I noticed that the windshield wipers and the siren were less effective on this fire engine while it was driving through flood waters near Melbourne, Australia on Christmas Day 2011. The apparatus must have a snorkel-type air intake that remained above the water, but I was not able to see one.
Fire in the Grampians. Taken at 1700 hours Friday Feb. 15 by Tom Goldstraw
Tom Goldstraw, one of our loyal readers in Australia, sent us these photos of a fire in the Grampians region of western Victoria. He reports that the fire was 170 hectares (427 acres) when he arrived and it had burned 35,000 hectares (86,000 acres) when they left. It was a tough trip, he said. Lighting ignited 12 fires, many of which were swept up in two large fires.
Thanks Tom!
Monday 18th Falling back to asset protection, D7 dozer retreating after multiple spot fires closed off all exit roads. ( we all fell back to a wool shed which would have been the most protected asset in the state D7 4 pigs and 10 heavy tankers)
Monday 18th Sky crane filling with VicForests and DSE crews filling from quick fill, fire came out into the paddocks moments after this photo (Fire behaviour increasing rapidly and only 1130am)
Sunday 17th, waiting for the fire to cool down and start dozer work and back burning operations from the private property interface
Monday 18th, fire well into the private paddocks burning behind our safe area near the wool shed
A firefighter in Western Australia was killed by a falling tree branch at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning near the city of Quindanning (map). Here is an excerpt from a report in the Sydney Morning Herald:
The Association of Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades has expressed concern for volunteer firefighters and urged diligence, following the death of a firefighter on Friday.
Sixty-year-old Hori Clarke died when he was hit by a falling limb while clearing burnt trees and rubble with volunteer firefighters in Quindanning, in the state’s south.
AVBF president Mr Terry Hunter, who called Mr Clarke “a member of the AVBFB family”, said the tragedy was a difficult reminder of the many risks volunteers were exposed to every day when they went to work for their local communities.
Our sincere condolences go out to the family of Mr. Clarke and his co-workers.
Fire near Burrinjuck Dam, Australia, January 8, 2013. NASA photo by Astronaut Chris Hadfield
A large bushfire moving slowly to the north is impacting Mirranatwa in the Victoria Valley of Australia (map). Three fires have merged into one and are now being managed as the Grampians-Victoria Valley Complex of fires. As of 2:48 a.m. Tuesday February 19 local time it had burned 6,029 hectares (14,897 acres) according to the Country Fire Authority (CFA). The complex includes the fires formerly known as Clutterbucks Road, Jensens Road and Burnt Hut Track.
Personnel from CFA, Department of Sustainability and Environment and Parks Victoria are concentrating on structure protection.
Here is a link to a CFA map of the fire.
Below is an interesting video report about the fire by News.Com.Au (where you can see a larger version of the video image):
Thanks go out to Dick
Last week Wildfire Today reported on the possible closing of Australia’s Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre due to a lack of funding. The federal government has reversed their stance and is prepared to provide $47 million for another eight years of financing beginning July 1, while expanding their role to include floods, earthquakes, cyclones and tsunamis. The Centre has been actively involved in researching bushfire-fighting technology, extreme fire behavior, firefighter safety, and prescribed burning strategies. Shutting it down would be similar to the United States government closing the Fire Sciences Laboratories in Missoula and Riverside.
In order for the Centre to remain open, the states and territories will have to make similar funding commitments. If it continues to exist, it will be renamed the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.
Illustration from Boeing’s patent application
The Boeing Company has filed patent applications in the United States (#20120261144 A1) and Australia (#2012201025) for an extremely complex, high-tech system to help manage wildland fires. Here is the complete abstract that, uh, sort of, describes the idea:
A method and apparatus for managing fires. A computer system is configured to receive fire related information from at least a first portion of a plurality of assets and analyze the fire-related information to generate a result. The computer system is configured to coordinate an operation of a second portion of the plurality of assets using the result.
Got that?
In studying the application, here’s what I was able to decipher. It would utilize many, many sensors and sources of information on the ground and in the air to detect new fires, coordinate fire resources, predict fire spread, develop a plan for containing the fire, help keep firefighters safe, and monitor the fire. It could even:
…analyze fire-related information to identify an undesired condition resulting from a fire for an operator at a location and direct heterogeneous group of vehicles to obtain information about the fire at the location. In particular, heterogeneous group of vehicles may be directed to obtain information relating to at least one of the safety of the operator at the location and containment of the fire at the location.
Sadly, the entire document is written like that. If I interpret it correctly, the system could detect that a firefighting resource was in an unsafe location based on the fire situation and proactively assign resources to collect information to help mitigate the “undesired condition”.
The system would gather information such as this, or from these sources:
It would then go through a process similar to this, which is an image from Boeing’s patent application:
The bottom line? If it works, it might be very useful. Could the U.S. government afford it? Hell no.