Meh. Given that nobody got hurt, and the church wasn't even destroyed in the process, I wouldn't feel too guilty about it. It's pretty minor, compared to the suffering they actively inflict on innocent strangers. Really, it's a tribute to America's commitment to freedom of speech and tolerance that these WBC people can so much as open their mouths in public without someone immediately bashing their heads in with the nearest rock. I just hope that karma finds a way to dispose of the WBC before anyone ends up in jail for murdering them...
More fire fun at my place. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I got a call from a neighbour at around 6 pm today, saying there was a grass fire going down the end of my street, a few hundred metres away. We set about preparing buckets of water, hoses etc. to defend our house against possible ember attack, or a spreading fire. Luckily, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) sent two trucks that turned up quickly and put the fire out. It turns out that it was started by some idiot throwing a cigarette butt out of a car window. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! How anyone could be so stupid in the current tinder-box dry conditions and in a rural area is beyond me. Meanwhile, one of the first fires to start (over 2 weeks ago now) is still burning to the east of where I live. It has burnt out an area of 25,000 hectares (say 60,000 acres) so far. The fire fighters are now trying to contain it by controlled burning in selected areas. The prevailing winds are now east to south-easterly, so we're not out of the woods yet. Have been getting smoke blowing over all day. The sunlight has been yellow-brown due to the smoke haze in the area. And no rain expected until around Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Fingers crossed - still.
James, do you know how many bush fires there are per year in Australia? What sort of people deliberately start such a fire in Australia? Are any/many/none of them aborigines? No agenda, just curious.
It depends on what you count as a bushfire. A "small" fire, according to the CFA, is anything under 5 hectares. Medium is, I think, 5-50 hectares, and large is anything bigger than that. In general, there may be a few large bushfires in Australia in any given summer, along with several medium ones and many hundreds of small ones. In the past week in Victoria, there have been literally thousands of separate fire incidents recorded, and they are ongoing. Statistically, arsonists are most likely to be 18-25 year old male sociopaths. A tiny minority, perhaps. I'd guess they would be under-represented when you take the relative populations into account.
Probably true. But the sad thing is it only takes one or two in the entire population to ruin the lives of everyone else.
Yes I heard that some in your area were evacuated today.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Are they predicting another wind change for this weekend? I spoke to some family of mine down there and they are saying that this weekend could be bad if the weather sticks to what has been predicted. It is unbelievable that people can still be so stupid as to throw their lit butts out the window anyway, but to do it in this kind of weather situation with fires everywhere.. Morons! Just make sure you have your papers and essential stuff packed and ready just in case the wind does turn, James. Take care of yourself and I hope you and your family get through this unscathed.
Was that a joke, or are there actual statistics to that effect? The actual statistics here in the US consistently show that most wildfires are started by fire fighters, in order to generate work for themselves. This is not the case with urban fires, as urban firefighters are payed whether they work or not, specifically to remove the incentive to start urban fires. Not sure if you pay your wildfire fighters when they aren't actively working in Australia. If not, I'd suspect that they are the main culprits. Not that firefighters don't have a significant overlap with male sociopaths, but they tend to be a bit older than 18-25... :]
quadraphonics firstly NO ONE is paid by the fires they attend in australia. In fact many CFA ect fire fighters (DSE are from memory hired by contract for the season rather than being permident OR volly) lose $1000's of income because they are fighting fires rather than working. The same goes for the buisnesses which employ them secondly acording to a interview i watched a few days ago only 2 percent of arsonats are pyromanics. The rest do it for revenge or profit (ie they want there own house or someone elses to burn to get a finantial gain out of it). The majority of fires are started by stupidity i would guess. That stupity may be companies (like the power companies not upgrading tranformers so they dont spark, ie what happened in bendigo) or people throwing smokes out of the car or using angle grinders ect on total fire ban days or even DIRECTLY lighting fires like camp fires on total fire ban days. James i feel for you, another fire sprung up in Narry warren North acording to the CFS web site (wonder if my brother will move now) and there was a medium (20 hectares) fire reasonably near my house yesterday. Thankfully the MFB and the CFS got it under control straight away but concidering where it started (on the expressway) it will probably turn out to be a smoke thrown out of the car. God people are SOO stupid
Well that's good. Should avoid the perverse incentives that we have in the US. Another cause of big wildfires out here is the land management policies, which have resulted in heavier forestation and brush growth than would occur naturally (some of this is due to fire prevention itself, ironically). Not sure if you guys take a different approach to that... My home town largely burned down about 10 years ago, as the result of a "controlled burn" set by the forest service at an inopportune time :[
this is from DSE on the causes and numbers of bush fires in victoria each year http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/DSE/nrenf...5679300155A40BDFD9C1B8EF2DDC5CA256BE600287703
The winds are predicted to remain south to south-easterly over the weekend. With luck, we'll get some rain in the bushfire areas early next week. Thanks. --- There are actual statistics. As Asguard says, most of the CFA are unpaid volunteers. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for arsonists to join up as firefighters. Some will light fires in order to claim some deluded sense of glory for helping put them out. Having said that, it is certainly not true that any significant fraction of firefighters are arsonists, either here or in the US.
