Firefighters work to save a Messmate in Victoria, Australia. Photo by Forest Fire Management Victoria.
Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, distributed these photos of firefighters working to save a very large tree in Australia. Here is what he wrote:
FFMVic Firefighters Henry Lohr and his team mates protected this really important community asset, an ancient Messmate near Bendoc. I hope the work they have done clearing around the base and pumping 600ltrs of foam into the root area saves this tree.
Messmate is a common name for a group of species of tree in the plant genus Eucalyptus.
Firefighters work to save a Messmate in Victoria, Australia. Photo by Forest Fire Management Victoria.
This was earlier this week, our crews creating stronger control lines south of the Pheasant Creek fire near Benambra. Great info Mik #VicFirespic.twitter.com/H6CpxjWLuc
A number of locations have received 100 mm (almost four inches) of precipitation
Observed precipitation observed during the seven-day period ending February 7. The darkest green color indicates 100 mm (almost 4 inches) of precipitation.
Many areas in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland have received multiple inches of rain over the last seven days with a number of locations recording about 100 mm (almost four inches).
A heavy rain could come close to putting out some fires but a light rain, depending on the fuel (vegetation), might just pause the spread for a while. And some regions have received little or no rain.
NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says the rain is “breaking the back” of the bushfire season. “The rain is good for business and farms as well as being really good for quenching some of these fires we’ve been dealing with for many, many months,” the commissioner told ABC TV on Friday.
The forecast for Sydney, on the NSW coast, calls for nearly 100 percent chance of precipitation every day over the next eight days.
Precipitation forecast for Sydney, Australia. Generated Saturday February 8 local time.
The cumulative effects of the bushfires in Australia during the 2019-2020 summer are unprecedented.
Photo of a fire in Victoria, Australia, by Forest Fire Management Victoria Forest Fire Operations Officer Dion Hooper, taken on Wombargo Track looking towards Cobberas (north of Buchan in East Gippsland).
On a typical, average, or normal vegetation fire, many animals can move out of the area and others can hide underground. They even depend on periodic fires to recharge the ecosystem in some cases. But as we more often have fires that are not “normal” — extremely large and moving very rapidly — I tend to worry more about the adverse effects on wildlife. Even if they survive the fire itself, when they emerge there might be no food or shelter left for miles.
The cumulative effects of the bushfires in Australia during the 2019-2020 summer are unprecedented.
Some animals, like koalas and kangaroos, are primarily killed directly by the fires — for instance, by being incinerated in flames or choking on smoke. Nearly a third of all koalas in New South Wales have died and about a third of their habitat has been destroyed, federal environment minister Sussan Ley said in December.
Photos from the ground show koalas with singed fur, raw patches of burnt flesh, and blistered paws. Even if they are rescued and treated, sometimes their injuries are simply too extensive to survive.
Wombats have also been hit hard — they don’t cope well with heat or stress, and panic at the smell of smoke. The small, stubby-legged marsupials can’t run very fast or far, and are largely at the mercy of the flames.
“It’s just horrendous,” said Graeme Jackson, a NSW resident who has experience raising orphaned wombats. “A wombat can run 30 kilometers (per hour/18.6 mph), he can run that fast (for) short distances — and then he burns.”
The sheer scale of this season’s fires, in terms of both size and intensity, also works against animal survival—both during and after the fires. “These fires in Australia are so severe that I fear it doesn’t matter that these small animals can even find these refugia,” Anna Doty, a physiological ecologist at California State University, Bakersfield says, noting that the heat may penetrate into crevices and hollows. And this time around, the burn scars will be so large that recolonizing their interiors will take an extremely long time, especially for slower-moving species, she says.
“I am in a unique position where I actually can do something and I actually can help.”
Justine Gude is interviewed before boarding a flight to help with the bushfires in Australia, January 7, 2020. Screenshot from the ABC7 video below.
As 20 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service were about to depart from Los Angeles for a flight to Australia to assist with the bushfires, reporters found Justine Gude who was willing to speak on camera about the assignment. She gave an excellent interview.
Ms. Gude said, in explaining why she volunteered for the overseas trip:
You watch the news or you read these stories of these terrible things that are happening and you always want to know, ‘How can I help, what can I do?’ And I am in a unique position where I actually can do something and I actually can help. So, who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity. I’m super excited.
Two weeks later in Australia, Carolyn Cole, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, found her. Again she was very quotable:
You know they say ‘It takes a village’. Well it takes all types to have a successful hand crew. You need the funny guy, you need the smart guy, you need the strong guy.
The reporter asked, “What is your role”?
Me? I’m the strong guy!
