Our hottest day / firestorm

Merinda · Post by **Merinda** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:00 pm

Hi ladies ,

yesterday was enough to fade your eye liner , crack your make-up and bubble your lipstick , however I did manage to fry an egg inside my car.
At 3PM yesterday afternoon it hit 46.6 degrees celcius (115.8 F) in the city (Melbourne Aust) and 48 degrees celcius (118.4 F) out here in the suburbs , the sky was covered in dust and smoke from the many fires that were out of control because of hot gale force winds. One of the fire fronts in a country area had a 20 kilometre (12 mile) front creating an impossible job for fire fighters.

Its just started rain and thunder , however lightning may start more fires.

Kyra · Post by **Kyra** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:41 pm

Hi Merinda,
Be careful in those temps. Make sure to stay hydrated while outdoors. Or better yet, stay in the cool air conditioned comfort of your favorite mall!

I hope the wild-fires are well away from you. Be safe.

Heh, it feels weird talking about scorching temps when we're in the middle of winter. (In the northern hemisphere, that is!)

Hugs,
Kyra

Merinda · Post by **Merinda** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 5:18 pm

Kyra wrote:Hi Merinda,
Be careful in those temps.

Thanks Kyra ,

Its not unusual to get extreme heat over here , we've had a whole week of it recently , yesterday the temprature broke the record by 2 degrees.

I have just been watching the News and its much more serious

There are 25 confirmed dead , the police haven't visited all the burnt out properties yet so that figure will likely rise.
The nearby outer township of Kinglake has been wiped out , this is particurly worrying since I know 2 people who live there.
There are a number of communities that remain unaccessable at present , the full extent will not be known for some time.
The danger is not over , there are currently a number of towns still under threat.

It has also been reported that some of these fires were deliberately lit , its a pitty capital punnishment was abolished in this country.

Virginia · Post by **Virginia** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:07 pm

Stay safe over there, out there, down there. I know from personal experience what it is like being in the middle of a major forest fire, it ain't pretty so just be careful!

Love,

Virginia

Merinda · Post by **Merinda** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:16 am

Town of Marysville has also been destroyed.

Death toll is now officially 65

The conditions were so bad yesterday that we're lucky not to have had a situation in the suburban area , every lawn is dead and brown , some trees have brown dead leaves because of the drought.
It would only take one idiot to throw a cigarette on the dry lawn combined with hot gale force winds and a suburban fire would be out of control before you could blink.

Kay · Post by **Kay** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:26 am

Hi Merinda
Wishing you well from up her in UK. Just watched the news reports, so sad about the loss of life and the destruction of the 2 towns. As the others have said. Keep safe
Kay

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:25 am

Merinda

Stay safe. I hope the fires veer away from civilization.

Absaroka

Leeza · Post by **Leeza** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:22 am

Merinda, I too will add my be careful. It is sad when we hear of the lose of life, but worse still when it is someone we know. When it is over we want to be able to talk to you.

Leeza

Merinda · Post by **Merinda** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:06 pm

Thanks for your concern ladies , its safe where I am in the suburbs (normally) , but anything could have happened with that fan forced oven wind that blew the other day.

The town of Marysville has only one surviving building , luckily everyone evacuated to safety beforehand. Kinglake has had a number of deaths.
There are still a number of fires in the state that will take weeks to put out.

Our state Premier has described it as "Hell on earth".

My main concern is with the 2 people I know from Kingkake , my wife also knows someone there , Its worrying.

Anita · Post by **Anita** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:43 pm

Try to find ways to keep your own peace of mind during this period, Merinda. May you stay safe.

Merinda · Post by **Merinda** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:58 pm

Death toll is now about 128 the last I heard.

Deaths include a well known retired television news presenter and his wife who lived out there. Very sad.

One survivor told of having 90 seconds to evacuate , he said he saw the smoke a mile away with a deafening roar , then the fireball came over the hill like a tsanami , when gum trees exploded and the red hot ashed hit his house he jumped into his car to escape. With the smoked vision imparement he said the flames were traveling almost as fast as his car.

Another woman with no time to evacuate found refuse in a wombat hole , she had a wet blanket covering her.

Last night there were 31 fires still burning , the CFA (country fire authority) with metropolitan and other interstate departments working around the clock to get these out or at least under control before the end of this week. It is at the end of this week when the extreme hot weather conditions return.

Well I wont be taking any Sunday drives , unless its to the beach.

Leeza · Post by **Leeza** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:55 am

Merinda, Thank you for keeping us posted. Beach is ok for a drive , but I understand about the drives in the country also as I have lived part of my life in the country and enjoy going out there. Keep safe, hon, and I hope the threat is soon brought under control.

Leeza

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:58 am

Merinda I have been reading about the fires today and they sound really terrible. That is an utterly horrifying story, not being able to drive faster then the fire is approaching.

Hope things improve soon.

Absaroka

Post by **DonnaT** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:48 pm

Here's an interactive map showing all the locations of fires

http://mp3.news.com.au/hwt/Victoria_fire/

Merinda · Post by **Merinda** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:24 pm

Here is the latest , source = Yahoo News

WHITTLESEA, Australia – Disaster officials found charred bodies on roadsides and in crashed cars — grim signs of the futile attempt to flee raging wildfires fed by 60 mph winds, record heat and drought that caught even fire-savvy Australians by surprise.

As the death toll rose Monday to 166 in Australia's worst wildfire disaster, suspicions that some of the 400 blazes were caused by arson led police to declare crime scenes in some of the incinerated towns.

