{"id":3193,"date":"2020-02-13T12:11:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T12:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patsytrench.com\/?p=3193"},"modified":"2020-02-13T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T12:11:56","slug":"australias-bushfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patsytrench.com\/2020\/02\/13\/australias-bushfires\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s bushfires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my book Australia and How To Find It,<\/em> published in October of 2019, I blithely claimed that Australia rarely featured in our news here in the UK, except for the cricket. That was before the bushfires. I have now added a postscript to my book chronicling the fires as witnessed in particular by residents of northern NSW, and the political fallout. Here it is:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For several months in late\n2019\/early 2020 Australia really did become the worst country in the world[i]<\/a>.\nBetween October 2019 and up until February 2020, as I write this, raging\nbushfires have destroyed over 11 million hectares of land[ii]<\/a>\n(27 million acres, almost the size of England), over 2,500 homes, around 33\npeople including a number of firefighters, and an estimated one billion\nanimals. It was believed some wildlife species were wiped out altogether. Even\npeople not living near the fire regions were affected by smoke, which at one\npoint reached New Zealand and even travelled as far as South America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It began early, in some cases in September, which is technically\nspring in the southern hemisphere. I asked a friend, Michael Burge, who lives\nin northern New South Wales and in the region of a local fire, to tell me his\nstory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In very early September [2019] bushfires raged through Tenterfield and Drake, destroying homes and other property. Landowners, politicians and\u00a0the media started throwing around the word \u2018unprecedented\u2019, mainly due to the speed and intensity of these unseasonal fires.\u00a0. . .

. . . In November 2019 – still spring – fire ravaged two towns in our region (Wytaliba and Torrington) driven by the most intense air movement I have ever experienced. At one point during the terrible day when\u00a0people were killed at Wytaliba, it felt like we were in the grip of two cyclones fighting for supremacy. The wind was so strong it was shooting into the ground and whipping up slices of soil that shot into the\u00a0air. Dust, debris and burning foliage were being carried from where the fires were burning at Torrington, 28 kilometres away.<\/p>

Across the region, we heard of fires travelling ahead of themselves in the form of embers, anywhere between 12 and 40 kilometres ahead of fire fronts during the high winds.\u00a0<\/p>

According to climatologists, the hot air ahead of a fire can create a weather system known as a pyrocumulonimbus thunderstorm. I witnessed three of these. One showed on the horizon the day Tenterfield\u00a0burned, its terrible lava-orange core showing deep within a great cauliflower head. Another was blowing towards our home the afternoon the RFS [Rural Fire Service] messaged me and advised that I leave home or shelter in place, so all I could see of it was the eerie yellow glow that wrapped everything in its pathway.\u00a0<\/p>

As I enacted our fire plan and evacuated to Glen Innes, I saw the worst pyrocumulonimbus over Wytaliba. It looked like a mushroom cloud after an atomic bomb, although it was collapsing into itself, whipped up by the terrible wind. Collapsing over communities, livestock and\u00a0wildlife; rivers, creeks and forests. Collapsing over everything I have ever known about living in rural Australia at a thousand metres above sea level in a cool-climate region.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Wytaliba is a tiny community of around 100 people, living\noff the grid and away from the public eye, with a school attended by 10\nchildren. In thirty minutes on a Friday in November 2019 the whole place went\nup in flames, obliterating twenty-five (mostly uninsured) homes, the school, a\nbridge on the route in, cars, agricultural machinery, wildlife and two local\nresidents.[iii]<\/a>\nJournalists descended en masse<\/em>, to\nthe dismay of the surviving residents, who\u2019d gone to live there specifically to\navoid the maddening crowds. One of them described Wytaliba as \u2018one big,\ndysfunctional family\u2019, where there were no property boundaries, no mobile\ncoverage, and everyone shared everything.[iv]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within weeks Wytaliba had set up a Facebook page, which I\nfollowed, where people were offering to donate everything from toys to clothes\nto caravans, cars and quad bikes and free holidays for children. They also\noffered differing views on the causes of the fires, the attitudes of\ngovernments \u2013 federal and state \u2013 the relative uselessness of most insurance\ncompanies and questions about compensation and whatever was happening to all\nthose millions of dollars people around the world had donated. One lady piled\nthe burnt and meagre remains of her house onto a truck and deposited them\noutside Government House in Canberra in protest at their policy \u2013 or lack of \u2013\non climate change. Fundraising events and morale-boosting community\nget-togethers sprang up all over the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most residents of rural Australia have a fire plan, or\nshould have. Here is Michael\u2019s:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Our fire plan is simple. On the evening news every day the fire authorities issue a fire level warning for the following day (this has been in place since the Black Saturday fires in Victoria 2009). If the forecast is Catastrophic (the highest level) then the authorities cannot guarantee the survival of any building or structure, and we have agreed between us that we\u2019ll leave early the following morning and get out of the area altogether. If it\u2019s Severe or Extreme, we agree we\u2019ll stay and keep a close watch on things.\u00a0<\/p>

