• Thank you to Carol and Steve Bowman, the forum owners, for our new upgrade!

Australia's ‘Black Summer’

Eva1942

Eva1942

A Walking Enigma...
I just wanted to show you all the scope of the bushfires that are burning here in Australia. There are now fires across four states (New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and a growing threat in Western Australia).

Living through Australia’s ‘black summer’ is draining. The air is thick and disgusting and it is at the point where it is making people feel sick or are sick ( I am one of those).

I’ve never prayed for monsoonal rain so much in this lifetime as what I have now. All I pray for is rain... Monsoonal rain..

Eva x

2E9D3278-32C1-4DF3-A756-05A5DC9959B7.jpeg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Australia felix. Hm-hm.

I thought only Spaniards were so careless throwing cigarette fag-ends everywhere, without even looking. You can see a middle-aged respectable woman in the subway (metro, underground) throwing a half-finished cigarette anywhere when a train aproaches (what an "education" - she just CANNOT enter the train WITH that cigarette in her mouth !).

The monsoons will NOT help - it's in the people's brains. I once talked with a poor Rumanian immigrant, and was amazed how he extinguished his cigarette when it came to its end: he spat on it, and then he smashed it on a special tray that was there about ten meters away (!!!), and then he threw it into a dustbin!!! That "educated" woman from the subway wouldn't bother nor care.

Maybe the Australian authorities should forbid people to get out of the cities on week-ends - so, less cigarette fag-ends would be thrown from the cars into the dry grass.

Maybe? Who knows?
 
Last edited:
Cyrus said:
Maybe the Australian authorities should forbid people to get out of the cities on week-ends - so, less cigarette fag-ends would be thrown from the cars into the dry grass.
Click to expand...

I’d like to inform you that most of the current bushfires have NOT been started by people’s ignorance regarding cigarette butts, OR people going away on holidays and as you say ‘ get out of the cities’. They have been started by dry, hot conditions where even two sticks rubbing together have been known to start a fire. Also the bushfires can start with a stick or a small branch hitting powerlines and it ignites.

Australians have some of the most precise and often pedantic bushfire measures. ALL homes in Bushfire prone areas MUST comply with building regulations that stipulate building materials must be low combustible materials and in the best circumstances — made of brick.

Perhaps educate yourself on this. It is a Bushfire survival plan and we make one EVERY season. https://esa.act.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-12/Bushfire Survival Plan 2018.pdf (With thanks to the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government)

As if write this post, there is now five states and one Territory that is threatened by bushfire. New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), South Australia (SA), Tasmania (TAS) and Western Australia (WA) are now ravaged with bushfires. Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are under Bushfire alert for smoke.

Until you live here, you never realise just how lucky you are to live somewhere where these don’t exist or are very rare.

Eva x
 
I concur, people are rarely the problem, it’s the conditions. Hottest year on record combined with winds and dry foliage, catastrophic combination. Lightening is often the ignition to fires, particularly where I live which is often threatened by bushfires, three roads closed now as we speak.

Most of the states of Australia are on fire, I think the size of UK has been burned already, 5million animals killed and counting.

Doesn’t help that we have an incompetent government either.

Regards,

Ophelia.
 
Eva1942 said:
I’d like to inform you that most of the current bushfires have NOT been started by people’s ignorance regarding cigarette butts, OR people going away on holidays and as you say ‘ get out of the cities’. They have been started by dry, hot conditions where even two sticks rubbing together have been known to start a fire. Also the bushfires can start with a stick or a small branch hitting powerlines and it ignites.

Australians have some of the most precise and often pedantic bushfire measures. ALL homes in Bushfire prone areas MUST comply with building regulations that stipulate building materials must be low combustible materials and in the best circumstances — made of brick.

Perhaps educate yourself on this. It is a Bushfire survival plan and we make one EVERY season. https://esa.act.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-12/Bushfire Survival Plan 2018.pdf (With thanks to the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government)

As if write this post, there is now five states and one Territory that is threatened by bushfire. New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), South Australia (SA), Tasmania (TAS) and Western Australia (WA) are now ravaged with bushfires. Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are under Bushfire alert for smoke.

Until you live here, you never realise just how lucky you are to live somewhere where these don’t exist or are very rare.

Eva x
Click to expand...

There are bushfires here in Spain every summer, and I never heard of such causes as "two sticks rubbing together". It all looks highly unlikely to me, physically impossible. Anyhow, I'm not an expert on this. When Europeans discoverd Australia, it was a blooming land, not a burnt desert.

Maybe we are so retrograde compared to the futuristic and advanced Australians, but here it's always cigarette butts, outdoor barbecues or intentional arsons (with very varied reasons, from psychic deviations to economic advantage).
 
