Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave, Melbourne,Australia
Q350: Canadian Railroad Trilogy "A drink to the living, a toast to the dead". I'm pleased to see Joveski
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survived Australia's worst ever bushfire day last Saturday. The death toll in our state Victoria is 108 & expected to be much higher. Many people died at Queensland in north-eastern Australia are currently suffering from major floods after record rainfall!
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Dave (and Mende) - I read your recount again today clearer-head than this morning, after getting some odd-hours sleep. I noticed much more this read, and more accurately. So if I understand right - the fire is....over ? - It was contained around last saturday - 2 days ago or 9 ago ? And Mende I am so sorry to hear of what must have been losses of SOMEBODY you knew, with a death toll over 100 in your state alone alone ? And - it was a brushfire - I mis-read it as a foothills upslope fire earlier. . I hope all is settled soon and the mourning, and the rebuilding of lives and homes can begin proper once everyone knows - it sounded like there was still some....info to come in. I take it its contained ?
I won't go on like the above two tomes of mine - it just home hard I think largely because I have that working predictive model of where a fire will go in progress. The fire we had some years back where I live right now close to- in the rampart range foothiils near the toe, I think the memory of that , and the tolls (wildland, inmmense, wildlife habitat gone) but fortunately to my knowledge there was only one death - from one of the 'Hot-shot' elite SmokeJumpers in the fire.
They flew in from all over the country, and to date - there still is not a working fire predictive model program IN USE. ... but they lay waiting. Little consolation to that solitary smokejumper's family- it didn't take him til later, when heat and smoke-scorched lung-tissue caused pnemonia - and they lost him. That fire double-backed as it can, but the predictive model with live winds and weather info could have warned them. Last told, the Forest Service only has a quadrangle-by-quad model, that scarcely tells them anything, only when a fire (with no live data) starts, it roughly takes a shot at 'which quarangle it might go in next" - little help to fire-fighters here.
And today' MSN home page Highlight news is:
'Don't 'Hassel' the Hoff ?' - where are our heads at in the Journalism world ? And one way or another - I am ashamed I missed the news of the whole thing til your 2 posts.
Sounds like slope was not a catalyst in brushlands, but ole
number one in wildland fire -
wind - was a HUGE factor there. I am so sorry to hear of all your personal losses if any, and for all of your states' losses . We tend not to have threm spread into developed lands here - our real wildland-fires fought w/o human loss most times is in great part from the fact that we have a huge lightning rod on our 2nd highest peak here, Devil's head... That mtn. and the highest - Thunder Butte - got named for a reason, but most lightning -lit fires are self regulating. They mostly occur - a great propensity - up in the foothills proper, where few people live, except for Roxborough. MOST of the time.
But no chances are taken around the ill-advised slope-terraced interface developments, where immense efforts were the only factor that saved the admonished owners - who had to be ordered to vacate. We've been lucky in that regard, and I say lastly how sorry for all the lives and homes lost. Well l there I shot my nouth off again....lol... I do hope the smoke settles w/o further loss.
BACK TO BIZ NEXT POST WHERE I LEFT-OFF IN THE GAME....