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It seems incomprehensible to some media commentators that over 181 people could die in fires in Australia. They have been casting about, trying to place blame, saying that things were done poorly, done wrong.
This is not true. What is true is that the right things to do, the things that kept you alive in every other year, every other fire, are now no longer necessarily right.
Everyone who lives through an Australian summer has some experience of bushfire, even if it is only red-blazing sunsets in smoke-filled skies. The trees explode on the hot summer days, and half the flora is designed to regenerate after burning.
There are rules. You choose whether you will leave early or stay and fight. If you're leaving, you pack your papers and photos, grab the kids and pets, make sure you have water and towels or blankets in the car in case the worst happens, and you leave before or when you see the smoke. Lock the house and tell the fire brigade where it is. They'll do what they can.
Stick to the main roads, drive steadily, obey the police or the fierys, pick up pedestrians if you need to. When you get to the evacuation centre, give your names and details, call your friends. Let the officials know if you move on.
If you stay, you fill everything you can inside the house with water. You wet everything you can outside. Clear all debris from around the house (you should have done this weeks ago). Use a tractor if you have one. Fuck the garden, you can replant. Bring in the pets. Have the car nearby, have the keys in your pocket. Have your backpacks of things each of you really need ready to go. Do what you can for the horses. If the flames are small and slow, you can stay outside and keep hosing. If they're fast and large, go in. Close everything. Put wet towels around every gap, have a ladder near the roof access. Stay down, keep the kids together; the bathroom is a good place, it's cool and strong and you can sit them in the bath. If you see flames coming inside and can wet them, do so. Wait till the front passes.
This is what you do in a normal fire. This is what you have time to do in a normal fire.
When it passes, you run around the house and put out the flames that are starting inside. You climb into the roof cavity and wet down any hot spots. You go outside and use your generator to pump water from the tanks, or the pool or the dam to hose down the roof and the property. If the house is too well alight, you leave it. You grab the kids, pets and packs and you climb into the car and drive away. The car is usually all right; it's the embers blown by the wind that have set fire to the house. You can often drive out through the burnt region, there's nothing left for the fire there anymore. Your tires may be a bit fucked-up by the hot tarmac, but it doesn't matter, you'll get to the country fire authority, or the town, or the sports oval.
This is what happens normally.
You stand around with the CFA and the SES and the Parks service and every other firefighter, and you shake hands and you say thanks, or bad luck, and you pitch in if your house is standing and your neighbour's isn't, and you see about handing out sausage sandwiches and cups of bad coffee and good tea. The CWA ladies bring cakes and fruit and toys for the little ones and make sure the fierys all have a good feed and get some sleep. The McDonald's managers and the local takeaway owners bring trays of juice and water and burgers and sandwiches, the pub brings beer by the slab.
Every year, it happens. Houses burn, livestock are lost, and people turn to each other and say that it sounded like a train, that the fire moved as fast as they could run. That they lost the house but the kids are okay. It's horrible, but it's normal.
None of this is normal.
This fire moved faster than any car, twice as fast in some places. The noise was like a jet engine, they say, and the oxygen was sucked from the air leaving people sheltering inside gasping desperately as the front passed. The weather had stood above 40 for a week, the air was crisp and the vegetation bone dry. On the day the fires swept through it was 46 in Victoria.
It's never 46. Never. Not till now. The records were shattered by several degrees.
The radiant heat has been described as like Dresden. Houses were exploding into flame ahead of the firefront. While normal ember attacks give you a decent length of time for the house to stand before it is unsalvageable (the eaves and under the house start smouldering, small fires begin, but it's usually after the front has past that the house really catches light), this time large properties were gone in minutes. Normally the embers strike when the fire is up to a kilometre away, this time it was many times that.
Some people trying to escape died of dehydration before the fire reached them. Others who escaped the flames had skin crisped from their bodies as they ran well ahead or away. Some lived, and are in hospital fighting for their lives now. Cars have turned into makeshift crematoria, sometimes beside trees that are scorched from heat but not burned.
There were warnings where there could be warnings. All day the ABC and the local stations kept as far ahead of the fire as they could, but for Kinglake and some other towns, the fire moved faster than the news. The brigades were mostly fighting established fronts, trying to keep them from residential areas. The new fronts took them by surprise, many coming from nothing, possibly from arsonists.
I know that it is human to look for blame. I know that there are many who are angry and who wish to say that something or someone failed. But for the most part, no one failed. It was impossible to succeed.
