Bushfires.

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Herne Hill Hammer said:
Admiral Byng has made the pretty good suggestion of a national air firefighting fleet and a national body of trained firefighters, the problem then is where do you base them all?

Do you split them up between each state or do you say have a base in WA, another in SA to cover that state and the western side of Victoria to say, Portland or Warrnambool, then another in Gippsland and the NE of the state, a couple more in NSW and some more in QLD, one in Tassie (or does a Victorian one look after them) Do places like Broken Hill which is in NSW but pretty much gets looked after by Adelaide and Mildura get serviced by Adelaide, Melbourne or Sydney?

Do we have one in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to cover the whole country or do we just have one? If we have one in each of the 5 largest mainland cities, are they restricted to their own state? What if you deploy them all to fight the fires in QLD and NSW last November then all of a sudden you've got the south coast of NSW, North East and South East of Victoria, Kangaroo Island the Eyre Peninsular and then Balladonia, Norseman and Esperance all burning severely and with deaths and major infrastructure disruption, who gets priority? NSW, Vic and QLD because they're the big population states and the east coast is more important? Once you commit to one place it's a big move to get them redeployed if they're able to be.

I'd be reasonably happy for there to be a national effort for air water bombing assets but when it comes to boots on the ground, I think that would still better left to individual states or else it would just become too messy and parochial. They can still be supplemented by the ADF who can still be used in mass civilian movements as they are now, supply & logistics, clean up and rebuilding (fencing etc).
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These problems can be resolved. We just need some politicians that are prepared to set politics aside for a while and sort out some policy framework for maximum public benefit, or even God Forbid, leave the detailed planning and execution in the hands of a panel of experts.
 
Father Jack said:
My town is shrouded in smoke this morning, but a quick check of the Tas fire website indicates that there's nothing to ominous around just yet, and if anything the nearest fire has been downgraded a bit over the past couple of days. But still, this smoke is a new thing.
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The smoke is coming from the mainland. It is nowhere near as bad as last year though. At least in Hobart that is. Something we will probably get whenever there is a Northerly breeze.

Hopefully, we are able to send help to the mainland for the help they gave us 3 years ago/1 year ago. Sadly, with stage 3 water restrictions in Scamander(Etc drought) and the fire in Fingal, I doubt we will be able to. It wont take much for our East Coast to explode
 

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Herne Hill Hammer said:
Funny, I don't remember any politician or party campaigning on establishing a national, fire fighting body if they won.
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Labor had a policy regarding a national approach to bushfires

LABOR’S NATIONAL FIRE FIGHTING FLEET - SUNDAY, 17 MARCH 2019
17 March 2019

A Shorten Labor Government will boost Australia’s firefighting capabilities with a national fleet of aircraft and dedicated smokejumper units to keep Australians safe from bushfires.
All Australians understand the devastating impact that bushfires have. Lives are lost, homes destroyed and communities shattered.

Our firefighters and emergency services personnel are among the best in the world, and they do a tremendous job, often putting their own lives at risk. But they need more support from government.

At the moment, Australia doesn’t have a government-owned fleet of water bombing aircraft – making us reliant on borrowing from private companies domestically and from overseas.

The bushfire season in Australia is lengthening and already overlapping with the northern hemisphere, increasing the risk that we won’t be able to access the aircraft we need at times of peril.

At the same time, the Federal Government’s contribution to the National Aerial Firefighting Centre has plummeted from 50 per cent of funding to just 23 per cent, reducing our overall firefighting capability.

The Bureau of Meteorology has identified this summer as Australia’s hottest on record, which included devastating bushfires in Victoria and Tasmania. Now is the time to invest in giving our firefighters the resources they need to keep us all safe.

Labor’s national firefighting package will deliver:

$80 million to establish the National Aerial Bushfire Fighting Fleet of aircraft

This fleet will provide standing aerial firefighting capacity that can be used on demand in emergencies.

It will include retro-fitted Black Hawk helicopters as they are phased out from active use by the Australian Army and Erickson S-64 Air-crane helicopters (or ‘Elvis’ as they are commonly known) which has a 2,650 gallon tank capable of snorkelling or scooping fresh or salt water.

It’s expected that the national fleet will include a standing capability of up to six Large or Very Large Air Tankers, and up to 12 heavy rotary wing helicopters.

The benefits of aerial firefighting are clear. Aircrafts offer speed, access and observation advantages over ground crews. Containment is more effective and the final fire burned area minimised using aerial capability, thereby reducing demand on ground crews.

Australia’s first ‘smokejumper’ units

Smokejumpers are firefighters trained to be rapidly deployed by helicopters at remote fires during the short window during which those fires can be contained.

Smokejumpers usually rappel from helicopters and use chain-saws, hoes and other dry firefighting tools to establish a containment perimeter around the fire. They then patrol the perimeter to ensure the fire does not jump containment lines while working with water-bombing aircraft to ensure the contained fire is fully extinguished.

California and other US states currently have a number of smokejumper units which have proven successful.

As part of the $80 million commitment to establish a fleet, Labor will work with the states and territories to establish smokejumper units across the country.

$21 million for the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC)

A Shorten Labor Government will stop the Federal Government’s reduction in funding for our firefighting capabilities by returning to a 50-50 funding split between the states and territories and the Commonwealth.

Labor’s investment will ease the burden on state and territory governments, develop new national programs including a national risk management model, and national research and development programs including trials of new aircraft and night firefighting activities.

