Nungali

INFERNO !

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Reprieve  - cooler weather , light rain most of the night  here .  Maybe more today .  I think Sydney got rained on too .

 

Weather looks good for a few days - no heat or westerly winds predicted - which would be deadly at the moment .  I heard the fire at up valley is mostly out   .....   ?   Still smokey smoulder smelly though .   It seemed to have been a combination of favourable wind changes that blew the fire back onto itself and previously burnt ground , and fire fighting  and the light rain .

 

Phew !   (so far )  .

 

Things in other places have been bad though , like the Adelaide Hills

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-23/adelaide-hills-bushfire-has-destroyed-86-homes,-sa-premier-says/11822552

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/20/nsw-bushfires-rfs-two-firefighters-killed-south-west-sydney

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 Medium to  heavy  rain yesterday  and last night  -  woop woop !  Even dumped a couple inches in the  wheelbarrow !

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Urk, the river went up a bit but has turned a thick ochre brown , no visibility in it whatsoever .  I never seen it like that , I was talking to an old farmer this morning and he agreed, never seen it like that in 45 years here .

 

Either its all the drought dust and the hastily badly made emergency  bulldozer roads and fire breaks through the upper forest eroding or there has been a massive landslide somewhere upriver  ?

 

Soon I am going for a drive ,  down valley , up mountain, across escarpment top, to the ' Rim of the World '  near Deer Vale to get a view down into the upper valley to check out where the fire was . .... still is ?   (they dont tell us this stuff ) .

 

Here is the valley fire earlier ,  Deer Vale is at the mid centre above the fire . My place is east of 'Darkwood'  (the fire actually got to the area at  the 'd' in Darkwood )

 

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On the area burnt ;

 

" ...This area has created its own environment with high-rain fall periods that flood the surrounding lower areas below to the freezing winters where snow falls on a regular basis then to the summer periods where the dry heat can leave you feeling dehydrated. 

It is reported that this area that was created by volcanic activity holds over 1000 different species of plants and trees where the altitudes range from sea level to the highest point at 1610 metres above sea level. .."
 
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It all looked brown and orange in the distance. I suppose thats better than black, it means the trees will probably resprout, some of the steeper ground is bare but it probably had sparse cover before .  I saw a rather vigorous smoke column on the eastern front down in a steep valley, one ridge  away from some houses .

 

So far in this state alone around 3 .5 million hectors (about 8 1/2 mill acres )  has burned ... and its still going  ( in the past few years we have had a total area burned for the whole season of about 280,000 ha )  and  we are only half way through this year .

 

This isnt climate change  .

 

 

Its  climate  changed  ! 

 

 

As I said earlier from my foray up valley by road, the fire has caused some little landslides .

 

Well, apparently there is a BIG landslide up valley, into the river, thats why its a mud clay  mix at the moment . Who known how long that will take to clear.  When it gets down to the town , then people will notice, since its the towns water supply ! Luckily I put in rainwater tanks a few months back and the rain filled them .

 

With a YUK river, a heat wave approaching , and a cicada cacophony .... I'm off to the coast again . problem now is holiday makers and NYE, which I usually avoid at all costs .

 

 

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Gosh !  Where to start .

 

Of course, people did not cancel their Christmas plans or holidays .... massive never happened before bushfires ?   Thats not stopping MY holiday !

 

So huge amounts of people, as usual for this time of year, have hit the coast. All over the place, including the whole south east  coast of Australia . Then yesterday and the day before fires got worse, spread at alarming rates, spotted and made more and many joined together. This has cause massive evacuations of residents and holiday makers but where do they evacuate to ?  Many roads are closed ( eg, the main highway south in that area has fire across it at 6 points )  so people are being herded into and rapped in the last remaining unburnt areas .

 

In some places, this is ON the coast ... on beaches and in the water . Some fire crews have had to give up tryig to fight the fires as they are too busy setting up perimiters around these masses of people to  protect them .

 

In one place 4000 people are seeking refuge on the coast .  last night I saw film of people; trapped out on wharves ,  lined up on beaches, .... cars parked in a lake  with the shore burning, burnt towns (including Cobargo , a beautiful historic town and the site of Bruce Pascoe's  native grain development  - that could have helped change Australias agriculture  - that would be gone  too )  Line of cars pulling boats and caravans in traffic jams, unable to flee as they are lined up to try and get petrol .

 

The PM comes on tv assuring us the military is being  mobilised  ... BS !  where is the aircraft carrier and the helicopters promised days ago ... why are  thousands of people being left on beaches and wharves last night  ?

 

And as usual , no end in site , worse conditions predicted for the weekend .

