h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You are right, Ivan. And the bodies found now represent a week of despairing waiting by families and friends.

B

That's the awful thing... so many people *might* be dead, but until they're found their families can't be sure. There's a hollow feeling that goes with that thought.

Meanwhile, Melbourne's water supply is at risk of contamination. The authorities are pumping water from reservoirs in the danger area and filling other storage dams, just in case.

It's something else I remember from 2003 - the ramifications just go on and on. The day after was a shock - among other issues the mobile phone network was out, landlines to many suburbs were cut, residents in parts of the city were told to boil drinking water until further notice (this went on for a couple of weeks) and we were all asked to avoid flushing the lav unless absolutely necessary because of damage to the treatment works. There's so much infrastructure we take for granted these days.

<>
His appearance on the news last night was striking, dressed as a female, complete with earrings and lipstick. One gets the impression he's done this before, and he wasn't exactly hanging his head in shame. News report says he is also charged with possession of child porn? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7887561.stm and his lawyer has described him as psychologically unwell and in a fragile mental state. I'm not sure my comments will pass the filter so I won't bother.

Ivan

Thanks GB. The publication of the arsonist's image or any details identifying his home address is the subject of an ongoing suppression order here. I wondered how much regard would be paid to this by overseas agencies...

The sad news here this morning is that one of the Canberra volunteers has been killed by a falling tree. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/17/2494107.htm

I've heard there was no point in not telling the arsonist's name, as everybody in the village knew who it was anyway.

I'm very sorry there are more and more casualties.

That is very sad Ivan. As you told me the trees might look ok, but I guess they are dry and brittle. Every life is of equal value (except one!) but it is doubly sad when it is some who has travelled so far to help out.



Websailor

Ivan I can assure you what you are going through is a big news story here in the UK. It's in all the papers and on the news. People are talking about it as well, like we usually talk about the weather, people aren't complaining about their lot quite so much.

I'm so sorry people are still dying

Same down where I live Ivan.

Websailor

Here's a bit more on the circumstances in which the firefighter died. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25071864-12377,00.html It seems he was a professional firefighter, but his presence in Victoria would have been voluntary.

On the radio this morning it was stated that the family had asked that the man's name not be released. In other words, they don't want a media circus on the doorstep. I can understand this.



My mother's reported another side effect of the fires. 'At the shops today it seemed that everybody was making an effort to be just that little bit nicer to each other'. So there's something.

The flag was half-mast at the local fire station today.

In other developments, here's the story of an idiot. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/18/2494655.htm 'A roadblock worker has been charged with two counts of arson in Victoria's north-east after allegedly throwing cigarette butts into long grass "to see what would happen".'

I wonder if I'll ever stop being startled by the reach and persistence of human stupidity.

I've been following the story on the news. Australia is perhaps the only place on earth that has worse brushfire trouble than California. Death Toll the 2002 fire season was in excess of 2000.

Since installation of the reverse 911 system, which allows the police, fire and other emergency services agencies to issue evacuation notices en masse by means of placing a single telephone call that covers all the phones in the affected district, casualties are lower.

(cf. also Indonesian "slash and burn" real estate and agricultural development... curiously much of it intended to support Palm Oil culture, a key ingredient in napalm.)

...next come the rabbit migrations. (Their course is often predictable.)

Frenchbean - you took the words right out of my mouth.



Rabbits. Please, no more rabbits. We have far too many of them despte the best efforts of the father of a friend of mine, who has spent his career researching ways to get rid of the bloody rabbits. But even the calicivirus he helped introduce seems to be losing its effectiveness.

The largest rabbit migration I've ever seen followed immediately after a brush fire. We had to stop and wait half an hour for a stream of rabbits fifty feet wide to cross the road way. I don't know how long the crossing had been underway before we arrived. Next, a friend who maintained an orchard was putting up wanted posters picturing a rabbit with the legend, "Wanted, Dead or Alive" advertising for people to help out a rabbit control effort

Ivan, I saw a very strongly worded letter in one of the UK papers saying the 'green' environmental lobby is entirely to blame for the fires, having resisted the clearance of brushwood (for wildlife) and treeless buffer zones (to protect property). Is that opinion rife in Australia? I don't know who the writer of the letter was (name but no background) but he seemed to know what he was talking about.

Websailor

The environmentalists are certainly coming in for critisism and there is probably some truth in the fact that under natural conditions (ie barely any humans) fires would occur regularly and the trees and lower storeys would be less mature / dense than occurs in inhabited areas. As a result there is probably a higher fuel load than would occur if humans hadn't imposed their idea of what's 'natural' on an area.

The most significant part of the argument imho is the amount of tree cover immediately around houses. One couple had cleared 500m around their house, because they wanted to be safer from fire risk and did so against the local/state government regulations and were fined for doing it. In the event, their house is still standing, whilst all around them (which were in the trees) are gone.

The reason that regulations are so tight is because there is an horrendous rate of native bush clearance throughout Australia and the virtues of natural bushland are extolled at every opportunity in order to slow down the losses. Somehow the fire danger in dry areas seems to have got a bit lost in the habitat conservation debate.

I suspect (hope) that the fire / tree regs will be altered in the light of what's happened.

Thanks Frenchbean,

There are always two sides to every argument, so thanks for that info. I think the main reason is, as you say, that in natural conditions with no human habitation there would not be nearly such a problem.

I can remember many years ago, my father (in his ignorance) lambasting nomad tribes for not staying put and working, but it seems to me they had the right idea, working with nature instead of trying to control it.

Of course none of that means a thing when humans go off the rails and become pyromaniacs.

it certainly looks as if clearance round houses is the answer, but I have to say I would hate to live without trees close by. If I lived where fire is such a hazard I would probably think differently.

Perhaps there will be more co-operation, and more thought given to the issues in the future. I do hope so.

I watched ABC news last night and have to log off, it was so very difficult to comprehend the scale of it, and watch.

Websailor

Webbie, I'm not going to get into the green/antigreen debate. It's pretty vile. There's a divide between environmentalists, who support responsible preventative burning, and tree-huggin' hippies who don't want to intervene in any way in the natural realm. Against this, there's an array of rusted-on supporters of the previous (environmentally criminal) government. Any attack these conservative idiots make on the Green movement is by implication an attack on the current government. There's your motivation. Nothing to do with bushfire prevention at all.

I'd just like to say at this point that preventative burning does happen on a large scale in appropriate weather. No amount of this would have protected the environment in 48C weather with 100km/h winds.

Thanks Ivan, I wasn't about to get heated about it. i know politics plays far too big a part in such matters, here too. I watched some of the footage and it was clear that the fires jumped anything, and at great speed.

Websailor

There is thoughtful intelligence and complacent stupidity on both sides of any doctrinal debate.