There are systems. This country is used to fire and plans accordingly. The fire danger is rated from 1 to 100, so the authorities know how prepared they need to be, how many crews they need in place. On Saturday in Victoria, it was 320. More than three times worse than the experienced authorities had imagined they would ever need to prepare for. There was no way that people could deal with those flames.
And still they went out and did what they could. When I worked for the parks service in NSW I helped in two safe areas of two comparatively piddling fires. I was scared to the bones, and I am someone who keeps her head in a crisis. The sheer mental toughness of everyone who went up against those fires cannot be overstated.
So if your news service starts with the question 'what went wrong' and answers it with anything other than 'nature is a fucking bitch in Australia', please tell them to piss off in your best Hugh Jackman tones.
The lovely and admirable Ms Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia has just made a gentle and compassionate plea to the nation to help where they can. In the far north of Queensland, people who have lost everything but the house in severe floods (because Australian nature s a fucking bitch with a truly twisted sense of humour) have been donating part of their emergency payments to the fire victims. The continent may be a place of horror, but the Australian people have genuine grace.
Thank you so much to everyone who has reached into their pockets to help people and animals recover from this disaster. The Australian Red Cross will take any donation from A$5 up. That's essentially a coffee.
During the writing of this post, the number at the start of this post has gone up. The police say that it will go up more.
This is not true. What is true is that the right things to do, the things that kept you alive in every other year, every other fire, are now no longer necessarily right.
Everyone who lives through an Australian summer has some experience of bushfire, even if it is only red-blazing sunsets in smoke-filled skies. The trees explode on the hot summer days, and half the flora is designed to regenerate after burning.
There are rules. You choose whether you will leave early or stay and fight. If you're leaving, you pack your papers and photos, grab the kids and pets, make sure you have water and towels or blankets in the car in case the worst happens, and you leave before or when you see the smoke. Lock the house and tell the fire brigade where it is. They'll do what they can.
Stick to the main roads, drive steadily, obey the police or the fierys, pick up pedestrians if you need to. When you get to the evacuation centre, give your names and details, call your friends. Let the officials know if you move on.
If you stay, you fill everything you can inside the house with water. You wet everything you can outside. Clear all debris from around the house (you should have done this weeks ago). Use a tractor if you have one. Fuck the garden, you can replant. Bring in the pets. Have the car nearby, have the keys in your pocket. Have your backpacks of things each of you really need ready to go. Do what you can for the horses. If the flames are small and slow, you can stay outside and keep hosing. If they're fast and large, go in. Close everything. Put wet towels around every gap, have a ladder near the roof access. Stay down, keep the kids together; the bathroom is a good place, it's cool and strong and you can sit them in the bath. If you see flames coming inside and can wet them, do so. Wait till the front passes.
This is what you do in a normal fire. This is what you have time to do in a normal fire.
When it passes, you run around the house and put out the flames that are starting inside. You climb into the roof cavity and wet down any hot spots. You go outside and use your generator to pump water from the tanks, or the pool or the dam to hose down the roof and the property. If the house is too well alight, you leave it. You grab the kids, pets and packs and you climb into the car and drive away. The car is usually all right; it's the embers blown by the wind that have set fire to the house. You can often drive out through the burnt region, there's nothing left for the fire there anymore. Your tires may be a bit fucked-up by the hot tarmac, but it doesn't matter, you'll get to the country fire authority, or the town, or the sports oval.
This is what happens normally.
You stand around with the CFA and the SES and the Parks service and every other firefighter, and you shake hands and you say thanks, or bad luck, and you pitch in if your house is standing and your neighbour's isn't, and you see about handing out sausage sandwiches and cups of bad coffee and good tea. The CWA ladies bring cakes and fruit and toys for the little ones and make sure the fierys all have a good feed and get some sleep. The McDonald's managers and the local takeaway owners bring trays of juice and water and burgers and sandwiches, the pub brings beer by the slab.
Every year, it happens. Houses burn, livestock are lost, and people turn to each other and say that it sounded like a train, that the fire moved as fast as they could run. That they lost the house but the kids are okay. It's horrible, but it's normal.
None of this is normal.
This fire moved faster than any car, twice as fast in some places. The noise was like a jet engine, they say, and the oxygen was sucked from the air leaving people sheltering inside gasping desperately as the front passed. The weather had stood above 40 for a week, the air was crisp and the vegetation bone dry. On the day the fires swept through it was 46 in Victoria.
