Maybe 40 dead in Bushfires

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Here in Victoria (Australia) we have just been through a horrific day 45c heat, winds over 45 k, pre-existing fires and arsonists have led to whole villages being razed to the ground and maybe as many as 40 deaths (26 confirmed). My area escaped without incident (we had our turn 4 years ago)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/07/2485270.htm

We have a horrendous drought here in the western US too, except it's winter here, so everybody is praying for rain. If Folsom Lake drops another 40 feet the water supply for the City of Folsom (pop. 60,000) will run dry. Everybody is absolutely dreading the fire season, the forests are dying and so is the sagebrush in Nevada, last time I was in the desert I saw tons of dead sage, and that stuff is a flowering plant and when it burns it does NOT grow back for ages. The forests have 350 trees/acre (historically 50/acre) and they're all sick. When it burns, it's like a nuclear bomb going off, thousands of acres wiped out and the ground cooked to the point where it's infertile. I think humanity has really screwed itself over this time, I think we made the world go crazy and now nature is destroying itself and ultimately us. It won't stop until humans are no more, it could be as soon as 50 years they're saying. The earth will abide, but humanity is toast.

nice and mild in tassie. we copped some of the last hot spell a week ago, record temps and all.

Update
49 dead over 500 homes destroyed.

84 confirmed so far

http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?Document_ID=19182



I'm going to see if I can donate blood at the red cross blood bank. They'll need lots for the surviving burns victims.

Oooh those arsonists better be feeling a BIIIIG lot of guilt
I hope they get caught. They'll be charged with murder too.

Fire and brimstone topic

I had to look on a map to see where Victoria was. Hot countries seem to have a problem with this.

I know Canada has some expertise with fighting bush fires, as we have lots in summer in the northern timber forests. I hope we can help in this way.

Could the vast ocean be utilized in some way to fight fires?

update 108 dead, 750 homes gone

Sartresue the only thing that could have helped is more resources, even then they had to stop aerial bombing for a while because of the ferocious winds.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/


The most disgusting aspect is that many of these fires were deliberately lit, how could anyone light a fire during a drought, on a 48 degree day with winds gusting over 70 k/ph.

That is REALLY f****d up. I was in an affected town yesterday and saw people coming to the rescue center to be treated for burns. The cloud of smoke kept getting bigger and coming closer. It was horrible.

I feel sick from breathing in all that smoke, but I'm more concerned about the people who were affected in more serious ways, and all the people who care about those people.

Even in Melbourne, people are emotionally affected, disturbed by it in various ways.

How many were killed in the southern California wildfires in '07?

I only heard of this yesterday and just now I see it is partly the work of arsonists?
Sorry to hear about the deaths and tremendous losses of homes and such.

131 confirmed dead, 22 fires currently going, I think 850 homes now, won't stop any time soon.

Imagine having a fire front 100km long.

100 km in Canada is nothing. 500 km fire fronts can happen here. Of course, this happens in not so densely populated areas - hence why they grow so large in the first place.

I keep listening to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qBM9v01qw[/youtube]

Also, in California and Canada, you don't usually have the combination of extremely dry, hot weather and extremely strong winds. The wind force is the reason Australian bush fires spread so fast and, as this case shows, can suddenly and unexpectedly wipe out entire towns before people have a chance to escape.

Oh, and we have severe water shortages too. Not a good thing when it comes to putting out giant, rapidly spreading fires.

Bush fires are a regular summer-time occurrence, but not on this scale.

This is the biggest natural disaster Australia has ever seen. I'm just hoping there are no WP members in the death toll. Daylesford wasn't in the danger zone, was it? One of my best friends lives between there and Melbourne.