Agreed.
Thanks for your efforts over the years.
I feel your pain dude. Have been through this as a kid back home in SoCal. Dad had about 100k gallons in our pond/lagoon and another 45-50k gallons in our swimming pool - with diesel pumps and water canons, but we were evacuated at gunpoint after we refused to go on our own.
, stay safe Aussie Bro's
Yes. Australia in the 80s, climate change is the issue with recent fires despite government denial it's happening.I remember an example of the law of unintended consequences. I won't have all the names and places correct, but I'm sure our friends in the USA will remember it.
Local environmentalists successfully campaigned to stop preventive burning of forest areas. The preventive burning was to burn off the scrub at ground level, not to burn the actual trees. The trees could easily survive a small fire with a ground level fuel load of less than 10 tons per acre. Years passed and the wildlife that lived in the scrub and the forest floor thrived. "Success!" cried the environmentalists.
Then a forest fire started. This time, the ground level fuel load was 40 tons per acre. This was sufficient to generate a much hotter and longer lasting fire. All the trees caught fire and were totally destroyed. All the below-ground nesting animals that could previously survive a low level fire, didn't. It was a disaster. Not only was all the wildlife killed off but the heat penetrated deeper underground and the insects and the invertebrates were killed too. The burned area was very much greater than had happened before.
Have I got that about right?
Spot on @steve_sordy - several of my school friends and guys I used to race against worked for the USFS or BLM. Sadly both of those organizations became left-wing nutter societies and now forests are left to do their natural thing.Have I got that about right?
It always seems to be the case, when we are in drought and impacted by fire, your part of the world has wet, and flood.It's incredibly sad to see. Wouldn't want to be those guys driving through it, good to see they were hosing the vehicles off though. Read about the Koala sanctuary which was destroyed
They have the opposite problem in the UK, and we're incredibly wet here in northern France :
www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-50357074
Interesting that they included a photo from the international @outerlimits , all seated, murky waffle stomping competition - complete with official waffle backed chairs at Waffle Stomper Lodge.
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It’s a land of extremes for sure. 2011 was the really really big floods in QLD and Brisbane. We had suffered through drought for years before that. We have had a few floods since then, tho NSW has been in drought for a few years now, and Western QLD has also been in drought. Australia is a large place and when it’s hot it’s fn hot, and when it’s wet, it’s fn wet. It’s really hard to manage given the size of the country. At the moment we have over 50 fires burning in QLD, mostly in the southern 1/3 of the state. Over 70 burning in NSW and temps in those areas aproching and above 49deg C. Just to the south of NSW, in Victoria and Tasmania, it’s snowing, and it’s spring, not even Summer yet.My brother lives in Brisbane and I went to see him last year in April. We went out for the day to visit a large lake (no idea where). As we were crossing a bridge above a deep ravine, I commented on how deep it was. He replied that recently (year before, year before that?), the floods not only came up to the bridge, but above it so far that all you could see was water to the horizon!!! As I looked around I was thinking in biblical terms, Noah's Ark etc. Wow.
When we got back to his house in Brisbane, which was near the top of a hill in Augustine Heights, he showed me all the flood protection that had been built in to the area. Big gutters on the road edges, drain holes so large you could slide down them, massive gullies to take the rainfall, huge soak away areas, and balancing lakes (dry in the Summer). I hadn't noticed before, but once it was pointed out, it was very impressive.
And yet they get droughts! Or used to do so (had one for 20 years), the Queenslanders are building reservoirs now, partly to capture the rain to stop flooding, but also to reduce droughts.
His sons told me that if you get drunk and pass out face up outside in the rain, you will drown. I suspect a wind-up, but I can see how it would be a close run thing. My godson emigrated to Sydney a few years ago and he visits his uncle and cousins in Brisbane regularly . He told me that he has tried standing outside in the rain when it is really coming down and he found it difficult to breathe.
The only rightful agenda is the truth.
Yep, you never here them complaining they are under staffed or under resourced. They only complain when they have been caught with their snout in the trough.
So difficult. Difficult enough for any citizen to endure the smoke, the stress and the underlying fear. More difficult for those who read & understand the causes of the threat. Even more difficult for the volunteer firefighters critically under-resourced & crippled by political ineptitude & self service.