It's never 46. Never. Not till now. The records were shattered by several degrees.
The radiant heat has been described as like Dresden. Houses were exploding into flame ahead of the firefront. While normal ember attacks give you a decent length of time for the house to stand before it is unsalvageable (the eaves and under the house start smouldering, small fires begin, but it's usually after the front has past that the house really catches light), this time large properties were gone in minutes. Normally the embers strike when the fire is up to a kilometre away, this time it was many times that.
Some people trying to escape died of dehydration before the fire reached them. Others who escaped the flames had skin crisped from their bodies as they ran well ahead or away. Some lived, and are in hospital fighting for their lives now. Cars have turned into makeshift crematoria, sometimes beside trees that are scorched from heat but not burned.
There were warnings where there could be warnings. All day the ABC and the local stations kept as far ahead of the fire as they could, but for Kinglake and some other towns, the fire moved faster than the news. The brigades were mostly fighting established fronts, trying to keep them from residential areas. The new fronts took them by surprise, many coming from nothing, possibly from arsonists.
I know that it is human to look for blame. I know that there are many who are angry and who wish to say that something or someone failed. But for the most part, no one failed. It was impossible to succeed.
There are systems. This country is used to fire and plans accordingly. The fire danger is rated from 1 to 100, so the authorities know how prepared they need to be, how many crews they need in place. On Saturday in Victoria, it was 320. More than three times worse than the experienced authorities had imagined they would ever need to prepare for. There was no way that people could deal with those flames.
And still they went out and did what they could. When I worked for the parks service in NSW I helped in two safe areas of two comparatively piddling fires. I was scared to the bones, and I am someone who keeps her head in a crisis. The sheer mental toughness of everyone who went up against those fires cannot be overstated.
So if your news service starts with the question 'what went wrong' and answers it with anything other than 'nature is a fucking bitch in Australia', please tell them to piss off in your best Hugh Jackman tones.
The lovely and admirable Ms Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia has just made a gentle and compassionate plea to the nation to help where they can. In the far north of Queensland, people who have lost everything but the house in severe floods (because Australian nature s a fucking bitch with a truly twisted sense of humour) have been donating part of their emergency payments to the fire victims. The continent may be a place of horror, but the Australian people have genuine grace.
Thank you so much to everyone who has reached into their pockets to help people and animals recover from this disaster. The Australian Red Cross will take any donation from A$5 up. That's essentially a coffee.
During the writing of this post, the number at the start of this post has gone up. The police say that it will go up more.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:06 am (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm
I trust you're safe.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:12 am (UTC)Thank you for the link to the Red Cross -- Australia needs the world's help <3
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:37 pm (UTC)Try smh.com.au for an easy to use website with decent coverage, or www.theage.com.au for the Victorian paper, though I find their site a little messier.
You're right about help, after 11 or so years of drought the coffers are a bit dry for most relief agencies. If you could ask your friends to donate the price of a coffee or two, every little bit will soon add up! Thanks so much for your thoughts and care, they really need them down there.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:12 am (UTC)So much love and strength to the people suffering from and fighting against the fires.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:16 am (UTC)I'm still quite stunned that this has actually happened, it took me a while once I first heard about it to actually be able to understand the complete loss and damage this has caused.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:45 pm (UTC)Victoria always has the worst fires due to its geography, but I'm with you, it's just so far beyond anything I could have imagined. And how wonderful were those Queenslanders handing over their relief money?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:22 am (UTC)Thank you writing this post. These are things that need to be said, and you've said them very articulately.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:46 am (UTC)But I went to the Australian Red Cross website and donated 50 A$. It's not much, compared to the amount of disaster and suffering, and I hope to be able to give more once I have better knowledge about my financial situation. But it's a start.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:51 am (UTC)and it pains me that our own media, looking for something 'dramatic' in a situation that is so far beyond dramatic it is incomprehensible, are airing stories from people who are already blaming here.
I started to rant, but frankly, I'm too tired.
You've said it all, and so much better than I could.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:55 pm (UTC)But you can't apportion blame for something so unforseeable. All we can do now is help, and I am so loving you for everything you have been doing. You're a bloody wonder.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:10 am (UTC)Thankyou for this post- it has given an added perspective as to what the rules are for bushfires and gave an added understanding to the situation- something that will be repeated to anyone who starts blaming anyone other than mother nature, and arsonists.