 

Some film showed total darkness at 10 am .  When some light appeared, I saw a red orange landscape with people on the beack, which was red , the water was red, the light itself was red and the sand blowing in the strong wind was red - it looked like they where on Mars .

 

I am feeling pretty lucky for myself at the moment .  I have been concerned about an old dear friend I recently got back in contact with , her place, down in the southern fore zone got protected by a lake, good fire fighting, weather and wind changes , the fire went around their small coastal town to the west and then the wind changed and drove it towards Nowra , the major town on the south coast. She is in this little bubble of unburnt ,  but all around her is cut off .

 

A fireman was killed and two others injured when their fire truck was picked up by a 'fire tornado ' lifted into the air, flipped over and dumped on its roof down in a gully .

 

The whole south east corner of OZ is on fire .  Last night tele was out from Nowra down ; no  phones mobile or land line, no internet, or tv  .... and surrounded by fire and night time 0 scary shit for them ,  only communications is by radio .

 

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500 million animals lost in Australian bushfires in 2019

 

The true scope of the disaster is emerging, with ecologists reporting a heartbreaking mass loss of animals. The true cost of the bushfires on the Australian environment and ecology is only just coming to light. Ecologists from the University of Sydney now estimate some 480 million mammals, birds & reptiles have been lost by the devastating bushfires in 2019.

 

There are now fears entire species of animals and plant life may be lost forever, with scientists moving to understand the full scope of destruction. The estimates include some 8,000 koalas lost in the flames. About 30% of the entire koala population of NSW’s mid-north coast region has perished. There were only 28,000 koalas in the entire region before the fires began. The mortality rate of koalas from these fires has been particularly high.  According to Mark Graham, an ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council, koalas “have no capacity to move fast enough to get away” from fires that spread from treetop to treetop.

 

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“The fires have burnt so hot and so fast that there has been significant mortality of animals in the trees, but there is such a big area now that is still on fire and still burning that we will probably never find the bodies,” Mr Graham told a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry earlier this month. The fires, across much of NSW, as well as SE Queensland and parts of South Australia, have burned an area the size of Belgium in just a few months.

 

Ancient Forests Lost


48% of the iconic Gondwana reserves, which include rainforests that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs, have now burned. Species previously immune to fire now under threat. 

 

And these fires are still spreading. Victoria, in the south, usually only gets bushfires towards the end of summer. But over the last week huge tracts of Victoria's forests have burnt and continue to burn. And the hottest part of summer is yet to come.

 

(Although koala's grab attention,  my heart goes out to all the affected animals. For instance, I have a possum here that had its footpads burnt off. The district vet came and checked her out in the aftermath of the fire and said the pads will regrow as long as they don’t become infected. I keep an eye on her at night when she comes to get the food I'm leaving out for her on my verandah. For the first couple of weeks she was limping badly. And she wasn't always here. She must have gone off looking for some familiar forest food but of course there's none to be found. It's all burnt and even now almost two months later there's little sign of regrowth. When she came back she was always very hungry. I was amazed by her roaming when she had such difficulty moving about. When she's here, she sleeps during the day under my house or on top of a pole on the tank stand adjoining my house. She's now stopped wandering and is here continually and is now walking without any apparent difficulty. Her foot pads must have regrown.)

 

 

Edited by Yueya
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The possums  and my teacher  (  he has ring-tail possum totem )   thank you .

 

Yes, and those rescued koalas, similar , now they can walk and climb , the problem is there is where to release them to  ?

 

Even without the fires, the drought is intense.  When coming down the Man River , just before the fires started, it was a chain of stagnant pools  with dead rotting kangaroos everywhere .

 

here where I am staying at Arakoon ( near South West Rocks) heaps of eastern greys have come into  settlements looking for water . people are starting to put out containers for them with '  please  fill me up signs '  I drove around yesterday with a water supply and topped some up

 

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even moved into the old  abandon gaol here  (I am about to do a post on this place )

 

south_west_rocks_tourist_park_u2.JPG

 

 

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The PM has the audacity to tell people ... while standing in their burnt out town, that didnt get support, that the  Armed Forces have been involved for 3 weeks .  

 

I suppose their 'involvement' does not include rescuing thousands of people trapped on beaches .    Blatant BS and stupidity  'in the field' , in people's faces   during emergency situations  and mourning the dead is going to cause massive upheavals .... I would not be surprised if a few government 'luxury  homes and HQs ' get fire bombed after this .   You can only push people so far .... they know voting doesnt change anything . 

