Bushfires claim possibly hundreds in Australia

[SlowwHand]

They should be shot, I agree.

Yeah, I think I'd be heading for the nearest bigger city with some method of holding it off.
Of course, there are bound to be some idiots that will just "ride it out", they hope.

[Zkribbler]

Hell yes, we're interested.

QFT

In Southern California, we have some bad brushfires, but nothing like this!

[Dale]

7pm and the change is just starting to get here. We've got rain, but it's only the head of the change coming through. That'll mean the fires will get hit in the next hour.

Tonight is gunna be ugly for anyone in the path coming through.

During the day we had gusts up to 120km / hr in Melbourne. It would be faster in the hills where the fires are. There's no telling how fast the Sowester will be tonight. Traditionally they're twice as strong as the northerly we've had all day.

[Dale]

Well good news for the fire fighters. Rain has started falling in the affected areas, and on the news they're predicting it to rain solidly for at least a day.

Luckily, even with all the wild wind out there, no fire broke the containment lines that had been made. So that is great news. The news is calling this (too early maybe?) the beginning of the end of the fires.

[SlowwHand]

Excellent. Pour down.

[Dale]

Woohoo! With rain all yesterday, they're calling it the end of the fire season for this year. Sure, four blazes are still massive, but they're now contained.

Our thoughts should be with those affected and with the families of the 250 dead.

Well done to the Fireys and emergency services people.

Heavens open and a hellish season ends

* Marika Dobbin
* March 5, 2009

Jobs well done: NSW and overseas firefighters will be going home after the worst of Victoria's bushfire season was declared over.

Jobs well done: NSW and overseas firefighters will be going home after the worst of Victoria's bushfire season was declared over. Photo: John Woudstra

THE worst of Victoria's catastrophic bushfire season is over, authorities say. Rain across the state has brought an unofficial end to a ruthless summer.

Many residents forced to flee are now safe to return home. About 1000 interstate firefighters are also going home. So, too, are 121 from New Zealand, Canada and the US. One hundred and fifty NSW police went home yesterday, while 50 from South Australia arrived to reinforce local numbers.

Exhausted CFA volunteers are headed home, while professional firefighters will continue the battle to tame four monster blazes that have burned since Black Saturday, but have calmed since receiving about 20 millimetres of rain.

CFA deputy chief fire officer Steve Warrington said the rain had not extinguished the fires, but he was confident that containment lines would not be tested again. All the lines held in gale-force winds of up to 125 km/h on Tuesday night, except a two-hectare outbreak in Bunyip State Park.

"Mother nature threw everything at Victoria (on Tuesday night)," Mr Warrington said. "We had winds, we had storms, we had rain, we had fires.

"I think Victorians should be proud of the emergency services but also be proud of themselves and the way we've held up through what's been fairly horrific circumstances."

More than 100,000 households lost power on Tuesday night and yesterday morning. There were mass blackouts in Werribee, Melbourne's outer east and between Colac and Apollo Bay.

About 2500 were still without electricity yesterday afternoon. The State Emergency Service and MFB received 820 calls for help.

Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin said the period of extreme weather was finished.

"It's an opportunity for communities of Victoria to start their grieving, start their process of rebuilding without the ever-present threat of fire that's been there in the last month," he said. "It's been a deeply distressing period. Particularly, the events of Black Saturday have left a scar on all of us that will never go away."

Victoria Police forensic teams who withdrew from Marysville, Narbethong, Wandong, Kilmore and Kinglake because of bad weather resumed their efforts yesterday to identify human remains.

Restrictions on access to the fire-devastated areas, ordered by the State Coroner, are expected to remain for up to three weeks. Jennifer Coate made the order after several sets of remains were found on February 20 in areas that had already been searched.

Deputy Police Commissioner Kieran Walshe yesterday met Kinglake residents frustrated that they had not been allowed to return because the town was being treated as a crime scene.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/heavens-open-and-a-hellish-season-ends-20090304-8oif.html

[Arrian]

A guy in Marysville was fined $50,000 for breach of green regulations because he bulldozed a 100 metre radius of trees around his house. The local council regulations state no trees further than 10 metres from the house to be removed. The guy's house is the ONLY house standing within a 20 km radius after the fires of Black Saturday two weeks ago, and he's suing the council for his $50,000 back.

$50k is a heckuva fine. I do hope he wins, though. Are there still people who believe that responsible forestry means never cutting down a tree?

-Arrian

[Zkribbler]

.... Rain has started falling in the affected areas, and on the news they're predicting it to rain solidly for at least a day.

[molly bloom]

Difficult to know how one can LITERALLY reap a whirlwind, given that the phrase is a (now) cliched metaphor and not an action one can physically perform...

[molly bloom]

You lack the essential ingredient of large amounts of trees and plants which have evolved over time to propagate themselves through fire- all those lovely eucalypts which give the Blue Mountains that distinctive filmy blue haze are full of combustible volatile oils- and their leaves dry out very nicely to form some lovely kindling with all the bark shed by trees such as the paperbark tree - which of course has its uses in cooking and so forth, but it does make for some formidable bonfires.