The Australian fires...
 

I thought I'd write a note about the fires here in Australia, which you may have heard about in the news. In terms of fatalities they are the worst fires in Australia's history.

The fires are in Victoria, the state I live in. However, most of the fires are (were) out in the countryside. There were a couple of small fires in the city of Melbourne. Of the two city areas that had some fire damage, one is about 15 minutes drive away from me (Narre Warren South), and burned down 7 houses, last I saw. The other city-area fire is about 20 minutes drive away from me (Upper Ferntree Gully), and didn't burn down any houses that I know of. I think both those fires are out now, and the worst of the fires is over, thankfully. However, the main fires that have taken lives are the several fires out in the countryside. Overall, more than 700 homes were lost, and last I saw 93 people had lost their lives, though the final count is expected to be higher.

On Saturday, we had the hottest day in our recorded history - the temperature reached 46.4 degrees C, or around 115 degrees F. Let me tell ya, it was hot!

In addition to that were some strong winds... Sometimes we get hot winds, blowing to the city from the inland Australian desert.

Soon after the hot weather ended, we had some lightning. In addition, some of the fires are believed to have been deliberately lit by arsonists.

I'm sure all these contributed to the ignition and spreading of the fires...

Also, many native Australian trees are eucalypts. They're designed - believe it or not - to catch fire. The trees are full of highly flammable eucalyptus oil. After a fire is when many eucalyptus trees release their seeds. That's why Australian fires tend to be pretty bad (and there have been eucalyptus-based fires in California too, since eucalypts were introduced to California from Australia in the 19th century for timber).

Temperatures are much better here now - on Sunday, we've had a maximum temperature of 24 degrees C, around 75 degrees F. (We can get dramatic changes in temperature here depending on wind direction. If the wind blows from the north, it blows in from the hot desert, while if the wind blows from the south, it's a cool ocean breeze.)

I want to express gratitude to the fire fighters, who have had a difficult and very dangerous job to do.

My thoughts go out to all the families who lost their loved ones...

- Dien

Re: The Australian fires...
 

Dien and all those suffering from fires: You have my heartfelt sympathies and prayers for healing and recovery as much and as quickly as possible. Stay safe and keep those you love near and dear in your hearts, prayers, and arms.

Sandi Bowman

Re: The Australian fires...
 

Dien,
So glad to hear you are ok. My sympathy to the families there. Also, is Michael ok? and do you know what is happening in South Wales? (one of my other internet colleagues lives there on a farm with her horses, and we've not heard anything, yet)
Sandy at Sowpub.

Re: The Australian fires...
 

Hi Sandy,

The fires, as far as I know, have only affected the state of Victoria (where I am). I don't think anything bad has happened in New South Wales - they've had much milder weather, I think. Michael is in Queensland, which also is not affected by fires (though north Queensland has had some flooding, however, Michael's in the southern part of Queensland).

Australia's a big country, so states can be quite large! So in these different states, we're quite a long way from each other. (Michael, for example, is about 1,200 miles or 2,000 km away from me.)

Thanks for your note, Sandy (and to Sandi too)...

Best wishes,

Dien

How Do Your FireFighters Fight Fire w/Out WATER?
 

Hi Dien,

Thanks for mentioning the fire down-under.

This makes me remember an article about WATER scarcity In saw in the Wall St Journal - to do with several Aussy cities.

I think some obscene 1/2 billion # was quoted to do with building Desalinization plants big enough to supply drinking water.

A - Do you get enough rain to supply drinking water - where you live?

B - What's the story of creating drinking water from salt water?

C - How in the heck do the fire fighters fight fire without H2O?

Glenn

Re: The Australian fires...
 

It's sad enough when fires like this are accidental But according to the latest news it's much worse...

Seems to Happen all too often with many wildfires these days... California has experienced the same terrible news in recent years...

Makes you wonder about many things in Life...

Sympathies and prayers to all that are going through this terrible tragedy...

Australian fire zone declared a crime scene
Investigators suspect wildfires that killed 130 were deliberately set
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29067017

Phil

Re: The Australian fires...
 

I am from Australia too, it was a sad day for our fellow Aussies who have lost lives and properties to that conflagration. I hope it will not happen again and let's pray for the bereaved families that they will be delivered from all those horrors and be able to move on with their lives with much faith and hope.