Good point. Imagine if the Big Red Button was in a public place for anyone to press and start off a nuclear war.
Fingers crossed for you. I would say that the greater majority of arsonists want to become firefighters. In fact, there are some firefighters who are obsessed with fire. I would say a fair chunk of them actually are like that. But most fail. And some then go on to set fires to buildings or elsewhere. There are fingers being pointed here about the lack of burn-off's in the cooler months. That there wasn't a sufficient fire prevention policy in place and that instead of burning off less, more should be done in populated areas in the bush, to reduce the risk. Burn off's in Australia used to be a fairly common thing at the end of winter and into spring. Reduce the load so to speak. But in the last few years, we've been noticing a reduction in burning off in many areas. Where my parents live, there used to be fairly large burn off's every couple of years. It has been more than 5 years since they even did a small one. And looking at the bush next door to their house, it is a fairly terrifying prospect that if a fire did start in there, the dry grass (it's currently past my head in height) and thick underbrush that has grown over that period of time is ideal big fire fuel. My father has a fairly large firebreak just in case, but if that ever catches fire, I don't think even that firebreak would save their house because the load is so massive now. When they and their neighbours have contacted their local CFA for a controlled burn, they were told that they have been restricted by the council who have been restricted by the greenies. And as much as I am a greenie at heart, the same ideology is being repeated elsewhere. Canberra was a perfect example. For a couple of years before the Christmas fires hit the actual suburbs around Canberra, firefighters there and the local CFA were begging and then demanding to be allowed to do controlled fire load reduction around the State. They were refused. Again, the Greens stated the threat to wild life and pollution and for years, the accumulation of fuel got worse and worse. The result was over 400 homes lost in a bad fire as the fuel load virtually exploded and there was absolutely no way to control it. I knew about the situation in Canberra because I had been going out with a fireman from Canberra in the years prior to that who used to complain about the new policy that restricted their being able to do the hazard reduction around the state.
bells i knew people would start blaming DSE but its simply wrong. Maybe some people think like that but for the majority of DSE and CFA the problem is that there ISNT a long enough cold season anymore. Hell these fires could have been almost as bad in july this year as they are now. Burn offs require very specific conditions, the winds have to be away from homes and other property, it has to be cool enough ect and it has to be NOT raining or it wont burn. These conditions hardly existed at all the last couple of years, it was either WAY to hot or raining. Dont blame DSE for these fires, its not there fault
Frankly, because of the drought, there should have been more reduction practices in place, especially around the urbanised areas in the bush. There has been a concerted reduction in burning off in recent years and we are seeing the result in worse fires. We saw it in Canberra and in Victoria last week. You need to reduce the fuel load and increase the fire-breaks. And recommendations to that effect were ignored.
In addition to my reply to Asguard.. I have always loathed Andrew Bolt on a personal level. I think this is the first time that I have ever agreed with him on anything at all. Whether you agree with him or not, it still makes for an interesting read.
Got to -30 F here with wind chill a while ago. But Cleveland's near the great lakes so idk if thats accurate of the whole Northern Hemisphere.