We are not equipped to defend this property as we don\u2019t have enough water pressure or a transportable water tank with a generator to hose water onto spot fires or walls of flame. It would be foolhardy to stay without being much better prepared. So, when we leave our property we prepare it by ensuring all doors and windows are closed, the power is off and any fuel or gas tanks (such as the barbecue) are stored away from the house. We have one bag pre-packed with documents, photographs and other irreplaceable mementos, and one bag pre-packed with water, dog food, spare clothing and protective blankets in case we encounter fire when we\u2019re on the road. So when we leave it\u2019s a matter of dogs and bags in the car, and we just go. We could leave in minutes if required. We have a second way out of our property by car if we get cut off by fallen trees along our main drive.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Some regional towns are better prepared than others, and\nopen up community centres or sports grounds to act as temporary evacuations\ncentres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Despite the support of service clubs and charities on the ground, there was a sense that communities were running out of steam pretty quickly due to the scale of the fires and the length of time critical support was required. Richard [Michael\u2019s husband] cooked for the fire services on a few days and described the conditions as very under-staffed and disorganised. In many communities, volunteer fire fighters got no support and were left to find their own meals and drinking water, which has been a big eye opener during this fire season. The state of unpreparedness under the Morrison Government (federal) and the Berejiklian government (NSW state) has been shameful. It\u2019s\u00a0been a combination of “resourcing issues\u201d (according to NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons) and, in Morrison\u2019s case, just not listening to the experts who predicted this crisis months, years and decades ago.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When the fires were almost at their worst, in December,\nPrime Minister Scott Morrison quietly went on holiday to Hawaii, and it took\nhim a while to decide to return to his burning country and pay the odd visit to\naffected areas, where he received what might be called a cool reception.\nBushfire sufferers and firefighters refused to shake his hand, locals told him\nin direct Australian terms where he could go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t long since Morrison had imported a lump of coal\ninto Parliament and waved it in the faces of fellow parliamentarians and told\nthem not to be afraid of it. Coal rules Australia. 40% of their energy is\ncoal-fired and 7% comes from renewables.[v]<\/sup><\/a>  In the UK 9% of our energy comes from coal\nand 24.5% from renewables[vi]<\/a>.\n(Not that we have anything to boast about, with a Prime Minister who has\nconfessed he doesn\u2019t \u2018get\u2019 climate change.[vii]<\/a>)\nBy contrast Iceland is almost 100% renewable and Costa Rica, Norway and Sweden\nare not far behind.[viii]<\/a>\nI even in the course of my climate change meanderings came upon an Australian\nwebsite whose sole purpose seems to be to put a stop to wind power and other\nrenewables because they\u2019re bumping up domestic utility bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The right-wing Liberal government are climate change deniers\nfor commercial, economic reasons. Of course. Malcolm Turnbull, Morrison\u2019s\npredecessor, was years ago beaten to the leadership of the Liberal party (by\none vote) precisely because of his views on global warming. In 2018 he was\nousted from his position as PM for the same reason and replaced by a hard right\ngovernment of climate change deniers. Denial appears to be deeply endemic in\nthe ruling Liberal party, and remains so despite everything. To quote Michael\nagain: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Just like it\u2019s hard for the government to convince all Australians that it planned well ahead of this fire crisis, it\u2019s difficult to for all of us to see an effective\u00a0plan\u00a0to reduce Australia\u2019s carbon emissions. The Morrison Government has announced a Royal Commission into the fires, at the same time as it’s relying on accounting tricks to meet this country’s agreements in the Kyoto Protocol. It appears there is no plan to tackle either issue, just strategies to minimise our efforts to change on both fronts.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet like so many other issues \u2013 and this goes not just for\nAustralia but other countries like the US as well \u2013 the people and their\nleaders don\u2019t always see eye to eye. Australia\u2019s statistics don\u2019t include the\npossible thousands of inhabitants living off-grid. And a lot of effort on the\npart of individuals is going into finding weird and wondrous ways of harvesting\nwater from the air, or the sun, or who knows what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the time being temperatures in Australia have dropped,\nrain has fallen in New South Wales and in Melbourne \u2013 which had its wettest\nJanuary on record I believe \u2013 and hailstorms the size of tennis balls have\nbattered Canberra, smashing cars, roofs, trees and a series of greenhouses\nbelonging to the CSIRO (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research\nOrganisation), ruining several years of research work.[ix]<\/a>\nMuch of the rain has collected dust particles in the air and falls as mud. Dust\nstorms have enveloped country towns, falling ash has poisoned rivers and killed\nthousands of fish. At the same time torrential rain has put out most of the\nfires, and now firefighters are hard at work coping with floods. Tourists \u2013\nlocal and international \u2013 could not cancel their holidays fast enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now the whole world knows a good deal more about\nAustralia than it ever did in my living memory. Maybe with the world\u2019s eyes on\nthem the powers that be may start to look at things differently. Or just maybe,\nonce the fuss has died down, along with the fires \u2013 though since February is\nstill full summer in Australia it doesn\u2019t pay to be complacent \u2013 the world will\nforget all about Australia and life will just go on as before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s if Australians will allow it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 Patsy Trench
February 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[i]<\/a> The title of my first book about my family history in Oz
[ii]<\/a> https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-australia-50951043<\/a> Elsewhere (on Wikipedia) it claims over 18 million hectares have been destroyed, SBS and The Telegraph<\/em> estimate it at 5 million.
[iii]<\/a> One of whom was described as a \u2018grandmother\u2019. Why this was deemed a relevant description of a 60-something-year old, with the possible implication that she was too old and frail \u2013 and maybe even stupid \u2013 not to be able to save herself is a moot point. (She was none of these things by all accounts.)
[iv]<\/a> https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2019-11-14\/nsw-bushfires-inside-small-town-wiped-out-wytaliba\/11702106<\/a> [accessed 10 February 2020]
[v]<\/a> The rest is made up of oil and gas. 75% of energy generated in Australia comes from coal. I don\u2019t understand what happens to the 35% that isn\u2019t consumed. https:\/\/www.ga.gov.au\/scientific-topics\/energy\/basics<\/a>
[vi]<\/a> Then rest comes from natural gas 41% and 21% nuclear. https:\/\/www.energy-uk.org.uk\/our-work\/generation\/electricity-generation.html<\/a>
[vii]<\/a> According to Claire O\u2019Neill, who was sacked \u2013 for unspecified reasons \u2013 from her position organising a UN climate change conference in Glasgow later in 2020.
[viii]<\/a> https:\/\/www.clickenergy.com.au\/news-blog\/12-countries-leading-the-way-in-renewable-energy\/<\/a>\u00a0 There\u2019s some variation in percentages between online sources but the country rankings are much the same.
[ix]<\/a> https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/weather\/2020\/jan\/21\/canberras-destructive-hailstorm-wipes-out-years-of-csiro-research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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