The fires near Melbourne in southeastern Australia destroyed more than 750 homes, left 5,000 people homeless, and burned 850 square miles of land, the Victoria Country Fire Service said.

Whole forests were reduced to leafless, charred trunks. Farmland was in ashes.

The scale of the disaster shocked a nation that endures deadly firestorms every few years. Officials said panic and the freight-train speed of the walls of flames probably accounted for the unusually high death toll.

"It was very quick and ferocious and took everyone by surprise," said Jack Barber, who with his wife, a neighbor, six cats and a dog sought refuge with five other people on a cricket field surrounded by trees in Kinglake.

"All around us was 100-foot flames ringing the oval, and we ran where the wind wasn't. It was swirling all over the place," he said. "For three hours, we dodged the wind."

Firefighters battled more than a dozen blazes that burned out of control across Victoria state Monday, although conditions were much cooler than Saturday. Forecasters said temperatures would rise later this week, posing a risk of flare-ups.

Blazes have been burning for weeks across several states in southern Australia, common for time of year. But the worst drought in a century in the south had left forests extra dry, and Saturday's temperature was 117 degrees, the relative humidity was 7 percent, and the wind was gusting to 50 mph.

"I cannot fathom in my mind anything more hellish, firewise," said Jim Andrews, senior meteorologist at accuweather.com. He added that Australia's vegetation, such as eucalyptus and gum trees, contain flammable aromatic oils.

He said a similar disaster was unlikely in Southern California, where wildfires raged through canyons last year, because such high temperatures there are unheard-of, and "Santa Ana winds are often cold or cool."

Flags across Australia flew at half-staff and Parliament suspended its normal sessions to hear emotional condolence speeches by legislators.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was visibly upset during a TV interview and reflected disgust that arsonists may be to blame.

"What do you say about anyone like that?" Rudd said. "There's no words to describe it, other than it's mass murder."

Attorney General Robert McClelland said anyone found to have deliberately set fires could face murder charges.

Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said investigators had strong suspicions that one of the deadly blazes — known as the Churchill fire after a ruined town — was arson, and it could not be ruled out for others.

Arson is not uncommon in Australian wildfires. Of the estimated 60,000 fires in forests and other vegetation each year, about half are deliberately lit or are suspicious, the government-funded Institute of Criminology said earlier this month.

In New South Wales State on Monday, a 31-year-old man appeared in court charged with arson in connection with a weekend wildfire north of Sydney. No loss of life was reported there, and he faces up to 10 years in prison.

At relief centers, survivors wept and embraced as they reunited with neighbors and looked for loved ones. An impromptu message board at Whittlesea Community Center displayed yellow sticky notes. "Lisa, call me. We are worried about you," one read. "Rob, Tash, Jorja and Leslie, Where are you? Call mom and dad," read another.

Many survivors said the speed of the fires caught them off guard and even those who had planned to evacuate found themselves forced to outrun flames sooner than expected.

At Kinglake, a body covered by a white sheet lay in a yard where every tree and blade of grass was blackened. The burned-out hulks of four cars were clustered together haphazardly after an apparent collision.

"What we've seen, I think, is that people didn't have enough time, in some cases" Nixon said. "We're finding (bodies) on the side of roads, in cars that crashed."

Police sealed off Maryville, a town destroyed by another fire, and told returning residents and reporters they could not enter because bodies were still in the streets.

Donna Bateman, whose home in Kinglake West burned to the ground with her pets inside, said firefighters barely had a chance.

"Everyone has a fire plan. People prepare for this for months," she said. "But the fire service told me that a fire that usually takes a day to travel had traveled three-quarters of a mile in an hour to my property. Now everything is gone."

Officials said both the tolls of human life and property would almost certainly rise as they reached deeper into the disaster zone.

Victoria state Premier John Brumby said a commission would examine all aspects of the fires, including warning and evacuation policies that allow people to stay to protect their homes. Some former police officials dismissed the idea of forced evacuations, noting the ferocity of the weekend fires seemed to preclude such an option.

There were extraordinary tales of survival.

Daryl Hogan of Wandong, 12 miles north of Whittlesea, said he jumped into his pool to escape the flames as they roared over his house, leaving it unburned but destroying his neighbor's home.

Mark Strubing said he and a companion were unable to outrace the flames, so they took refuge in a drainage pipe under the road as his property outside Kinglake was destroyed.

"Mate, I've looked at this pipe before, you'd never ever crawl under there. It's full of spiders and all sorts of uglies," he told Nine Network TV news.

He said they rolled around in the water in the pipe to wet their clothing as flames started licking inside the pipe.

"It was a terrible dark place to go, but it felt pretty good at the time because I'd be dead right now if I didn't," he said.

Scientists say it is impossible to blame man-made global warming causes for any single event, such as the weekend wildfires.

However, Australia's top climate scientists said in a major report two years ago that global warming will make the country more prone to these types of intensive fires, even pinpointing the southeast — the region now ablaze.

"Heat waves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency" in Australia and New Zealand, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded.

"An increase in fire danger in Australia is likely to be associated with a reduced interval between fires, increased fire intensity, a decrease in fire extinguishments and faster fire spread," the report said.

The conditions that lead to more fires are worsened by global warming, said Mike MacCracken, scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.

"Both the rising carbon dioxide concentration and climate change cause conditions to be more favorable to wildfire," MacCracken said. "you get faster build of biomass (grasses and trees), you get more intense drying, longer periods without rain. So you create the conditions that can lead to wildfire."