I wouldn’t trust those overlay maps, one of those shown by ABC America had parts of Central Australia on fire, which truth be told is just sand and a lot of Very Hot. If it was flammable the Black Fellas would have set on fire 50k years ago or however long they have been here. The facts for the 3 Eastern states are. Victoria: they have had much worse in the past Queensland: As per Victoria NSW: About the largest area burnt
On a more serious note 3 Americans lost their lives when one of planes used to quell the fires went down, a bunch of young blokes in their 40’s. No reason for the crash yet, that will take a while to sort out. Rest In Peace, and our sympathies to their families. Composed with my Crayons > On 24 Jan 2020, at 23:13, Gene Heskett <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Friday 24 January 2020 05:16:48 Erik Christiansen wrote: >> >>> On 18.01.20 00:08, Gene Heskett wrote: >>> With all the fires down under, he hasn't posted since 12 October. >>> >>> Wondering if he and his new place is ok? >> >> Many thanks, Gene, for the thoughts. (I only come back to town, and >> the internet two weekends per month, while trying to push the build >> along - insulating, then painting in Nov/Dec.) >> >> So far, the only strife at the farm is choking smoke when the wind's >> in the wrong direction - but that is also colouring New Zealand >> glaciers and making the sky grey in Chile, so it's pretty useless to >> bitch when I'm only 60 km from the western edge of the big patch (1.4 >> million hectares (3.5 million acres¹) of fires around Mallacoota, >> Sarsfield, etc. (I am a bit stiff from putting in 150 m of 40 mm poly >> pipe for a fire main with hydrants at the building corners, and a >> demountable petrol driven fire pump, so it's harder to pinch. I've >> bought a Grundfos electric variable speed boost pump for domestic >> supply from 21,000 gallons of tanks (when they're filled - arrived >> yesterday, just _after_ we had over 100 mm of rain in 2 days, a third >> of what we had all last year, or the year before. The electric pump >> can be cranked up to 62m head, hopefully enough for standing off hours >> of ember attack prior to fire arrival. I'm adding a valve so it can >> feed the fire main instead of the house. A fire fighting pump must >> have continuous flow to keep it cool, which is not good with a finite >> water supply, but the electric one shuts down when you close off the >> nozzle on the fire hose. We'll see how it works out.) >> >> Even several weeks after the fire peak, the only way through on the >> only highway between the east of Victoria and the rest of the state is >> with the military in Bushmaster armoured cars, as the clearing of >> fallen and dangerous trees is ongoing. An escorted convoy was allowed >> out to the north, into New South Wales, then back via Canberra for >> those wanting back to Victoria - a helluva drive. >> >> Today we lost a 3-man retardant-bombing crew from USA when a C130 went >> in. > > Ouch. My sympathies for the mens families. I'm reading of quite a few in > the entertainment business here who have collectively donated quite a > few millions to the firefighting efforts. Probably just a drop in the > bucket compared to whats needed though. > >> Quite a few firefighters have given their all and then some this >> season, one when a fire tornado flipped an 8 tonne firetruck onto its >> roof. I think we have about a hundred really experienced American >> firefighters here to rotate with our strike team leaders and managers. > >> The glorious rain didn't put the fires out, but it really reduces the >> rate of spread. >> >> Much of the burnt country is forest, but there's a lot of stock with >> nothing but charcoal and ash to eat, so there's a lot of stock feed >> going past our farm on the highway. I was in town on Saturday, and a >> convoy of 30 semitrailers loaded to the gunwales with hay went east, >> and at the petrol station they said another of 15 semitrailers had >> gone through earlier in the day. A few days before I met a convoy of >> 15 loads of donated hay. How much is going through the rest of the >> time? > I don't have a clue, but I don't imagine theres enough to keep it going > for long enough to save all the stock. > >> The rain makes the rest of us at a distance much safer. Heck, for the >> first time in a year, there's a foot of water in the bottom of the >> best dam on the property, > > Not much in the grand scheme of things. > >> and there's green grass shooting up all >> over. If there's a bit of follow-up rain here and there, we could >> start farming again. (The only animals on the place are kangaroos, >> wallabies, and wombats, now. One of the latter started digging a 2 >> foot diameter burrow in the soft sand of the fill pad under the new >> build. I've twice chased him across the paddock after midnight at 25 >> km/h in the ute, with headlights on high beam and honking the horn. I >> didn't know they could run that fast on those stubby little legs.) >> > And I'm told you can't kill them for any reason. Even if they are > killing you. > >> Erik >> >> ¹ Add in NSW and the other states, and the total is over 10 million >> hectares (25 million acres) nationally so far this season. Current >> estimates for the CO2 emissions is over 900 million tonnes. It's a >> climate disaster which doubles or triples our national emissions. (Not >> finished yet.) > > We've had overlay maps published on the net here with the fire drawn to > scale over the north american continent, which puts nearly 40% of our > land mass under the areas of your fires. That gives us a very scary map > of our climate future, and makes the Kalifornia fires look a backyard > BBQ. > > We've enough mature forest here in WV that we'd be gone in two weeks, > burned to a crisp under those conditions. And we've not had enough snow > here, about an inch total so far this winter. I've seen winters here > that dropped several feet over as many months, but not in the last 20 > years. So far this winter, 3 major storms that started in our > breadbasket, killing stock where they stood, have skipped by us 150 > miles to the north on the way to the right coast. > > We are DRY. Very dry. > > Good luck Erik. The rain slows it, but I fear the fat lady hasn't sung > yet. > > Cheers, Gene Heskett > -- > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. > - Louis D. Brandeis > Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