Thankyou for giving links to donations that also include helping animals recover- I have had a few people ask in the last few days, but thankfully our banks and organisations are giving us the ability to donate without needing credit cards- something I will be doing on payday.
That being said, alot of my friends and coworkers have been waiting to get in contact with friends and family. I have been extremely lucky to hear from the people I was worried about as of yesterday, some of my associates are not so lucky.
We are all in shock. Some people have been able to shake it off-but not many. We are not California and we may hate you for sport- but NZ and AUS generally go together in solidarity. There is a lot of sorrow,shock and emotion from people at the moment. And the horrible stomach-pit feeling of not being able to put the world back to rights.
*hug*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:13 pm (UTC)I have to confess there was a little welling at this end when your new PM came over all ANZAC and just sent firefighters and cash. Just lovely. I hope that there has been some better news for the people your people have been looking for. Some of the stories of survival are just astonishing, while some of the losses are just piteous. Thanks again, Kitti.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:18 pm (UTC)I'm fine, I live in the heart of a different city, on a hill. I'm natural disaster-proof for the most part!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:19 pm (UTC)This chap said it all far better from on the scene, though: http://www.smh.com.au/national/why-a-town-was-left-without-water-tankers-20090210-83id.html
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:35 pm (UTC)There are just no words.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:54 pm (UTC)Thank you for a post that brings it into perspective for those of us not getting decent news coverage.
♥
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:31 pm (UTC)You're very welcome. I know from the London Bombings who frustrating it can be to be many miles away from something that you want to understand and help with, and have not enough information coming in. XXX
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 01:06 pm (UTC)Peace,
Bubba
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 01:42 pm (UTC)I'm sad to say how little I have been hearing of it in the news. Yes, it is mentioned, small corner articles or 20 minutes into the local news. If the same thing was happening in the States it would be on the front page of every newspaper here, the first thing on everyone lips. Yes, we are obviously closer and we could physically drive down and help if it was in America. Still, I haven't heard nearly enough in our media about how bad it is and how much donations are needed.
Thanks for keeping us informed.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:34 am (UTC)At the moment, conservative estimates of the damages bill are at half a billion Australian dollars, though they are expected to climb. The Red Cross emergency fund is currently a little over $30 million, many properties were uninsured, many others underinsured. If you could mention to friends and colleagues that small, coffee-sized donations can be made, that would be great, as they quickly add up to significant sums.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:26 pm (UTC)I, too have been a firefighter (in the same fires you were, I suspect). I have fought house-to-house with a water-filled backpack in a situation where the water mains ran dry, and been in a situation where our truck had to drop the hoses and evecuate when the truck-tank ran dry. These fires are to that one what that one was to a campfire.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:27 am (UTC)Nice comment from your parliamentarian, sadly so true. I swear, if Australians weren't so charming, I'd do the bunk!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:42 pm (UTC)I just want to grab everyone and bring them here.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:36 am (UTC)Yeah, I know that it's very hard to understand what's going on, which is why I wanted to help a little so that people could see why we're all banging on so much about charity if its possible.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 03:50 pm (UTC)I've given what I can afford, and while, in the grand scheme of things, it isn't terribly much, well... we all do what we can.
The "between hell and high water" comparison above is oddly apt.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 02:03 am (UTC)Thank you so much for the donation, and it IS a big thing. That's food, shelter, emergency clothing. $10 is enough for food for a day, you've made a difference.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 04:44 pm (UTC)Thanks for explaining so well.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 12:15 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry to hear about the earthquake you went through. You're exactly right that the situation is very similar, I suppose that if we can't have the ideal of no one having this sort of understanding, the next best thing is to have such tragedies bring out the best in people.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 05:03 pm (UTC)Whoever says there's no global warming is nutters :(. The high temperature is really what makes this one extra difficult, if I understand the situation correctly.
I am also beyond appalled at how little the US media seems to care about the fire. If this is happening on our soil there would have been a truckload of sensational reporting. Yes, and blame assignment as well - it's just an easy way to fill up airtime *Sigh*
*Hugs you*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 12:39 pm (UTC)The US media has made me a little cranky. We had weeks of Katrina coverage, and it broke out little hearts to see the suffering there. Per capita, more people have died in these fires, I'd have hoped it would at least be on the front pages for a day or two.
Thanks for the hugs, I am sending them south to Jamie and Meredyth and a blonde girl named Jess ... XXX BB
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 07:34 pm (UTC)