting fire to the property of another person", after the Carwoola fire in southern New South Wales which destroyed eight homes, numerous vehicles and livestock in 2017. - Arson: The motivations for why people commit arson are varied and complex, but arson is behind a large number of bushfires both in Australia and internationally.
While figures vary, around half of all bushfires in Australia are either known to be deliberately lit or are considered suspicious, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology.
Police are treating several blazes around New South Wales as suspicious. - Railway cause: Railway has its own category, as trains are a surprisingly common source of bushfires. Brake failure in trains can throw out a wall of sparks, sometimes igniting dry vegetation along the side of the tracks and across significant distances.
Burning carbon embers thrown from train engine exhausts can also start bushfires. - Campfires: Embers from campfires, and campfires that aren't properly extinguished are a bushfire hazard. Many popular campsites have moved away from open campfires, and provide fire rings to contain embers.
- Equipment use: Chainsaws, angle grinders, mowers, etc. Using grinders or welding equipment outdoors is not permitted during a fire ban because of the sparks they throw.
According to Sunshine Coast police, several fires started on the Sunshine Coast in September from sparks thrown by lawn mowers. - Children: Children are also categorised separately, as they are often implicated in starting fires, but usually they're considered to be out of curiosity rather than malice.
Several fires in the New South Wales 2013 bushfire season were tracked to children. And police have charged a juvenile with starting a Central Queensland bushfire which destroyed 14 homes this week. - Lightning: It's the most common ignition source in remote areas, but not all lighting is equally likely to start a fire, according to Mr Woods.
"Positively charged lightning is far more likely to start a fire," he said.
"Positive charges only make up about 10 per cent of lightning strikes."
Lightning sparked the 2015 Esperance fires which killed four people, and lightning strikes are believed to be the source of some of the fires that have recently hit Queensland and New South Wales, according to Mr Woods.
"In the recent fires of northern New South Wales and Queensland, it was reported that there was a big lightning band that went through the area." - Miscellaneous: Power lines, firearms, blasting, glass refraction, electric fences, and more.
If army exercises turn out to be the culprit in the Gold Coast fire last week, it won't be the first time, according to Mr Woods.
"There's a case in New South Wales which occurred in 2013 that was known as the State Mine fire," he said.
"What happened there was that they were doing controlled explosion of ordnance that caused a fire that then escaped."
Electric fences and power lines are also common sources of ignition, but glass refraction — where sunlight is concentrated through a discarded glass bottle — is so rare it's almost a myth, Mr Woods said
This is how investigators find where and how a fire started
From lightning strikes to train brakes, bullets and power lines, here's how bushfires usually start in Australia.
www.abc.net.au
370 hectares? This is the argument that the Murdoch shills are using?
How much area has the fire affected?
370 compared to 5 million hectares. That’s 0.0074%
And you’ve claimed that ‘many of the areas where the controlled burns were cancelled’ were swept with fire.
Stop being dishonest.
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It's just one example of many burns that have been cancelled or reduced by pressure from greens groups. We'll never know the true extent because the evidence is being deleted as we speak.
No it's not. I've not seen this story in the MSM at all.
Do you think I'd make such a claim without checking first? On what basis are you now calling me a liar?
Where are the other examples? The fire fighters in the blue mountains stated categorically that prescribed burning has been limited because of being too hot, too windy or too wet. Nothing to do with Greenie’s. Either those good people are liars are you are.
The evidence is being deleted as we speak. Lol. I should have taken you for a conspiracy theorist earlier. My mistake.
The Australian has headlined their blaming the Greens practices for the bushfires. Barnaby Joyce has blamed the Greens for the fires as well, which was reported on by them. With 361 hectares of unburnt land.
Disgraceful dishonesty.
Where did you get the image from?
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How about we let the volunteer firefighters speak for themselves?
..... it wasn’t climate change that killed almost 200 people in the Black Saturday fires ten years ago.
The real culprit is green ideology which opposes the necessary hazard reduction of fuel loads in national parks and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation around their homes.