Labor can pay for new firefighting aircraft the smokejumper units because we are making multinationals pay their fair share and closing tax loopholes for the top end of town.
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BobbyMorri said:
The smoke is coming from the mainland. It is nowhere near as bad as last year though. At least in Hobart that is. Something we will probably get whenever there is a Northerly breeze.

Hopefully, we are able to send help to the mainland for the help they gave us 3 years ago/1 year ago. Sadly, with stage 3 water restrictions in Scamander(Etc drought) and the fire in Fingal, I doubt we will be able to. It wont take much for our East Coast to explode
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I'm on the northern part of the east coast, and to be honest I wondered if the smoke was coming from the mainland. I know they copped worse smoke at Bicheno from the fire at St Helens a couple of years ago than St Helens did, so I just assumed it was something similar and so must have been coming from the one at Fingal.

I am also well aware that if we do get a major fire here we'll be pretty much rooted, as we will get the lowest priority. All we can hope is that the timing works out for us and all the other fires are under control.
 
If you watch this shortly you'll see the impact of the front and westerly winds starting to hit the fire areas. Zoom in to the south east and click play. You can see the smoke, the fires have taken right off again.
satview.bom.gov.au

Satellite Viewer

Hi-resolution satellite imagery of Australian weather by Himawari, a geostationary satellite operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and interpreted by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
satview.bom.gov.au
 
Father Jack said:
I'm on the northern part of the east coast, and to be honest I wondered if the smoke was coming from the mainland. I know they copped worse smoke at Bicheno from the fire at St Helens a couple of years ago than St Helens did, so I just assumed it was something similar and so must have been coming from the one at Fingal.

I am also well aware that if we do get a major fire here we'll be pretty much rooted, as we will get the lowest priority. All we can hope is that the timing works out for us and all the other fires are under control.
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Nice part of the world there. Base-camped at the St Helens pub for a few days just before Xmas some years back. Had a good time.
 
The smoke has pretty much disappeared in Canberra which is great, we can breathe without choking on a pack if cigarettes, but it’s currently a record 43 degrees with a humidity in the single digits, so it still incredibly uncomfortable.
 
DEVO said:
The smoke has pretty much disappeared in Canberra which is great, we can breathe without choking on a pack if cigarettes, but it’s currently a record 43 degrees with a humidity in the single digits, so it still incredibly uncomfortable.
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Enjoy the fresh air while you can. Unfortunately the smoke will most likely return in a day or two when the winds swing back around.
 
DazalenkoUBewty said:
Enjoy the fresh air while you can. Unfortunately the smoke will most likely return in a day or two when the winds swing back around.
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We are expecting rain for the next three days, the first in about 8 weeks, so I’m hopeful that will eliminate a lot of smoke and fires in the region.
 
If you want to listen in to where it’s really bad, get a map out and fire up the RFS scanner for the Dunn’s Rd fire. It’s thick country with wonderful hamlets, also where the Snowy scheme is.
 

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s**t like this just breaks my heart

www.news.com.au

Bushfire survivor hit by heartless looters

A woman who fled from a raging bushfire on the back of a horse has returned to her home to find it ransacked by heartless looters.
www.news.com.au www.news.com.au
 
We cross now to Dave - a ******* in Nowa Nowa who isn't even a local!!!
 
Bostonian said:
Join the CFA like thousands of other average people do?
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i thought the implication was go and do something now to stop the fires

if you join the CFA now, when are you allowed to fight fires. 12 months? 24?

im pretty sure you cant go to a firestation and get a hose and helmet all that quick
 
Stevi_Tigers said:
Not piss off on holiday when the country is burning would be a great start
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It's the State Governments departments that handle fires. When he was on holiday it wasn't as wide spread as now so him being on holiday made sweet FA difference.

PM's don't do * all for fire issues other than turn up for media photo ops and leave it all to the relevant bureaucrats.

I seem to be reading a lot of s**t on Facebook that makes it seem like a lot of idiots see the PMs role as sitting in his office personally coordinating everything that's going on.
 
Marcel Proust said:
i thought the implication was go and do something now to stop the fires

if you join the CFA now, when are you allowed to fight fires. 12 months? 24?

im pretty sure you cant go to a firestation and get a hose and helmet all that quick
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Well you know fires happen every year somewhere in the nation. So it's not like you've not had a lifetime of being aware of this and had plenty of time prior to these fires to be trained up.

Seems like in the moment indignation because it feels good to the person spouting it.
 
Marcel Proust said:
didnt the opposition leader say yesterday this is unprecedented?

military war ships evacuation Victorians and the like
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Fires in Australia aren't unprecedented.

The longer an area goes without a fire the closer it gets to having one in logical terms.

The reason the Navy are involved is due to geographical location. Have you seen how much national park forest surrounds Mallacoota?

It's all about location, location, location.
 
Thegibbsgamble said:
You know when eisenhower hit Normandy, he knew there was a panzer division resting somewhere. He didn't sit in his arse twiddling his fumbs waiting for them, did he?

A whole festival was cancelled because they knew what was coming. Mobilisation should of started then. We are a first world country, no reason 24 hours is not to long in emergency.

Not as bad as hurricane katrina but it's significant enough phuq up.
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But the Victorian premier was still on holidays so he couldn’t request the feds assistance until after the fires tore through and he decided to return.
 
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