About our water
 

Glenn,

Thanks for asking about Water.

My state - Queensland - has enough water in the dams. And as our dams get lower we are subjected to different types of water restrictions.

My city publishes the dam levels here
http://www.seqwater.com.au/content/s...AndMaintenance

While Somerset looks High, it is only a small dam. And when water is released from it, the water flows into the larger Wivenhoe dam.

This weather beruea rader image http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR663.shtml shows the weather as it approaches Brisbane. At around 9 o'clock t0 10:30 o'clock you can see both of these dams. And thus their relationship to Brisbane.

If you then go to Google Maps you'll have an idea on where to look.

To give you an idea on Scale, the Gold Coast (city) is south of Brisbane - which is marked on the map. Gold Coast is signified by Southport on that map. A little left and south you'll see Hinze Dam. That dam feeds the Gold Coast and no other City. The Gold Coast also gets some water from Brisbane. And the Gold Coast is where a Desalination Plant has been built.

In Brisbane, what people also don't know is, down near Cedar Grove a weir has been built on a small nondescript river. Water is Pumped from that weir into the city's water grid. When all construction is finished, that lowly weir will be fed by two LARGE holding pond reservoirs- and - another Dam out near Boonah (to the left of Hinze Dam).

With around 1,500 people a Week moving into the area, Brisbane and the Gold Coast need to find other sources of water. They may be fine now (just), but in the future is where the issues lay.

===

As for Distances. As Dien pointed out, our respective cities are around 1200 miles apart. Pull up a map of Australia with Google maps.

On the right about half way up is Brisbane - the city I live in. Dien live in the State of Victoria. Its capital (Melbourne) is roughly at the bottom of the state where is comes back up from the left and right.

The country itself is around the same size as the USA. But, as you can see, the Main Land is divided into six sections with one Island to the south of Victoria being number 7. Unlike the USA main 48 states with 2 out of the main land mass.

So we have the land mass of the USA with only 20 million people.

Michael Ross
Skype | Biz | Twitter | MySpace | E-mail

Re: How Do Your FireFighters Fight Fire w/Out WATER?
 

Hi Glenn!

I'm fighting a flu at the moment... Sorry for the delay. Some days my head just isn't clear (it goes up and down)... But hopefully (cough) it will go away (sneeze) soon...!

Yes, the desalination plant is being built here in Melbourne, where I live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbour...lination_plant

There is water in the local reservoirs, but water levels have been low for a few years now. We've been in a drought (low rainfall) for a few years. We've also had "water restrictions" for a few years, to reduce water usage and make it stretch out a bit more.

That generally means limitations of use of water for watering gardens, washing cars, filling up swimming pools, etc.

The details are here...
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=120&pg=997

By the way, this is true for Melbourne, but not necessarily for other Australian cities. Sydney does have water restrictions too, though - http://www.sydneywater.com.au/Saving...rRestrictions/ . I think they're also suffering drought.

I don't know the details. All I know is that it's very expensive!

We're not the first. There are desalination plants in the Middle East. Apparently there's also one in Tampa Bay, Florida.
http://www.tampabaywater.org/watersu...loverview.aspx

Since I don't know much about it, I'll take the easy way out and link to a Wikipedia article. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

I don't know where all the water comes from for fire fighting. However, one difference might be that water for fire fighting doesn't have to be clean, drinkable water, I don't think. However, I don't know exactly where that water comes from.

Wow, tough questions! :)

Thanks for asking them... I hope I helped a little...

The update on the fires is that they're still blazing, and sadly, 181 lives have been confirmed to be lost...

I went to a store yesterday to buy supplies to feed my chocolate addiction. The lady behind the counter had apparently been affected by the fires - her house was okay, but apparently her garage had burned down. I'm not sure exactly where her house is located, but as I mentioned in my earlier post, two areas affected by relatively smaller fires (compared to some of the other infernos) are roughly 15 and 20 minutes drive away from me.

If you want to help the survivors of the fires, the Red Cross will take donations...
Here's a link (though the site seems to be extremely busy, and may be hard to load)...
https://www.redcross.org.au/Donation...eDonations.asp

- Dien