Jinks Creek Winery was destroyed after a bushfire engulfed the Bunyip state forest. Picture: Stuart McEvoy / The Australian
The ongoing poor management of national parks and state forests in Victoria and green obstruction of fire mitigation strategies has led to dangerously high fuel loads over the past decade.
That means that when fires do inevitably break out they are so intense that they are devilishly difficult for firefighters to contain. As a federal parliamentary inquiry heard in 2003, if you quadruple the ground fuel, you get a 13-fold increase in the heat generated by a fire.
Locals know the truth. Andrew Clarke, owner of Jinks Creek Winery, which has been destroyed by a fire which raged out of the Bunyip State Forest, “begged” for fuel reduction burns to protect his property.
“I’ve been begging them [Forest Fire Management Victoria] for 20 years to burn off the state forest at the back of our place and still to this day it hasn’t happened,” he told the ABC’s Country Hour.
Clarke said a planned burn-off was called off because of concerns about nesting birds.
So how did that work out for the birds?
Just three weeks ago, Victoria’s former chief fire officer Ewan Waller warned that state forest fuel loads were reaching deadly, Black Saturday levels. No one paid any attention.
But you can bet Premier Daniel Andrews will hide behind the climate change furphy.
Parroting green lies suits politicians because then they can avoid blame for their own culpability.
The Black Saturday Bushfire Royal Commission criticised the Victorian government for its failure to reduce fuel loads in state forests. It recommended more than doubling the amount of hazard reduction burns.
Instead, in the last three years, alone, the Andrews government has slashed the amount of public land being hazard reduced by almost two thirds.
It’s a crime.
From the volunteer firefighters organisation website.
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/green-ideology-not-climate-change-makes-bushfires-worse
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Yep.
Protesters Halt Burns - 99.5 & 99.9 Gippsland's TRFM
Protesters Have Halted Planned Burns In Two Locations Today
They didn't see the need to delete it like the ABC though after fire went through Nowa Nowa.
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Year in year out this is the sort of shit the people trying to carry out the controlled burns have to put up with. No wonder they fail to do so in many instances.
The issue of air pollution from smoke associated with fuel reduction burns increasing pollution levels in urban areas is a significant limiting factor on when such burns can be carried out. Private property owners require a permit for bush fire reduction burning and this is automatically suspended where a No Burn Day is declared by the EPA. This occurs for example when there are indications that smoke from planned fires is likely to contribute to the build-up of air pollution.
So let's see, protests can call controlled burns off, wind can do so, as can rain, high temperature - check, the EPA declaring a 'No Burn Day', concerns about the fauna etc. What about pressure from Green groups about carbon emissions? Haven't seen evidence for it yet but I'm sure it won't be long.
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- May 8, 2007
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"The introduction of broadscale burning with aerial ignition improved forest health and fire safety. In the 1970s Australia led the world in land and fire management.
Then, in the 1980s, green academics with wilderness between the ears came up with ridiculous theories that burning would damage the environment. This, where Aboriginal people had maintained a healthy and safe landscape for at least forty thousand years. They had no need for firefighting. They didn’t have boots or overalls, let alone aircraft and computers.
Now we’ve got an ecofascist paramilitary firefighting authority at the expense of sustainable land management. We’re pissin’ into the wind"
volunteerfirefighters.org.au
Then, in the 1980s, green academics with wilderness between the ears came up with ridiculous theories that burning would damage the environment. This, where Aboriginal people had maintained a healthy and safe landscape for at least forty thousand years. They had no need for firefighting. They didn’t have boots or overalls, let alone aircraft and computers.
