Australian Bush Fires

Following on from the last post of Volty's (Bad weather expected) concerning the terrible bush fires downunder.
I did read a piece recently about the Australian defence authorities carrying out exercises in that are with live ammunition. This was thought to be the cause of this mammoth disaster. Has anyone else heard anything of this, maybe TCA is up to speed.?

Quote: Sheldonboy wrote in post #1

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Following on from the last post of Volty's (Bad weather expected) concerning the terrible bush fires downunder.
I did read a piece recently about the Australian defence authorities carrying out exercises in that are with live ammunition. This was thought to be the cause of this mammoth disaster. Has anyone else heard anything of this, maybe TCA is up to speed.?

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I heard on telly it was thought to be started by military exercises if it it proven there will probably be some repercussions.

well nothing on the army getting the fires started, media getting ahead of itself as per normal, two children 12 and 15 yrs have been charged with starting some of them, both are now in home detention, at least two other men have been charge with starting fires. one of them 17 fires in last month or so. we have more problems with arson than we do with natural fires - eg lightning strikes, when we have thunder storms in spring or summer its not unusual to have several hundred lightning strikes, so it stands to reason some will start fires, most often in forests, whilst they are hard to fight they are far from people, when kids or stupid people do it , it tends to be close to a town - being in bike or car distance, because they travel fast (fire) once they are into housing things take a bad turn wilh gas ect, the other problem is spotting, a fast moving fire has a life off its own, the wind pushes the fire, the fire sucks the oxygen in front of it which increases its intensity, so a wind gust of 100kph pushing the fire, fire eats the oxygen, the fire virtually rolls along burning everything in it path, as it burns the embers rise, they are caught by the wind gusts and they are blown maybe 20 miles in front of the fire, the embers drop and start another fire - the fire crews have to try to get to the spotting fires before they get out of hand. many years ago in the 80s our government (fire and rescue) radios where not that good, radio hams like myself who had good portable VHF and UHF radio equipment had to get to tops of local hills or mountains so we could provide radio communications for various different groups fire, rescue, red cross ect, whilst in hindsight is was great fun as an operator, the devastation I saw brought you to tears, on one mountain I worked at maybe 100 homes were lost and many lives, even the fire station was burnt to the ground, only the pub survived and it became the rescue centre, just walking into the place on foot - you had a forest -with not one bit of green, just burnt out homes and cars, trees with not a leaf on it, bare and charred, and a really eerie sound of nothing except your footsteps, it is the most unsettling experiences of my life, normally it is my state - victoria thats the hardest hit, this time its NSW. houses can be replaced, lives cannot - yet its only spring - its going to be a very long hot summer - sorry its bit long tca

Thanks tca hope it gets sorted soon mate.

Never experienced anything like that, its the people who lose everything especially loved ones that would be devastating,they have my sympathy ,for what good it is.

These fires are just getting worse, I don't know what they have done to deserve this.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24632130

hi again, well now the defence dept has admitted they started one of the fires, hundreds of thousand of hectares of land, plus i think 6 houses, at least thoese owners will get compensation unlike those who lost homes when teenagers start then, unless they had insurance

we have also lost two aircraft and pilots who were part of the fire fighting team, more to come im sure

Haven't heard much in the news lately so I'm not sure how the Fire Fighting is progressing. Sorry to hear of the loss of the pilots it's always sad when good people die.
I can't understand the military exercising with live ammunition when it's so hot and dry.

Try these web sites for news .... http://www.abc.net.au/news/nsw/ ...... http://www.news.com.au/

Thanks Volty

well the worst of this bout seems to have passed - with a cool break - most fires under control - as I said, it's only spring and we have had temps around 40c - so if they are right and it's going to hotter than normal - well I'm happy we've got great air con in the house and car

thanks for you nice comments, I'm sure the aussies would appreciate it -- but were gonna get the ashes back LOL