 

 

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- so it looks like government agencies would not back burn for the last few years as they wanted to preserve their 'carbon credits' to try and balance all the stuff they promised to do, but then didnt  (and then got into trouble off UN for .. and then said 'WE' dont have to do what UN wants, and how dare they tell us what to do - even though we support UN when any other country is criticised by them ) thus letting the huge amount of  flammable trash build up, in the forests  that has contributed to present disaster . .

 

:angry:

 

The phones are back on, a friend down the south coast rang me , she is in a small pocket of unburnt coast , next to a lake , but has scrub between her and the coast . They think it might go up tomorrow - another danger day .  She is an invalid ( waiting for a now cancelled spinal fusion ) and has no power - fridge  and freezer off and food gone, no lighting, telecommunications, etc .  They where allowed to go to a near by town that got  supermarket supplied last night .

 

They opened the road north of Nowra to try and evacuate the mass of holiday makers stranded there - 50 cars at a time with police and fire escorts .... its still on fire and people have to drive past  trees on fire , up in the crowns .

 

Fire evacuation zones ;

 

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Edited by Nungali
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Note the official picture above , a mix of ,  the zone,  a fire , people waiting (at an airport ? - probably unrelated ) , and a helicopter , which is supposed to suggest the government support coming .... Ooooo , now I feel safer ....  except that chopper has landed on an a/c and delivered personnel to a ship .  What the fuck does that have to do with things ?

 

Where is the picture  of fleets of helicopters airlifting people of burning beaches and on to near by aircraft carrier .. as promised !

 

The only airlift I have seen is  one chopper picking up burn victims from the crowds .  And this is the first mention I have heard  of ANY of those people being burn victims  .... they must have forgot to mention that .

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The Navy finally started picking people up . The first 56 people have left on the smaller ship, the Sycamore .  Two ships, HMAS Choules and MV Sycamore, will pick up about 1,000 people. The military evacuated around 60 people by helicopter last night but due to poor visibility due to smoke, they had to stop. They are being taken to Port Welshpool, 16 hrs away .

 

 

 

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Tomorrow ;

 

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Hi Nungali,

 

Just wanted to say how much I appreciate the reportage. Thanks. Shocking stuff.

 

Best of luck

 

Rob

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Neighbourhood people who evacuated and lost their homes have asked me what it was like here when the fire came through. Their unspoken question is whether they should have stayed and defended.  If they did, would they still have a home? I just listen to their stories, their reasons for leaving and their feelings in the aftermath. What can I say? If they stayed they might have saved their homes or they might have died. The reality is the fire was horrendous and most people did not have enough water or firefighting gear on hand. A veteran firefighter told me this fire was more intense than all the previous fires he’d fought put together.  

 

I don’t watch TV or much media other than Dao Bums, so I have little overview of what images of the fires are being shown.  The pictures I’ve seen are mostly from a distance. However, the beginning of the clip below taken from inside a firetruck trying to drive through the fire-front gives some idea of what it was like on the ground here, especially when sheets of flame sweep across the road. That’s exactly how it looked when the fire-front swept across the road in front of my place. I was standing about 100 metres away near my house, firehose in hand thinking this looks grim; my preparations seemingly miniscule in comparison to the scale of the fire.  But when the fire hit the mown grass I maintain near my house its intensity dropped. Sure, there was still fire everywhere, strong wind and constant ember attack, but I felt deep within myself, “I can do this”. And not without a good measure of luck, but mostly through good preparation, I got through. 

 

https://vimeo.com/382385153

 

  

  

Edited by Yueya
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Yes, I listened to a fire chief talking about aftermath and the people that stayed to defend .... nearly every person he talked to, even the well prepared , when the fire came they where " Oh my God ! Why did I stay here and take on this . " 

 

When fire tornadoes lift  a truck into the air and  whole townships 'go turtle'  *   ,  thats  NOT  what  '  disaster bushfires'  have caused before - these are 'super  disaster bushfires '   !

 

* Turtle manoeuvrer - in an extreme emergency situation where fire fighters get surrounded and there is no way out they retreat to the safest central position, get in a tight circle , go down on the ground as if bowing to each other in sieza  ...

 

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heads as close as possible in a circle - of course , you all need  proper fire fighting uniform and make sure its on right in this position (especially the hat back flap down the neck over the collar and down the back ), in the middle is a fire hose going straight up  to make a fountain over the group  ..... and wait for the fire to pass .

 

NO THANKS ! 

 

Fortunately , these manoeuvrers here have been done along the coast, usually, or next to a lake  so the  gathered mass of people only need to be shielded from  2 or 3 sides and not 360 all round .

 

The only other 'option' is when its racing uphill and you are above it .... you might be  able to charge (running ) through .