Now we’ve got an ecofascist paramilitary firefighting authority at the expense of sustainable land management. We’re pissin’ into the wind"
Yankees Gap Fire - Half a century of regress in land and fire management
volunteerfirefighters.org.au
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Wye River is another area where controlled burns that were scheduled in March 2015 were cancelled. Fire devastated the area on Christmas Day that year. It's alleged that media interest in a Koala Cull in the area that had occurred not long before the planned burn caused Victoria's Environment minister to pressure the Department into cancelling the burn. In fact there are file notes on Departmental files that back this up. She admits that she did seek assurance that the department had taken into account the "significant community concerns" about the potential impacts of koala populations but not to asking them to cancel the burns. She says it rained on the scheduled day. Really?? That was the only reason the burn didn't get done that year? Because one day it was too wet? Did it rain every day from then on?
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mcnulty
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And you’ve linked us to a piece by Miranda Devine. Lol.
You’ve also linked us to cauldronpool, which is about as far into the right loonisphere as it gets.
Caldron Pool - Bias and Credibility
QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no
mediabiasfactcheck.com
Yeah, but the ABC are the problem...
Barrybran
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It was nice to hear this stuff straight from the horses mouth. Shane Fitsimmons was just on Sunrise and said that the number one issue the NSW RFS faces is reduced windows to be able to do hazard reduction burns followed by needing more resources to both hazard reduction burn and fight fires effectively. He said that "Green" policies don't really affect them as they have special permissions to cut through red tape.
I've been guilty of being skeptical of the climate change debate not because of the facts (I live in a drought affected area - I can see it's bloody dry!) but because of who is spruiking this stuff. Hearing this stuff from the Commissioner of the NSW RFS carries far more weight with me than a 16yo on the other side of the planet or a hippy gluing themselves to a speedbump because they're actively dealing with this stuff. I hope his interview is cut and spread because people need to see it.
I've been guilty of being skeptical of the climate change debate not because of the facts (I live in a drought affected area - I can see it's bloody dry!) but because of who is spruiking this stuff. Hearing this stuff from the Commissioner of the NSW RFS carries far more weight with me than a 16yo on the other side of the planet or a hippy gluing themselves to a speedbump because they're actively dealing with this stuff. I hope his interview is cut and spread because people need to see it.
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where have you sourced this graph from?
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In my opinion hazard reduction burns offer little more than a placebo. To truly reduce the hazard in the eastern state forests you need an actual bushfire, burning ground and canopy.
In terms of fire area burned, 2009 Black Saturday was only small. The problem there was that people had built right within the bush. The key finding from the 1939 Black Friday fires was that people should stop living in the bush - most of those who died then were from logging communities. Perhaps a conceit that bushfire hazard could be managed led to people believing they'd be fine, when 70 years earlier a Royal Commission found that there are few circumstances for people to live so close to trees.
The area burned in NSW is massive and mostly confined to national parks. There are always hazard reduction burns in NSW national parks - in winter there is occasionally a light smoke haze across Sydney due to burning in Blue Mountains or the Royal National Park. Some of the parks that have burned have extremely inaccessible terrain, eg the Budawangs, to the west of Ulladulla:
It is very sad if a lot of this has burned.
Around my house as the drought has prolonged many of the gums have started shedding their bark and leaves like crazy. Maybe this is due to stress, but maybe it's an evolved response to fire-like conditions. Given how much gums tend to love fire - even actively encouraging it even with the make up of their leaves - it would not surprise me if the latter was the case.
mcnulty
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And right on cue, the commissioner of the peak body representing rural firefighters has a very different view to Miranda.And you’ve linked us to a piece by Miranda Devine. Lol.
You’ve also linked us to cauldronpool, which is about as far into the right loonisphere as it gets.
Caldron Pool - Bias and Credibility
QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no
Yeah, but the ABC are the problem...
NSW fire service boss Shane Fitzsimmons shoots down Barnaby Joyce's bushfire claim
In an appearance on Sunrise, the former National party leader blamed environmental groups and red tape for allowing a build up of 'fuel' in national parks and bushland.
7news.com.au
I don't expect anyone will put up their hand and say, " I/we could have done more/better". Hence the federal review is needed.
Would love to see those figures for Victoria. Here they claim it's not about burning more, but burning smarter.
Snake_Baker
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Demontim275
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Yay. More cross promotion of his twitter.
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