Maybe 40 dead in Bushfires

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Joined: 9 Jul 2004
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Location: Uz

12 Feb 2009, 2:03 pm

when i used to live in WA, it was established that the cause of a deathly fire there was due to power lines.

i feel sorry for the animals.

it's stupid to stay and try to defend your home in these types of fires and some people leave it too late to get out. those are their choices. because i am in a bushfire prone area i intend to get out as quickly as possible. there's no way i would attempt to stay and defend this place.

Xelebes
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12 Feb 2009, 3:43 pm

b9 wrote:

Postperson wrote:

The thing I dread is the media going beserk over it, you know how they drag it out for months and months, it becomes an 'media industry'.

yes they seem almost excited to have so much easy work to do.
they search for the most expressive and forlorn faces to interview.
there has already been clips wich are compiled to the song "he aint heavy he's my brother" and other ones compiled to the tune of "amazing graze".
how crass

Postperson wrote:

I think the notion that all such fires are started by 'arsonists' is a social myth and an easy scapegoat, sure there's plenty of em about, but at those temperatures, it really could be started by a piece of broken glass, or anything.

well there is some speculation as to electricity arcing that may have caused some of the fires, and the investigation is in it's infancy, so it will be interesting to see if there is some unlikely point of origin (with accelerants).

there were no thunderstorms and the fires were not propagated from within houses, and 45 degrees is not that hot to encourage fires from broken glass.

the strength of the sun through a magnifying glass is no more on a 45 degree day as on a 25 degree day (at the same time in the season on a clear day).
it is ambient heat that causes the air to be heated to 45, but the suns rays are no more strong than they are on mild days.
atmospheric temperature is not magnifying of solar power.

it is likely to be deliberately lit,

with no human presence, a 45 degree day is uneventful unless you have a dry electrical storm.

Eucalyptus sap ignites at relatively low temperatures. There are other plants that ignite in particularly hot days.

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Postperson
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12 Feb 2009, 10:58 pm

this is my place.

looking out of front living room windows to the Dial Ranges.

Shot with DiMAGE X31 at 2009-02-12[/img]

and looking back at the front living room

Shot with DiMAGE X31 at 2009-02-12

It's an old dump on 16 neglected acres. I had to replace the deck shown in the first photo, in the second photo it's new treated pine, but I don't think you can tell in the picture.

I don't know what that "shot with dimage thing" means, i'm not very good at posting photos, so I'll just leave it there.

Zamone
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Location: Victoria, Australia

12 Feb 2009, 11:30 pm

I live about 20km east of Melbourne. We smell the smoke here sometimes, but we'bve not been threatened by the fires.

DentArthurDent
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13 Feb 2009, 1:41 am

Just in they have charged a man with one of the fires

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/13/2491107.htm

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leechbabe
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15 Feb 2009, 4:05 am

I'm in eastern suburbs of Melbourne, not so far from effected towns.

Bit shattering going places like my daughters school and hearing of teachers who have lost their homes, or at swimming last Monday sitting next to a lady who got a phone call to say her brother and his family had died. Brings mortality very close to home.

From lynne-42 @ SDMB

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/sho ... st10807531

Quote:

I've just been at the community meeting at St Andrews - part of the Kinglake complex of fires. About 40 people died in the vicinity. They explained why it was a unique fire and the usual precautions were useless. This has never happened before and was worse than their worst case scenarios. With the previous week with temperatures over 40, and the long dry of the ten year drought, the eucalyptus oil from the trees had evaporated into the air. On Saturday, with some places reaching 48 deg C (120 deg F) the fire was burning the oil laden air - the wind was literally on fire. So it moved at incredible speeds, because it wasn't only the bush burning which was moving. That is why some swathes of bush weren't burnt. The fire was moving through the air, not on the ground. It means that we were in much more danger than we realized when we could hear the roar - probably about 5 minutes from the fire front when the wind changed. This realization has really made me a tad shakey.

b9
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15 Feb 2009, 10:56 am

Xelebes wrote:

Eucalyptus sap ignites at relatively low temperatures. There are other plants that ignite in particularly hot days.

well there is "flash points" and "fire points" and "auto ignition points" of oils.

a "flash point" is where enough vapor is resident above the heated oil to sustain a flame as long as a source of constant ignition is applied. when the ignition source is removed, the flame goes out.

that temperature is about 49 degrees celsius for eucalyptus oil.

then there is a "fire point" whereby the flame will self propagate after the ignition source is removed. the eucalyptus oil must be close to "boiling" at about 170 C to self sustain it's combustion through vapor release.

"auto ignition point" is the temperature that the oil must be raised to in order to combust with no external ignition source.

i have no data for eucalyptus oil but i would say it is higher than benzine.
benzine will ignite if heated to 560 C and i think eucalyptus oil is not as flammable.

hot days will sustain a blaze,
but most fires are lit in purposeful ways.

excepting electricity faults , there is no other cause for the conflagration.

it will be interesting to see what happens about the man they arrested after he appears in court tomorrow.

sartresue
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15 Feb 2009, 12:39 pm

Compensation topic

I just saw on my local news station that victims of the horrendous bush fires would be eligble for up to $10,000 in compensation. I am not sure how it would work or if each victim in each home is to be paid as such, but it does not sound like much; perhaps this is all that can be made available.

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