No let up from the fires in Australia

peramangkelder said:
Did you know while these bushfires were raging on our Prime Minister decided to take his family on an overseas holiday?
He was prompted by public outcry to cut the holiday short....that was big of him 🤬
I am aware of the non political nature of this Forum and I do not want to step on any toes
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WHAT? 🤬
Wow! 😧
A holiday?

I’m so sorry to read this. Since I don’t watch the news I don’t often know what’s going on around the world. This is heartbreaking. I pray for your safety. 😢💕
 

Warrigal said:
Not sure that that statement is entirely correct but I do know that the lives of people with asthma or emphysema are at risk from the smoke.

One elderly woman, after alighting from a QANTAS plane in Canberra became very ill and died a few hours later in hospital. OK, she was old but my 32 yo niece has been hospitalised twice during the time fires have been burning near Sydney. She is asthmatic.
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Im so sorry to read about your asthmatic niece.
You are in my prayers. ❤️😢
 
Was just reading about the horrendous situation in Australia. I hope all the Aussies on this forum are safe and accounted for.

The article said they expect it to get even worse, as the summer is just beginning, and they are expecting strong winds in the next few days. Horrible.
 

peramangkelder said:
Unfortunately when all this horror is finally behind us everything will go back to the way it was.
What is it they say...Ignorance is bliss. Yes the people in Government in Australia are ignorant.
They will say the fires have burnt away the fuel load but Government will not consult with Aboriginal Rangers who could have
helped with controlled burns over the last 10 years and the fires would not be so massive now and still ongoing.
Government should consult with Councils regarding Developers putting in place an exclusion zone around National Parks and Forests preventing building on the fence line of these protected areas.
Did you know while these bushfires were raging on our Prime Minister decided to take his family on an overseas holiday?
He was prompted by public outcry to cut the holiday short....that was big of him 🤬
I am aware of the non political nature of this Forum and I do not want to step on any toes
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Suggestion: Vote that vacation guy out of office? Or, what am I missing here?
 
Liberty said:
Suggestion: Vote that vacation guy out of office? Or, what am I missing here?
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We had an election last May so no chance to vote him out of office just yet. However if he continues to be on the nose with the electorate he can be dumped as PM by his own parliamentary party. This is a feature of a Westminster system of government that does not exist in US. Unfortunately we had had too much of this instability with six changes of PM in the past 12 years.

The other complication is that we don't actually vote directly for the Prime Minister. We vote for our local representative and for senators. The party with sufficient numbers in the lower house to form government then elects their leader who becomes the prime minister. He/she then selects the other ministers from the elected members and the Governor General appoints them on behalf of the Queen. For people who find this confusing look up the Westminster system or read this infosheet - https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parlia...heet_20_-_The_Australian_system_of_government
 
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Warrigal said:
We had an election last May so no chance to vote him out of office just yet. However if he continues to be on the nose with the electorate he can be dumped as PM by his own parliamentary party. This is a feature of a Westminster system of government that does not exist in US. Unfortunately we had had too much of this instability with six changes of PM in the past 12 years.

The other complication is that we don't actually vote directly for the Prime Minister. We vote for our local representative and for senators. The party with sufficient numbers in the lower house to form government then elects their leader who becomes the prime minister. He/she then selects the other ministers from the elected members and the Governor General appoints them on behalf of the Queen. For people who find this confusing look up the Westminster system or read this infosheet - https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parlia...heet_20_-_The_Australian_system_of_government
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Thanks, Warrigal. So sorry for the impact that is being felt by so many from these fires.
Hopefully, corrections will be made in the future. We pray!
 
Most of us dislike creepy things like spiders / snakes / lizards/ worms/ frogs / insects ,
however as much as most of us don't like them they still play an essential part in keeping our environment healthy ...can you just imagine how many have perished in the fires along with other wild and domestic birds / animals

We drove through allot of the areas in NSW that has been effected by the fires while traveling to / from Queensland / July ~ Sept 2019.

The fires started two weeks before we left Queensland 6 km from where we were staying

During our journey home to SA ( about a 2200 km trip) we were turned back twice due to burning trees falling across the road
I can tell you it was frightening traveling in thick smoke for over 400 km
 
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Warrigal said:
No-one knows how many native animals have perished. It is estimated to be an horrendous figure. Many more will die of starvation and thirst after the fires have passed on.
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I was surprised they mentioned the estimated animal deaths. It always irks me when reporting about wildfires they never mention animal casualties, only the human ones. I'm sure they can't be accurate about them, but I'm also sure the firefighters find the bodies and perhaps count the estimated tally for the forest service?
 
It's an incredibly scary situation. I'm not in Australia, but I do watch the Aussie Open Tennis grand slam in January from Melbourne Park, further north from the fires maybe. In seeing all the smoke and devastation, I wonder how Australia can host a tennis tournament this summer? It doesn't seem safe at all for the players or spectators.
 
been watching the fires on the news updates -- my heart goes out to you all 'animals running not knowing to where '
just heart breaking to watch , we moan in the UK. about the rain and nothing compared to what you are all going

through ' today I saw the winds have come up and making life worse ' praying it will die down soon 'never stay to protect the home
lives are more precious ..x
 
toffee said:
been watching the fires on the news updates -- my heart goes out to you all 'animals running not knowing to where '
just heart breaking to watch , we moan in the UK. about the rain and nothing compared to what you are all going

through ' today I saw the winds have come up and making life worse ' praying it will die down soon 'never stay to protect the home
lives are more precious ..x
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We went through a drought in 2011 and lost 40 big trees on the property. To us, drought is the worst, been through rain deluges & hurricanes - hey, even a blizzard when we lived up north, but drought is beyond bad. Imagine coming back to all that scorched earth and trying to live there?