Then she doubled over laughing
Here is the first interview in Los Angeles, January 7, 2020, by ABC7:
And two weeks later, in Australia, by the LA Times:
Two more 20-person hand crews are traveling to Australia today, January 22. They are a combination of Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service firefighters from throughout the United States. The U.S. has already deployed more than 200 USFS and DOI wildland fire staff to the Australian Bushfire response.
“Recent rains have been a welcome relief to fire crews and communities across Australia, but have not extinguished the risk, “said Stuart Ellis, Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) CEO. “We are grateful for the arrival of US fire task force personnel this week. Australia is a large country, and while we have seen generous rain fall in the past few days in some areas, we are still experiencing kilometers of active fire front and a large clean-up ahead of us. We’re halfway through the summer and there are still challenges ahead for us this season.”
U.S. Forest Service Fire Director Shawna Legarza recently returned from Australia in support of the bushfire response. “The large, landscape-scale devastation is unprecedented in terms of its impact on Australian economy, its people and their communities, and the effect to numerous ecosystems and habitats. It was humbling to observe the Australians’ resilience, the response in Australia, and level of support from our agency. We will continue to learn from each other in this complex fire environment.”
Based on requests from AFAC, USFS and DOI, the National Interagency Fire Center said wildland fire personnel will continue to provide assistance as requested through the existing agreement. The U.S. firefighters are filling critical wildfire and aviation management roles in New South Wales and Victoria.
A United States Incident Management Team in Australia, January 17, 2020. Photo by Traci Weaver for the US Forest Service.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom. Typos or errors, report them HERE.
Images from the front lines of Australia’s bushfires
Posted on Twitter by Victoria’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, @DELWP_Vic
Until two to three weeks ago most of the bushfire activity in Australia was concentrated in New South Wales, but in January firefighters further south in Victoria became increasingly busy.
Most of these photos (except as noted) were posted on the Twitter account of Chris Hardman, the Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria.
Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted by Defence Australia, @DeptDefence, December, 2019. (It is not clear in which state this photo was taken, New South Wales or Victoria)
One thing to keep in mind is that when wildland firefighters are actively working to contain a fire they usually do not have time to pull out a camera or smart phone and take pictures. So most of what you see from the front lines are from when they are taking a well-deserved break.
About the next three photos, Chief Hardman wrote:
Driving greater female participation in fire fighting and fire mgt, has paid off, our women are Sector Commanders, Div Coms, Crew Leaders, General FIre Fighters, Dozer Operators, Fallers, IMTs and Air Ops. They are an inspiration to others.
Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Firefighters from the U.S. pose with Victorian firefighters. Posted on Twitter by Robert Garcia, Fire Chief for the Angeles National Forest, @firechiefanfFirefighters from the U.S. working in Victoria. Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Firefighters from the U.S. pose with Victorian firefighters. Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Firefighters attend a procession to honor their fallen comrade Mat Kavanagh, 43, who died on duty January 3 in a two vehicle crash on the Goulburn Valley Highway in Victoria. Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter to the account of Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, @FFMVic_Chief, January, 2020.Posted on Twitter by Victoria’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, @DELWP_Vic
On Wednesday some Air Quality Index readings were in the Very Unhealthy category or worse
Air quality in Victoria, Australia January 15, 2020. Air-Quality.com
Smoke from bushfires in Victoria, Australia has degraded the air quality to levels that are dangerous in some areas.
If the Air Quality Index used by Air-Quality.com for the map above is the same used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the air quality in the east corner of Victoria near Mallacoota is off the scale, beyond “hazardous”, with an air quality index of 769 at one location.
In the Melbourne area (the cluster of AQI readings in the lower-left corner) the map shows some levels above 200 which is the beginning of the Very Unhealthy for Everyone category; 300 to 500 is Hazardous, and over 500 must be a ridiculous category that the US EPA assumed would never occur. (see the chart below)
Air Quality Index, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
From NPR, January 14, 2020:
Smoke from massive wildfires in Australia hangs like a blanket over the city of Melbourne. The smog there is so thick that some of the world’s top athletes have raised alarms about player safety at the Australian Open tennis tournament, slated to kick off next week.
The air quality in Melbourne on Wednesday was forecast to be “very poor to hazardous,” according to the Environment Protection Authority in Victoria state.
The hazardous breathing conditions prompted Australian Open officials to suspend practice sessions Tuesday. But qualifying matches went on as scheduled, and one of the players later said it was “not fair” that they were asked to compete.
That player, Slovenia’s Dalila Jakupovic, was leading 6-4, 5-6 in her match against Switzerland’s Stefanie Voegele when she was overtaken by a fit of coughing and dropped to her knees. Her breathing difficulties forced her to forfeit, handing the victory to Voegele.
