"..is trying to fathom the news and reports from friends of a firestorm that took '30 minutes to travel 50 kilometres' at one point." For those yanks, thats 100 km = 62 miles an hour. For fire to be travelling. What the f*uck. A few days ago, the state of Victoria in Australia has been decimated by bushfires. As the area has a large amount of bush and the temperature was apparently topping 40c-45c so thats just hitting 110 Fahrenheit. And one of the major tragedies is that many (ive heard that up to 40%) of the hundreds of bushfires that occur each year are actually lit by people. The death count of this one is currently approaching 200. Every fire is being considered a crime scene, imagine over half the state a crime scene. For more stories and information, read this article here. If this has touched you, and you are interested in donating: - The Australian Red Cross - Volunter Fire Fighters - The Salvation Army Thank you, an Aussie.
How come people aren't being evacuated? 200 deaths...how does that even happen. Whenever theres some type of wild fire in say like California people get evacuated asap
I hate that this has happened, hopefully the fires were not arson though. If some of the fires were arson I hope that the people that started the fires are found and put in the middle of a field that is set on fire around them so they can get a first hand view of what hell looks like right before they get there themselves.
It was arson.. they are trying to find the people that did it... i dont think that will happen though..
I live almost 800km away from where the bushfires are, in a completely different state. We are surrounded by the smoke coming from these fires, also, the death toll is expected to surpass 300. The pictures on the news of whole towns being destroyed is extremely depressing. It looks like a scene from a bomb site in the Middle East
Yea Mega, its pretty intense. There is some great display of human spirit though, so much help has been flooding through. I thank anyone who just takes the time to read this. =]
It's just not as simple as running away. The fire instills a fight or flight response from people. There were many Aussies who tried to protect their house, or thought their house was safe enough. Some died, others survived. Others ran away, and still died. Imagine how hard it would be to escape from fires when you're surrounded by all sides. There were over 400 fires recorded. With the speed of the winds travelling at over 80kph, and the hot temperatures of the day, it's really hard to escape safely. The worse thing you can do is running away at the last moment, but for some of the survivors, they've said that they had less than 5 minutes to flee. And by that time, you've got to be really careful of radiant heat at the fire front. We do need to rethink our fire plans, but with this fire it's not as easy as running away.
I guess they (fires) are travelling pretty fast, and they can change direction at any given time, some people not even having 10 minutes to leave. That's a huge, huge emotional tear, leaving a live behind almost. Old folks not wanting to leave their houses and so on. I heard terrible stories about people trying to escape being found in their cars, or turning up to hospital covered in burns. I know one lady who's family lived in Maryvsville, which is now completely destroyed. I still haven't heard back from her on whether her family are okay. I just hope so. And to think some of these were arson - it's really disgusting. I'm in the United Kingdom, there's lots of news coverage though, some of the scenes enough to bring you to tears. I'm thinking of you all.
Umm, my friend lives in Australia...she said that it didn't really carry the smoke into neighboring cities though. Unlike here in Florida, a wildfire in Miami got although to Jacksonville and Georgia because we have so many pine trees and what not. She is really busy as a law enforcer of child abuse to make sure all children are taken on evacuations lol. This is a really sad story though Anybody want to contribute or has contributed to the rescue team of this?
I don't know exactly where your friend lives, but the smoke carried all the way into Melbourne. I was there, and the haze was a constant reminder of the fires. A major problem with the spread of the fires is our eucalypts, their leaves are full of oil. I'd imagine watching the fire spread from one tree to another within moments would be quite an experience. Fortunately I haven't had the chance to see it. Hopefully they get the 5 out of control fires down before the bad weather turns up next week.
Like 80 of those deaths were because of a bunch of people in Marysville who clambered into a town hall for safety.. but they didn't realize that when a massive fire is bearing down on you that that hall will burn down as well.. The fires almost reached us .. they were around 5km away .. which is barely anything.. We thought smart though and had a fireproof bunker/garage build underground for bushfires.