 |
 |
Alison - I recall the fearsome Oakland Hills Fire (Oakland, CA) a few, short years ago. Even the firemen were dumbstruck, frightened, overwhelmed by the self-generated fire storm (reaching as much as 2,000 degrees F.) that melted automobiles and leveled whole neighborhoods. The fires in Australia are getting headline coverage in California. We have a kinship to your trauma and our hearts go out to you. Best, Frank *************** Frank Parker [log in to unmask] http://now.at/frankshome ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 1:40 PM Subject: Re: Happy New Year/ Oz burns | Doug, yes, there are fires in the Hawkesbury region. The Sydney | Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au/) has pretty full coverage, and | maps of where the fires are. | | Again, no one (human) yet has been killed, though thousands of people | have now been evacuated. I think that the reason no one has been | killed is because people here are familiar with the drill, especially | if they live in forest regions. | | The fires are so bad because of the weather conditions, which fan | them: humidity in the past two days was down to 5 per cent, with | strong winds and high temperatures. Also people have had problems | with water pressure. And criticism is growing that the State's fire | prevention program (burning off and so on to reduce vegetation which | could provide fuel) has been inadequate, because of funding cuts to | forest management, which is a major reason that the fires are so | severe: and that the government is using arsonists to deflect public | anger. | | The wind has changed and the temperature has dropped, and perhaps | they'll be able to get the fires better under control in the next few | days. The thing about Sydney is that there are a large number of | public parks which have national forests right in the middle of the | suburbs, which is where the fires are burning, and why they are so | alarmingly close to the CBD. Amazingly few houses have burned down, | considering the acreage and frontage of the fires. | | I was raised like many Australians being aware of bushfires, of the | dangers and precautions during bushfire season and of the procedures | to follow in case one comes this way. These fires are hardly | unprecedented: as I said, there were the Ash Wednesday fires in | Melbourne in the 1980s, in which people _were_ killed and large | number of houses burned. And Black Friday in the 1930s, in which | most of Victoria was ablaze. I remember a guy telling me about a | fire in the Centre which burned for months (nobody bothered to fight | it because it wasn't near anywhere important). The people who are | most at risk are the fire fighters, largely volunteers: sometimes the | fires are so unpredictable that they get caught in a firestorm when | the wind whips around. | | If "terrorism" is not a non-word, something I'd vigorously dispute, | then using it in this context certainly makes it so and is at the | least emotive and alarmist. The fires are fearsome enough without it. | | Best | | Alison |