Australia's "Unstoppable" Bushfires And The Silent Earth They Leave Behind - News.com.au

IT goes off like an atomic bomb. "You are talking about megawatts of energy," explains Rod Incoll, a fire risk management consultant. "It is a nuclear release of energy out of these so-called mega-fires. It is a title that leads oneto exaggerate, but it is probably a fairdescription." Mega-fire is a US expression, coined in 2003 to describe the series of extraordinary fires that have burned in the US since 2000. The worst, the Biscuit fire in Oregon in 2002, cost more than $US150 million to suppress.

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They occur most frequently on the bush-urban interface, leaving in their wake total destruction of plant and animal life. These fires can pollute water supplies with ash and in subsequent years fill waterways with soil and gravel. Regenerating trees suck up rainfall, reducing water supplies for up to 50 years. Mega-fires also have the capacity to wreak permanent damage. Incoll, who has walked extensively through the Victorian high country region hit by the 2003 mega-fire, talks about the baked earth, the lack of wildlife, the eerie silence that remains. "It is just unbelievable," he says. "Although I have spent my working life looking at fire and fire damage and stopping fires and lighting fires, it surprised me, the intensity and the scale and the damage it did."

The mega-fire that swept into Canberra in 2003 began as several fires burning in the Kosciuszko and Namadgi national parks that were fuelled by drought-dried forest litter. The fires joined forces, and swept into Canberra pushed by strong winds, on a day of high temperatures and negligible humidity. Witnesses spoke of its roar, its violent tornadoes, its speed, its utter unstoppability, its destruction. It was a classic mega-fire.

It's happening again. Two bushfires burning in Gippsland and Victoria's northeast are believed to have joined, forming one massive firefront. Kevin O'Loughlin, head of the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre, fears they have formed a mega-fire. Fires are also raging in Tasmania, where at least 20 houses have been lost, and in Perth, where properties were ablaze yesterday. Mr O'Loughlin says mega-fires occur in Australia because of the frequency of severe seasons and extensive fires. He points out most of the worst fires in the US have occurred in the past 10 to 12 years and reckons it is a similar story in Australia.

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http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20919177-2,00.html?from=public_rss

The good news just keeps piling higher.

Just add irrigation water and presto! Instant outback bullion!

:hi:

I'll stop with the black humor, if you stop posting news that undermines my sanity.
:evilgrin:

If laughter is a straw for a drowing man
--Neal Peart

here in the Pacific Northwest we are slowly beginning to realize that fire suppression over long periods of time is a disaster. When fire finally does hit in the hot, dry season it just explodes.

It is real clear that the indigenous peoples of our area had practiced a sophisticated system of planned burns in order to keep fuel loads down and encourage food and fodder plants.

I suspect that Australia is also suffering a similiar revelation right now.

And we have at least 50 yrs before we have to worry :sarcasm: