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Relief as Rain Falls Over Australian Bushfires

posted by janrinok on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-none-at-all dept.
News

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The fires, unprecedented for Australia in terms of duration and intensity, have claimed 28 lives and killed an estimated billion animals. Sustained hot weather and rare periods of light rain in the affected areas have deepened the crisis.

Downpours on Thursday in the state of New South Wales, where many of the worst fires have burnt, offered hope that dozens of blazes could be brought under control.

"Relief is here for a number of firefighters working across NSW," the state's Rural Fire Service said in a social media post accompanying footage of rain falling in a burning forest.

"Although this rain won't extinguish all fires, it will certainly go a long way towards containment."

Before the rains, there were 30 blazes burning out of control in New South Wales.

Along the south coast of the state, locals who witnessed towns and forests being destroyed in recent weeks expressed cautious hope.

"We're thrilled and so relieved to have some dampness in the air because it makes things safe for a little while," Virginia Connor told AFP near the town of Nowra.

"But we need more, we need lots more."

-- submitted from IRC

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by ls671 on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:43AM

    by ls671 (891) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:43AM (#944918) Homepage

    Aborigines used to control this centuries ago by making regular controlled fires.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/australia-fires-natural-disaster [theguardian.com]

    More than 200 years ago, Captain James Cook called Australia "the continent of smoke"
    ...
    The timing of those interviews reflects the fact that it is only in the past couple of decades that science has started to get to grips with understanding the nature of the Australian environment, in part because the management of the environment by Aboriginal communities before Europeans arrived started to be studied. (The term fire-stick farming – by which Aborigines maintained an open, and relatively safe environment with regular fires – was only invented in 1969, although no doubt similar terms occurred in dozens of now mostly lost Aboriginal languages.)

    --
    Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:54AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:54AM (#944922)

    that is before you meet the wildlife.

    Tell me again why half of India wants to move there?

    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:04AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:04AM (#944926) Journal

      Maybe 457 [homeaffairs.gov.au] is cheaper and easier than H1B [workpermit.com]

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:18AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:18AM (#944929) Journal

      Special edition this year

      'Devastating' fish deaths in north NSW [murrayvalleystandard.com.au]

      Bellbrook resident Arthur Bain said tens of thousands of dead fish lined a 60-kilometre stretch of the river northwest of Kempsey on Saturday.

      He said heavy rain which fell at the Apsley River near Walcha earlier in the week washed ash and sediment through the catchment and depleted oxygen levels.

      "It could be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands," he told AAP on Thursday.

      "It's devastating. It's unprecedented."

      Residents put a water pump in the river to help boost oxygen and keep some fish alive.

      Suncorp and IAG temporarily stop selling insurance in fire-affected areas of Victoria and NSW [theguardian.com]

      Two of Australia’s biggest insurers, Suncorp and IAG, have temporarily stopped selling insurance policies across large swathes of Victoria and some areas in New South Wales affected by bushfires.

      As of 1.30pm on Tuesday, Suncorp, which sells insurance under its own name and other brands including Aami and GIO, had 41 postcodes in Victoria and six in NSW under embargo, a spokeswoman said.

      An IAG spokesman said that yesterday afternoon the company, which operates under brand names including NRMA Insurance and CGU, had 20 postcodes under embargo across the two states.

      Embargoes are a common industry practice when insurers decide either not to sell new policies in disaster areas or to deny claims on new policies in such areas.
      ...
      “We are constantly reviewing areas that are embargoed and aim to lift restrictions once the imminent threat has passed,” she said.

      IAG’s spokesman said the company would still sell insurance policies to embargoed areas.

      “However, they won’t be able to make a claim for the specific risk that is included in the embargo until that embargo is lifted,” he said

      Since 8 November, 13,750 bushfire insurance claims have been made, totalling $1.34bn, Insurance Council of Australia statistics show.

      Australia's bushfires will create big problems for fresh drinking water [nationalgeographic.com.au]

      SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES - In the wake of the enormous fires that have razed huge swathes of drought-stricken Australia, scientists fear that when rains eventually fall, they will wash charred debris into rivers, dams, and the ocean, killing wildlife and even tainting the drinking supplies of major cities, such as Sydney.

      For many weeks, ash, soot, and blackened gum tree leaves have collected along the shorelines of Sydney’s beaches, clogging the waves and lapping in the tide. Originating in fires blazing in forested areas to the west, the debris has been carried on the breeze along with the pungent bushfire smoke that blanketed Australia’s largest city for much of December.

      But what has carried on the wind is just a taste of the huge quantities of debris that are likely to wash into rivers once there are heavy downpours. As of press time, more than 26 million acres—an area bigger than Portugal—have now burned, mostly in the continent’s southeast. That includes areas of land known as catchments—also called watersheds—where rainfall begins its earthly journey into specific rivers, lakes, and dams

      Smoke taint fears are making winemakers nervous, but new detection tech is on the way [abc.net.au]

      About 180 people in the wine industry braved the thick smoke lingering in the region to attend a forum in Milawa, in north-east Victoria, to better understand smoke taint, which affects the quality of grapes and can even lead to entire vintages being lost.

      According to Wine Australia, major fire events since 2003 have affected over $400 million worth of grapes and wine that were either rejected commercially or downgraded because of smoke taint.

      Bushfires exacerbate drought shortfalls causing spike in demand for hay and fodder [abc.net.au]

      The fires across the new-year period triggered a flood of orders for livestock feed, in what has been likened to "Boxing Day sales".

      Farmers whose properties have been burned required urgent deliveries, while drought-stricken graziers further north feared they could also run out of feed because of increased demand.

      The drought caused the nation's sheep and cattle numbers to plummet, with graziers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hand feed livestock.

      Hay distributor Tim Ford, from Toowoomba in Queensland, said he'd never seen such a sudden spike in hay orders.

      "[It was] frantic, manic buying behaviour," he said of the period immediately after the new year fires.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:20AM (#944930)

      Tell me again why half of India wants to move there?

      Bad karma, I guess.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:01AM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:01AM (#944924) Journal

    Ironically, Sydney needs huge [smh.com.au] amounts of rain, but now, thanks to the fires, the last place it is needed is in the catchment areas, where a bit of rain could be too [abc.net.au] much [smh.com.au]

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by FatPhil on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:39AM (9 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:39AM (#944934) Homepage
    Every one of those animals is too stupid to escape from the region that's on fire. Fact. In particular the half-billion which were added to the total in the last couple of days of the fires, they must have been really stupid. Or non-existent.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08027c1

    Click like if you support the #animals.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:28AM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:28AM (#944941) Journal

      Give me the phone number of that bartender of yours, I need to have a word of him about how he's taking bad karma when he sets the limit of your tab so high.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:35PM (#944994)

        Pssst - hey buddy - I think Phil is the bartender.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:51PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:51PM (#944945)

      Mate, a koala is not built for running.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:34PM (1 child)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:34PM (#944993) Journal

        So, build a better koala, mate!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:23AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:23AM (#945248)

          What they need is koala viagra because right now the little sods don't breed enough to keep their species alive.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 18 2020, @11:59PM (1 child)

        by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Saturday January 18 2020, @11:59PM (#945134) Homepage
        OK, the tally's at 50000, I'll be generous and round up to 100000, and we can agree koalas are now extinct.

        999,900,000 to go.

        Please continue, I've got all night.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:47AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:47AM (#945208)

          There were estimated to be 15,000 to 28,000 koalas in New South Wales before the fires.

          Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are less than 100,000 Koalas left in the wild, possibly as few as 43,000

          It's estimated that up to 30% of the koala population in NSW is now gone from the fires.

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:24PM (1 child)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:24PM (#945114) Homepage

      Which one of you fucksticks gave Fatphil Xanax and cocaine?

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by MostCynical on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:31PM

        by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:31PM (#945117) Journal

        Nothing wrong with the drugs, the question is: who gave him access to a keyboard?

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:01AM

    by acid andy (1683) on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:01AM (#945135) Homepage Journal

    First they say they don't like the rain, then they want it to rain. Then when it rains, they say it's not enough rain. Then they complain when they can't start a fire. Then they say there's too much fire.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:25PM (#945987)

    they should burn everyone who was caught maliciously starting fires for killing all of those animals.

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