 

( I actually had to help nurse a group of 4 in Intensive care unit that tried that .   I won't give details .... to horrible   .. except  to say   that only  1 of  them ended up  surviving   )

 

I think most of us have seen the fire truck driving through the flames vid .....

 

But the vid above shows what heppens when the truck breaks down  ! 

 

the crew had to kit up with breathing gear and    abandon vehicle ... they made it .

 

Anyway ,   today is half over and it doesnt seem too dramatic (comparability )  down the south coast today ... and tomorrow sees a 10 deg temp drop with possible light rain ... so if they can get through today .  . . .

Edited by Nungali
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I dont know if they got through yesterday, yet .

Last night I was getting messages from my friend down there .  She said she evacuated to  a bit north into town at Ulladulla  and was seeking refuge out on the harbour with her sister, daughter 2 grandchildren and 6 dogs .  On the map Ulladulla is one  little remaining unburnt pocket on the coast totally surrounded . The north front is threatening Nowra , they main town /city on the south coast .

 

I asked her if it was a precautionary evac  if fire was approaching , she said they where 'fleeing fire' . But at the same time, I am watching the tv and the fire chief says that no one has been evacuated in that area ... yet I have people on the phone saying they are crowded onto a harbour dock !  How can he and the news not know this ?   Confusing .

 

The rest of the news is too vast and wide spread to repeat .... its only becoming apparent  this morning what happened  .

 

Victoria is getting absolutely smashed !  and they say it could contiunue like this for 8 weeks there  !

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I got through to my friend this morning , her and her family and associated dogs are safe , they saved her house and town .

 

Firefighters  ...  bloody champions !  

 

 

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^ not injured - exhausted .

 

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I'm not poking my nose in much news these daze... but whenever I do... I'm gobsmacked by this fire fuck scenario.

 

I read just now that California is sending 23 veteran firefighters to help and all I could think was...

"now?  you're sending them now?  and a whole 23 of them!?  why aren't their entire crews from multiple nations coming in to support?"

 

I had assumed that other nations were already sending military and fire crews to aid.

 

gobsmacked

 

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23 hours ago, Nungali said:

Firefighters  ...  bloody champions !  

 

Absolutely! Even though none were available to help me, I fully understood why. The fire here was just too massive for them to devote resources to scattered dwellings in forest settings such as my place. There was a fleet of RFS firetrucks in the vicinity and they concentrated around the small village of Nymboida about 5 kilometres away.  They saved the school, the community hall and most of the dozen or so dwelling that constitute the village. 

 

I didn't even bother calling the RFS, knowing they wouldn't be able to help. But people who live further down the road did and 2 firetrucks and a supervisor in an SUV came past my place about an hour before the fire hit. I asked the supervisor if someone could help me defend my place. He told me it was too dangerous for them to stay and they were going to pull out. He said I was on my own, which I knew anway. Surprisingly, he didn't advise me to evacuate, although other people in the area were strongly advised to leave, including the neighbours who called the RFS. They all left. 

 

As it played out, although it's not something I'd ever like to go through again, it felt good that I was able to save my place by myself. I have wondered in the 20 years I've lived here how I'd cope with fire. I was fearful of losing my home. It's where I live and it's my hermitage. Now I know that I can get through.  I greatly value that I've felt the awesome power of the worst fire in living memory. Felt it and survived. 

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He stood before the jaws of a monster out of hell ..... and lives to tell the tale .

 

This is actually  NOT an exaggeration .

 

Things are a lot calmer at the moment. Getting on with life .... until the next hot and windy day .

 

One thing that has arisen is this new subject -  I have encountered it before on a small scale, but now it can get massive, and might become a 'massive new thing'  (due to its immense size now )

 

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but it might not have much water in it if the vegetation and ground moisture is VERY low (as it is in some of these fires) .  As one foreman observed ' The fire is burning up in the air ! '

 

And then the whole thing can collapse on the ground , which feeds the ground fire more - if fire is all around, there is no 'flow out' from the collapse. Thats when really weird stuff can manifest  - like fire tornadoes that lift a large fire truck into the air .

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fires.jpg?width=668

 

Footage released by NASA shows that billows of smoke were blown over covering most of Chile and Argentina, as well as parts of Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. 

 

The smoke had travelled from Australia's east coast with the size of the cloud said to have been bigger than the United States. 

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Things have settled down a HEAP !   Cooler weather , a  little rain, winds eased .

 

The first two cyclones have dropped down from the equatorial regions and kissed the north coast of Oz , signalling the beginning of the wet season  .....   hopefully .

 

 

THANKS GUYS ! .... just when we REALLY pooped  .....  ; 

 

"

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