Last edited:
Cyrus said:
There are bushfires here in Spain every summer, and I never heard of such causes as "two sticks rubbing together". It all looks highly unlikely to me, physically impossible. Anyhow, I'm not an expert on this. When Europeans discoverd Australia, it was a blooming land, not a burnt desert.

Maybe we are so retrograde compared to the futuristic and advanced Australians, but here it's always cigarette butts, outdoor barbecues or intentional arsons (with very varied reasons, from psychic deviations to economic advantage).
Click to expand...

As already mentioned Australia is experiencing it’s hottest Summer on record, after a year or more of severe droughts. Natural intervention is often the cause, with lightening hitting drought affected forests (dry foliage) combined with catastrophic winds. Lightening is the cause for a number of fires in Victoria this year.

Cigarette butts are statistically VERY low on the fire ignition graph, with lightening, burn offs, arsen, train tracks, electrical tools, glass shards and etc being more statistically probable.

Ophelia.
 
Ophelia3 said:
As already mentioned Australia is experiencing it’s hottest Summer on record, after a year or more of severe droughts. Natural intervention is often the cause, with lightening hitting drought affected forests (dry foliage) combined with catastrophic winds. Lightening is the cause for a number of fires in Victoria this year.

Cigarette butts are statistically VERY low on the fire ignition graph, with lightening, burn offs, arsen, train tracks, electrical tools, glass shards and etc being more statistically probable.

Ophelia.
Click to expand...

OK.

It looks like the Southern Hemisphere has more ultraviolet radiation from the Sun (ozone hole and all that), so that you have to protect your skin and eyes even when going out onto the street, not necessarily a beach.

Sorry for that.
 
Are they tougher on smoking, smokers in Australia than in Spain I wonder? I can see drastic change from my own upbringing in Sweden regarding smoking. I use to think smoking-smell was cozy, was home to me, was never bothered by it. linked it with the comfort of having good grown ups around me. Today one can laugh at that, but that is how it was, for me. Many grown ups I knew smoke. Today people are not allowed to smoke in many places where they use to smoke and if and when I encounter some smoke in the air I can smell how badly it smells. When I have been abroad I have seen in some other countries a different spectrum on the allowance and how used everyone is to smoking, smokers. So as this is in Cyrus every day's observation I have to say I was with him 100% - thinking it was done by humans carelessness and not done by nature itself.

How horrible it is this bad, sure hope it starts to rain

Best Wishes

Li La
 
Last edited:
Cyrus said:
OK.

It looks like the Southern Hemisphere has more ultraviolet radiation from the Sun (ozone hole and all that), so that you have to protect your skin and eyes even when going out onto the street, not necessarily a beach.

Sorry for that.
Click to expand...

Yeah the hole in the Ozone definitely makes the sun and UV stronger. I mention often that when in Greece I apply sunscreen once, in the sun all day, and don’t get burnt, if I were to do that in Australia, even walking the street I’d be severely burnt.

The sun is impatient and unforgiving here! I miss the Mediterranean sun. :(
 
I hope that things get better and that all of you, including my relatives who live there, are alright. It’s touching that people from outside Australia are helping. One of my Australian friends already lost his home and I feel bad for him. It’s raining but I don’t think it’s enough if ‘hugs blazes are expected’ so we can only hope for the best now and if possible, continue helping.
 
To prove how bad the bushfires really are at the moment in South Australia, bushfires have ravaged our beautiful holiday island - Kangaroo Island. The entire western side of the island has been destroyed by fire, not to mention the loss of of almost 25,000 wildlife INCLUDING Koalas.

The Wildlife Park in Parndana in the middle of the island has been spared from the fires along with some of the township. As of tonight (12.01), the fire remains on the western edge of the town. Kingscote, on the eastern side of the island and contains Kangaroo Island’s only major airport is under Bushfire Alert too. There are only two ways off the island either by plane, or by ferry from Pennshaw, near Kingscote to Cape Jervis.

These screenshots of a map from the CFS (Country Fire Service) show badly truly is. I am so tired of seeing it everywhere, as that is all you ever hear about and while we have had some light rain, we need one big downpour.

The second photograph is how much of the fires surround Parndana. The lines represent how much is burnt.

Doesn’t help that our government is useless, with the PM even admitting that he should have called in the Army/Navy sooner.

Eva x

74CA8C17-1A00-48F6-8695-11329D2AB77A.jpeg

CEA39624-5CAA-4FBC-8D70-73E5FF24929B.jpeg
 
KenJ said:
What are the natives (Ab....) doing to survive?
My spelling has vanished.
Click to expand...

You mean the Aboriginals? Considering most of the Indigenous Aboriginals live in the Northern Territory which is not on fire, I'd say the same ones that do live in affected bushfires states would cope like as the rest of us.

Eva x
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top