http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/i-now-understand-the-word-firestorm-20090209-8288.html?page=-1
when you work you entire life to buy a house and put countless years of sh!t into it, youll understand why.
hey now: plenty of people in the lower 9th ward spent a lifetime sitting on their collective ass "earning" their homes.
You do know that the welfare queen with Cadillacs was actually a myth, right?
The Lower 9th Ward was one of the poorest and most feared neighborhoods in New Orleans, and was almost totally wiped out by Katrina.
honestly, i would have held out until the last possible minute. theres no way at all in controlling huge fires like these...a garden hose and fire truck hose aint gonna do anything at all.
It is probably apples & oranges. Generally the people who stayed and needed rescuing I believe had no options to leave.honestly, i would have held out until the last possible minute. theres no way at all in controlling huge fires like these...a garden hose and fire truck hose aint gonna do anything at all.
these people are staring losing everything in the face and just want to try and see if they can maybe, just maybe save their possessions. but like you said, their government will be johnny on the spot for them...you know, just like we were with katrina
Jesus god...
They cannot and do not order evacuations. As I stated above this policy will come under review in the inquiry.
So, where would you have gone?
http://www.theage.com.au/national/after-the-hellfire-grim-news-for-families-20090210-82lo.html?page=-1
These are the worst ones ever but in 1983 there was some bad ones (75 killed). Tends to be worse in Victoria due to the relatively mountainous terrain and the relatively higher population densities. Perhaps exacerbated in this situation by the "treechange" trend, the areas in question being fairly close to Melbourne.
Partly to answer your question;
http://www.theage.com.au/national/cfa-backs-defend-or-go-policy-20090210-83es.html?page=-1
The policy is "go early or stay and defend" and is based on lessons learned from previous bushfires. It seems that in this case, a large number of people were killed trying to flee. When the fire is moving 50 kilometres in 30 minutes there's no outrunning it. Remember those gum trees start to "crown" basically explode, so the fire can be upon you before you know what's happening.
holy ****, i did not realize those fires were moving that fast.
Yes. The view from my side of the continent where we have a much more aggressive proscribed burning program and haven't ever had fires of this magnitude is that in the east they don't do it enough. Again, something the inquiry will look at.
As mentioned a couple of posts earlier, at one stage the fire front was advancing at around 100kph (60mph), just try to imagine that. It was one of, if not the hottest day on record and very, very windy. Couple this with the extremely dry conditions and you have pretty much the worst conditions imaginable, far worse than ever seen before in Victoria. Perfect for a fire storm. Imagine first seeing the smoke 25-50k's away, so you start getting things prepared but already it's too late! 15 to 30mins is not enough time to get out of these locations and you can't outrun a fire front that is travelling at those speeds on mountain roads in smoke so thick you can't see where your're going. Many of those who perished were faced with this horrible situation. There are photo's of burnt out cars where the aluminium parts have melted and run out along the ground from under the vehicle...
awesome vid....the guy sounds like Steve Irwin..krickey!
Not to make light of an awful situation, but That is clearly the result of a shaped thermite charge as there is no way a wood fire could generate sufficient heat to melt aluminum. It just doesn't add up. Who could be behind this?Pretty scary stuff.
That's not aluminum it's aluminium. That stuff melts if you look at it wrong.
This is a good point. Your prior preparation is going to be a very strong factor in determining whether your house survives. However there is some method to the stay and defend concept in that its extremely rare for houses to be lost due to direct flame contact. i.e. fires don't burn right up to the house and set it on fire. In something like 90% of cases where houses are lost in a bushfire the cause of ignition is burning embers blown by the wind in front of the actual flame front of the fire. So if you have prepared around your home properly (have a fuel reduced zone etc) then in most cases it is quite possible for a home owner to remain with the house and use a hose or buckets of water to put out spot fires as they are ignited by burning embers falling on the property. This idea has worked pretty well for lots of homeowners over the last 2 centuries however as has recently been shown in such a tragic matter extreme fire conditions change the rules.
