Bush Fires in Australia

There has been a lot of news lately about the weather in Australia and the devastation caused by the fires, in some states in the country. The danger of wildfires cannot be understated, but the resilience of the Australian people is amazing.

We spent most of our holiday in the high country in the Alpine region north of Melbourne, which as the crow flies is close to the New South Wales Border. When we were there was a fire in New South Wales and a fire near the northern border of Victoria and the fear was that the two fires would merge and create a mega-fire. That did happen and the fire was still burning when we left, but at the time no homes were in danger.

The fire danger and the number of fires were so bad that the government of the state of Victoria declared a state of disaster for the whole state. This was meant to give the government more power and to help reassure people, which I am sure it did. However, it did cause some unintended consequences, one of the edicts under the state of disaster was that all childcare centers would be closed. The idea was that if there was a fire danger parents should be with their children. A good idea, except that many people could not go to work because they had no childcare, so this created economic uncertainty and hardship in areas that were not affected by the fires, but were still under the state of emergency.

Fire Warnings were a part of life where we were staying. In the last week of our visit, it was very smokey, hot, and humid. My daughter and her mate received a number of warnings saying that they should leave now. They joked about the warnings telling us that there were several levels of warnings which started with Act and Watch, which meant do nothing,  then the next level was, “You should leave now” then the warning after that was, “Leave now or you will die”, and the last warning was “You can’t leave, take shelter and hope for the best”. The Australians in the area I was staying had a certain distrust for the government and government overreaction and said they would only leave when they received the third warning. They also said that they believed the government was overreacting to the fire dangers. They explained that in the fires a few years ago, the government did not act quickly enough and a lot of people died. They understood what the government was doing, but they likened the warnings they were receiving to the story of the "boy who cried wolf." They said that many of their friends did not trust the warnings and they were afraid that they might not leave when the needed to leave.

There were two fires close to us, one was, as the crow flies about 50K to the north and one was about 45K to the east. The fire that was to the north, had to climb up the mountain, go through a multi-million-dollar ski resort and then down the mountain to get to us. The area coming up the mountain had also been burned out a few years ago so the fire could not move quickly. My Australian friends and family were very confident that the state would not let the ski resort and the million-dollar homes are destroyed.

The other fire also had to go over a small mountain through two towns and cross a river through the grass to get near us. It was very slow-burning. It was under control within three days of starting.

The biggest cause of the fires appeared to be dry lightning, although watching the press it appeared that arson was the cause of some of the fires. Of the thousands of fires that started when we were there, only about 178 were attributed to people. The police had arrested and charged about 89 people with arson while we were there.

All of Australia was not burning, but because there were fires near Sydney in New South Wales and around Melbourne, which also has a large population, the smoke was a problem for many, including us.

We were affected by the smoke during our stay as it closed down the visibility so we could not see the stunning scenery of the Alpine region we were in, and when we left, we were delayed for three hours at the airport because the smoke made it difficult to fly.

The people of Australia have another month to go before the fire season is over, the wild weather and rain hitting parts of the affected areas are helping, but the danger is still there and will be for a time. I would recommend that if you want to help give to the Australian Red Cross.