Bush Fires

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Dawgfather

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I know the other thread got closed, but that seemed to be for separate reasons and not because we can't talk about bush fires.

I'll kick the convo off again.

There is a lot of talk saying these fires are unprecedented, however, let's look at the worst fires in Australia by number of deaths and number of acres burned:

Worst by area burned:

1974-75 - NT - 110,000,000 acres
1974-75 - WA - 72,000,000 acres
1974-75 - SA - 42,000,000 acres
2002 - NT - 37,000,000 acres
1974-75 Qld - 19,000,000 acres
Current year 2019/20 - 16,000,000 acres

Worst by fatalities:

2009 Black Saturday Victoria - 173 dead
1983 Ash Wednesday South Australia & Victoria - 75 dead
1939 Black Friday Victoria - 71 dead
1967 Black Tuesday Tasmania - 62 dead
1926 Victoria - 60 dead
1962 Victoria - 32 dead
Current year 2019/20 - 25 dead

Everyone agrees this years fires are horrific but to call them unprecedented would seem an exaggeration?

Also, 183 people (to date) have been spoken to or charged by police regarding fire offences (including arson) since November. I don't think there are stats yet, however it would seem a significant majority of these fires are the cause of humans lighting fires (which of course has nothing to do with climate change).
 
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Agree its bad obviously, but Climate change wasn't as much of a beat up as it is now. Everyone takes it and runs with the tag.
 
I thought this was the worst ever, but its not, yet..
 
JUNKYARD DOGS said:
Agree its bad obviously, but Climate change wasn't as much of a beat up as it is now. Everyone takes it and runs with the tag.
Click to expand...


It is hard to argue with graphs like this showing our temperature climb over time. Higher temps means fuel dries out more, which creates more ferocious fires.

There has been little to zero fire management done in recent years. A disaster waiting to happen.
 
No dramas with you talking about this stuff, the other thread got a bit out of hand and off topic so was best to shut it down. Hopefully this one fairs a little bit better.
 
Papa Emeritus said:
It is hard to argue with graphs like this showing our temperature climb over time. Higher temps means fuel dries out more, which creates more ferocious fires.

There has been little to zero fire management done in recent years. A disaster waiting to happen.
Click to expand...
Yes it is, but the main thing here is the last part you mention. Fire management needs to be of higher priority than what the government is allowing. Land management needs exactly that, to be managed. With certain figures not allowing effective pro-active fire hazard reduction things wont change, we will continue to be re-active.

The government in fact reducing their concern for this type of thing has clearly shown how out of touch they are. Has bit them in the ass big time. Now time for them to react again.
 
Papa Emeritus said:
It is hard to argue with graphs like this showing our temperature climb over time. Higher temps means fuel dries out more, which creates more ferocious fires.

There has been little to zero fire management done in recent years. A disaster waiting to happen.
Click to expand...
Very true but I’d like to see a graph that goes back at least thousands of years reflecting climatic cycles
 
Generally fires are rated by how many lives are lost. Black Saturday obviously being the worst. The reason for using this instead of acres is due to differences in what's burning. For example, the NT fires of 74/75 burned much more than any other, but they were mainly grass fires in unpopulated areas.

Regardless, this isn't the worst bushfires we've ever seen. It's just unprecedented that it would be so bad at the start of the bushfire season.

And it's not like anyone is actually saying that climate change started these fires. Feel free to prove me wrong if I'm wrong.
 
Hacky McAxe said:
Generally fires are rated by how many lives are lost. Black Saturday obviously being the worst. The reason for using this instead of acres is due to differences in what's burning. For example, the NT fires of 74/75 burned much more than any other, but they were mainly grass fires in unpopulated areas.

Regardless, this isn't the worst bushfires we've ever seen. It's just unprecedented that it would be so bad at the start of the bushfire season.

And it's not like anyone is actually saying that climate change started these fires. Feel free to prove me wrong if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Except Jennifer Aniston :-)
 
JUNKYARD DOGS said:
Yes it is, but the main thing here is the last part you mention. Fire management needs to be of higher priority than what the government is allowing. Land management needs exactly that, to be managed. With certain figures not allowing effective pro-active fire hazard reduction things wont change, we will continue to be re-active.

The government in fact reducing their concern for this type of thing has clearly shown how out of touch they are. Has bit them in the ass big time. Now time for them to react again.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. It is sad that we have such reactive governments and not proactive ones. Hopefully they learn from this year and listen to people who know wtf they are doing when it comes to fire prevention.


Natboy II said:
Very true but I’d like to see a graph that goes back at least thousands of years reflecting climatic cycles
Click to expand...

I understand this point of view, that the climate naturally ebbs and flows. But we do not have that data and we never will. For me personally it seems way too much of a coincidence that the rises we are seeing correlate with mankinds advances in this century. We pump more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere the more we advance. If there was some natural ebb and flow you would think it would not perfectly line up with this...
 
Natboy II said:
Very true but I’d like to see a graph that goes back at least thousands of years reflecting climatic cycles
Click to expand...

How many of thousands of years would you like?

Here is a 9,000 year graph

Marcott.png


Here's 150,000 years

150kyrs_petit150.jpg
 
Dawgfather said:
I know the other thread got closed, but that seemed to be for separate reasons and not because we can't talk about bush fires.

I'll kick the convo off again.

There is a lot of talk saying these fires are unprecedented, however, let's look at the worst fires in Australia by number of deaths and number of acres burned:

Worst by area burned:

1974-75 - NT - 110,000,000 acres
1974-75 - WA - 72,000,000 acres
1974-75 - SA - 42,000,000 acres
2002 - NT - 37,000,000 acres
1974-75 Qld - 19,000,000 acres
Current year 2019/20 - 16,000,000 acres

Worst by fatalities:

2009 Black Saturday Victoria - 173 dead
1983 Ash Wednesday South Australia & Victoria - 75 dead
1939 Black Friday Victoria - 71 dead
1967 Black Tuesday Tasmania - 62 dead
1926 Victoria - 60 dead
1962 Victoria - 32 dead
Current year 2019/20 - 25 dead

Everyone agrees this years fires are horrific but to call them unprecedented would seem an exaggeration?

Also, 183 people (to date) have been spoken to or charged by police regarding fire offences (including arson) since November. I don't think there are stats yet, however it would seem a significant majority of these fires are the cause of humans lighting fires (which of course has nothing to do with climate change).
Click to expand...

great post with facts.
 
Hacky McAxe said:
And it's not like anyone is actually saying that climate change started these fires. Feel free to prove me wrong if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

Has there been more articles about climate change and our bush fire crisis or more articles about arsonists starting bush fires?

There's your answer.
 
JUNKYARD DOGS said:
What was the instrument used, and was it calibrated?
Click to expand...

I'm this case the measurements were taken by a combination of factors including ice core samples and trees. They're unlikely to be entirely accurate. Just best approximations.
 
Dawgfather said:
Has there been more articles about climate change and our bush fire crisis or more articles about arsonists starting bush fires?

There's your answer.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying arsonists didn't start the fires. You and several others claimed that climate change couldn't have started the fires because arsonists started them.

Im merely pointing out that what you are presenting is a strawman as people aren't saying "Climate change started the fires"
 
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