Victoria Ablaze

The person I voiced concern for has been reported by his girlfriend to be fine, just caught up in work.

Thanks for letting us know edgar. I was wondering about that. Why do I care about someone who is known to someone I don't even really know? I guess it's because it makes them real people to us rather than statistics.

Like a lot of people, I've been working (in my head) on simple cheap solutions for people to survive events like this in areas like this. My latest idea is for a steel water tank shaped like a donut, with a lid over the hole, big enough to hold 4 or five people uncomfortably. Maybe you get into it via a little tunnel, or maybe you just jump in from the top, possibly exposing you to too much heat. You need a water tank anyway, it's just a design change. The main problem I see is that it would work when the tank is full, but the fires tend to hit when tanks are empty.

What about a shallow well, with a lid? It seems some people survived by being a short distance into the ground.

How about a little Bessa Brick bunker in each small town?

What about just plain old earthen storm cellars like they use out in the prairies of the mid west in the US for tornado shelters?

You could store some of those reflective sheets/blankets to help against the high heatand a few tanks of oxygen in it for times when the fire might suck all the air out of the cellar.

The rest of the time, use it for storing produce.

Somebody asked earlier in the thread about the effect on agriculture. Found this photo in a gallery on msnbc that tells the story:

Above ground metal concrete and plastc water tanks boil. I dont fancy becoming a lobster. One press artical I read likened the amount of energy released by this fire was similar to a nueclear bomb blast. I think that is a good analogy.

Fires of this intensity suck all the oxygen out of the air. Most advice is that the fire front will pass in six minutes however 6 minutes without oxygen is a very long time. there has been one report of a brick garage being opened by a family friend to find several people dead from asphixiation. I suspect that some of the people who died in their homes, died from asphyxiation first then their homes burnt down around their bodies.
Radiant heat remains the biggest killer. Many of the people who died on saturday attempted to out run the fire in a vehical. With visibility down to zero and trees falling across roads this was a recipie for disaster.
Most houses in the path of a bushfire dont burn down immediatly. it is in the hour after the fire front passes that houses burn down. This is why advice has always been to take shelter in a house until the front (and radient heat) passes then put out spot fires in and next to your house.

The problem with dedicated fire shelters is that due to years and years of disuse they fall into disrepair and become inhabited by snakes and spiders.

A below ground basement that forms part of the normal household storage area similar to (I imagine) a tornado shelter would provide the necessary shelter. I cannot imagine that storage of a couple of oxygen bottles specifically for this kind of event would be a practical reality. one needs to remember that the kind of fire we had last Saturday might happen once in a generation. Black Friday 1939 was the last event in this area. we are much better prepared for the fire fight as a result of lessons learned during Ash Wednesday but there is nothing that can be done about a fire that travels this quickly.

What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of the early warning system I read that the states have been bickering about? I understand it is ready and in place but is being blocked by privacy laws protecting people's unlisted telephone numbers.

Would an early warning be effective or would people still wait until they actually had view of flames before fleeing?

At the height of the wind storm, would the wind speeds have prevented any early warnings to be received in time no matter what?

Yes, the water in the tank would boil, but you'd be in the whole in the middle, standing on dirt, surrounded by tank, which shouldn't be able to go over 100C until all the water has boiled away completely (did that happen?). (Apparently water is a wonderful heat absorber). The oxygen level is a problem though.

As for digging a cellar, all for it... but someone will have to explain to the Gen Y'ers what a shovel is for.

First the power goes out then the landline telephone system goes. Pretty soon after that the mobile system collapses either from burnt transmission towers or overuse. Many rural areas have spasmodic digital telephony system at the best of times.

Taking personal responsibilty for your own fire defense is the real answer.
1. cicle of safety
2. own water supply
3. rooftop sprinkler system
4. petrol driven pump in a concrete bunker
5. Regular checks and maintenance.

I am so hoping that many if not all of the dead asphyxiated rather than burning alive.

It's scary about hearing 000 operators hearing people die, though.

At least one cat succesfully rode it out in a wombat hole.

I had someone in my shop today. He said he had been in a nearby town and noticed that people were....gentler?... with their children.

This has brought home to many of us the real priorities. People are dealing with each other more kindly.

We know some people second hand who had a diesel pump in a dam - worked brilliantly until the fuel ran out and no-one wanted to run back from the shed with a fuel can....

You're at Wilsons Prom, Spike?

a couple of photos from monday night. Reminds of the poem.

her beauty and her terror
the wide brown land for me.

That's nice.

I so nearly posted the whole thing earlier today. (I did use it in some of my work, I imagine some of you may hear it over the next day or so). Think I will post it now. It's certainly appropriate.

My Country

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar, 1904

Hi msolga, No, I'm actually at Venus Bay, 60ks away by road. I just say "near the Prom." 'cos most people have heard of it, so it gives some idea of location.

The Prom fire is so inaccessible that it's just being let go. Once they got all the hikers out, that makes sense. Even if they could get in, the firefighters are needed where they will do the most good. These winds won't be helping. I understand Healesville flared up again today.

Just heard this morning that a family I know in St Andrews are OK. They lost their home and business, but the 3 of them are alive.

Ah, but the wildlife, spike.
My heart hurts for the wildlife (& all the other helpless animals, all over the state, too).

But I'm so glad you are safe & well out of the dangerous zone.

Msolga I just saw on television that they have set up 3 emergency Vet. stations to treat any injured wild life. Was great to see how they handled the various species. Full marks to the volunteers helpers.

I know these fires are not normal fires, and I'm all for helping the poor animals, but it's worth repeating that the ecosystem does rely on being burnt occasionally.

I will always Norman Gunston performing this poem with actions, and miming a broom and then wings...