Suppose an earthquake might make it a tie for the worst...nothing like having the earth move beneath your feet! Just pray they all have good homeowner's insurance. Toffee is right - your life is worth way more than your home. It is what it is when a crisis strikes like that.
 
StarSong said:
@Warrigal, when did these fires begin? It seems like they've been raging for a couple of months. :(
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September, which is a very early start to the fire season. It is very unusual to have this many out of control fires all at once. The number of people needing to be evacuated is also unusual.

It will take heavy rain before they are extinguished and there is none coming any time soon. We are in the grip of a terrible drought.
 
None of us do @RadishRose but this is what happens in Australia
This is from a poem called My Country by Dorothea Mackellar published in 1908
'I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
Of ragged mountain ranges
Of droughts and flooding rains
I love her far horizon
I love her jewel-sea
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me'
As I stated before Governments both Federal and Local will have a lot of explaining to do
While they are not directly responsible for this horror they did little or nothing to prevent the sheer magnitude of it
 
A forum friend of mine evacuated last night with his very frail wife. These are his posts

43 degrees outside, 23 degrees inside.
Air Con is cruising.
King Parrots have taken refuge in my large garage/ workshop.
No smoke here yet because the strong northerly is holding the Currowan fire back.
Some town folk reckon we've dodged a bullet ...
but, when the southerly change kicks in soon, we'll face it head on.
I'm no hero...I'm ready to go !
The farm manager has given me the nod to stay at the homestead.

The strong southerly wind did arrive around sundown

Barely got out of Bundanoon before we copped a fiery blast, a scary firestorm that engulfed our street in minutes. We tried to drive to Exeter but fire was raging across the road in front of us.
Did a U turn and drove to Bundanoon oval but that was starting to burn with a massive ember attack.
Highway Patrol cop said, follow me so we snuck in behind him and led about 100 cars to safe refuge.
Hard to keep up with the cop...we travelled about 30 kms inland, cross country on corrugated dirt road with trees down.
Eventually he led us to safety at Sallys Corner roadhouse at Sutton Forest. They then directed us up the Hume highway to Mittagong RSL, the evac centre.
No food...just tea, coffee and water. I found a couch and made a bed for missus T.
Very scary.... don't know if we have a home to go back to.

Bundanoon is a lovely small town in what is referred to as the Southern Highlands, although highlands is a bit of an exaggeration. It is picturesque. Mittagong is a larger centre north of Bundanoon.

Finally this morning

Didn't get much sleep...I purloined a three seater sofa from the club foyer and moved it into one of the large function rooms in the RSL club. My wife kipped down on that and I moved four chairs together to sorta make a bed...didn't sleep much.
Just having breakfast in the club dining room.
Cooked and served by the Sallies (Salvation Army) ...God bless 'em.
around two hundred people here....and provision for their pets, dogs, cats.
Don't know about our home....most of the roads are closed.
We are well.

When it is someone you know, it starts to get very real.
 
peramangkelder said:
I am an Aboriginal Elder and there is a 60,000 year answer to this tragedy.
Indigenous Australians have been using controlled burns to reduce the fuel load for 60,000 years.
Over the last 10 years Councils have refused our Indigenous Rangers to carry out the controlled burns so necessary here.
10 years is all it takes to undo 60,000 years of controlled burns. I guess a lot of you will be angered by my post but even the Fire Services themselves said they knew this was coming.
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You are so right peramangkelder if only our government would listen to our aboriginal elders, instead of the Greens,then these fires might not have been so devestating, and as for climate change climate has been changing ever since the earth began, heating and cooling,we have proof of the terrible droughts that have happened from way back in 1896 where hundreds of people died from the heat,all found in old news papers on hometrove.gov.au
Dorothea Mckeller was right also.
 
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I feel so sorry for all the people who have lost everything,and also the animals,the Cuddely Creek fires were only about 10 kilometers from us as the crow flies but we were lucky,not to have the fires come close to us.if only the powers that be in government would listen to our indiginous people.
 
A well known Adelaide plastic surgeon was killed in a horrific bush fire on Kangaroo island ( South Aust ) along with his father on Friday ,from news reports they became trapped by flames while trying to return to,the fathers property ( the son was found 200 mtrs from the car ) so he obviously ran for his life

https://au.news.yahoo.com/wellknown...d-in-kangaroo-island-bushfires-083151097.html
Copied this statement off net
Clayton, 43, was one of Adelaide’s leading plastic and reconstructive surgeons, specialising in hand surgery.”
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I live in South Australia ,we had quite a bit of smoke blanketing the city and county areas in the last few days including where I live 2 hours from Adelaide

yesterday was partially bad where i live due to a strong cool cool change blowing the smoke in our direction

KI as its quite often referred to by locals is a very popular with tourists particularly tourists from overseas countries wanting to get up close to wildlife
 

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