They were taken on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne
Photo of smoke from bushfires by Merrin Macleod on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne, posted January 4, 2020.
While on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne Merrin Macleod had an excellent view of pyrocumulus clouds over very active bushfires. She said on Twitter, “The country looks like ten or fifteen volcanoes have gone off.”
If the pilot had taken the most direct route to Melbourne they would have flown over many very active fires. The photos are used here with her permission.
Satellite photo of smoke from fires in New South Wales and Victoria December 3, 2020. The red areas represent heat. NASA image processed by Wildfire Today.
Below is actual flight path for her 50-minute flight. About 16 minutes after takeoff the aircraft was 36,000 feet over the NSW/Victoria border.
The actual flight path from Canberra to Melbourne. Flightaware.Photo of smoke from bushfires by Merrin Macleod on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne, posted January 4, 2020.
A pyrocumulus cloud is produced by the intense heating of the air over a fire. This induces convection, which causes the air mass to rise to a point of stability, where condensation occurs. If the fire is large enough, the cloud may continue to grow, becoming a cumulonimbus flammagenitus which may produce lightning and start another fire.
Photo of smoke from bushfires by Merrin Macleod on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne, posted January 4, 2020.Photo of smoke from bushfires by Merrin Macleod on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne, posted January 4, 2020.Photo of smoke from bushfires by Merrin Macleod on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne, posted January 4, 2020.Photo of smoke from bushfires by Merrin Macleod on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne, posted January 4, 2020.
One of the fires in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, December 30, 2019. Photo by Ned Dawson for Victoria State Government.
The United States is sending additional U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) personnel to assist with wildfire suppression efforts in Australia.
Based on requests from the Australian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council, the U.S. has intermittently deployed more than 74 wildland USFS and DOI fire personnel throughout December with another 21 USFS and DOI personnel planning to depart for Australia on January 4.
The Council has also requested a fifth group of personnel and the DOI and USFS are currently working on the logistics to send those individuals as soon as possible. It is expected that approximately 55 to 60 firefighters will depart around January 6; some will be hand crew members and others will fill specific overhead positions. About 20 of those will be from the Angeles National Forest in Southern California. This would bring the total number of fire personnel deployed from the United States up to about 155.
The U.S. firefighters are filling critical wildfire and aviation management roles in New South Wales and Victoria. Before this planned fifth wave, all of the firefighters from the U.S. have been ordered to fill overhead positions, not on-the-ground fire crew members. So far no equipment, such as fire engines, has been requested.
In the United States the protocol is for requests for international firefighting assistance to be first filled by federal agencies. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire protection, if the federal agencies can’t fill the requests, state agencies will be next in line.
Canada is also sending fire personnel to Australia. A fifth group is scheduled to depart for Victoria January 6, thus bringing the total number of Canadian personnel to 95. These latest deployments will then replace the first group of 21 that left for Australia December 3.
An Air-Crane helicopter drops muddy water on one of the fires in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, December 30, 2019. Photo by Ned Dawson for Victoria State Government.
“As the extreme fire danger continues across Australia, the U.S. Department of the Interior will continue to do all that we can to support requests for assistance,” said Department of the Interior’s Office of Wildland Fire Deputy Director Craig Leff. “Our focus remains on helping the people of Australia and keeping people safe in these unprecedented conditions.”
The U.S., Australia, and New Zealand have been exchanging fire assistance for more than 15 years. Before the current fire season in Australia the most recent exchange occurred in August of 2018, when 138 Australian and New Zealand wildfire management personnel were sent to the U.S. for almost 30 days to assist with wildfire suppression efforts in Washington, Oregon, and California. The Australian and New Zealand personnel filled critical needs during the peak of the western fire season for mid-level fireline management, heavy equipment, helicopter operations, and structure protection. The last time the U.S sent firefighters to Australia was in 2010.
— National Interagency Fire Center (@NIFCfire) January 3, 2020
Below is the breakdown of what has been deployed as of January 3, 2020. The information is from National Interagency Fire Center spokeswoman Kari Cobb:
Group 1: Departed 12/7 (21 total)
4 Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
13 Forest Service (USFS)
2 National Park Service (NPS)
1 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)1 Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
Group 2: Departed 12/19 (9 total)
1 BLM
4 USFS
1 NPS
2 BIA
1 FWS
Group 3: Departed 12/30 (42 total)
9 BLM
22 USFS
3 NPS
4 BIA
3 FWS
Group 4: Departing January 4 (20 total)
5 BLM
11 USFS
3 NPS
1 FWS
Group 5: Departing January 6 (approximately 55-60 total) (List not finalized)
Single resources that did not go with the groups, but flew separately. (8 total)
Hot, dry, and windy weather in southeastern Australia on Saturday could cause the bushfires to spread even more rapidly
One of the fires in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, December 30, 2019. Photo by Ned Dawson for Victoria State Government.
One of the first clues that the bushfire season in eastern Australia was going to be abnormal was when the 737 air tanker just purchased by the government began to be used on a fairly regular basis shortly after it arrived during the southern hemisphere winter. It made its first drop on August 8, 2019 more than three months before summer began.
Since that first drop the intensity of the fire season slowly grew during the rest of the winter and fall, and by the end of November was in full swing showing signs of what has become an unprecedented fire season.
The hot, dry, and windy conditions predicted for Saturday could make a bad situation worse. At Canberra, the capital, the wind will shift 180 degrees in the morning to come out of the northwest at 20 mph. The temperature will max out under mostly sunny skies at 105F with the relative humidity in the lower teens.
Based on the expected conditions, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service is recommending that holiday makers leave certain areas before burning conditions become even more dangerous on Saturday. Some of the “Tourist Leave Zones” include Khancoban, Snow Monaro, Shoalhaven, Batlow, Wondalga, and South Coast.
Here is an example:
Leave Zone – Shoalhaven
Widespread extreme Fire Danger forecast for Shoalhaven Sat 4 Jan 2020. If you’re holidaying in areas identified on the map, you need to leave before Saturday. Residents should be aware & prepare. For road closure info @LiveTrafficNSW#nswrfs#nswfirespic.twitter.com/rmDW7tZlnp
Navy ships have been mobilized to help feed and evacuate the evacuees, but it’s not as easy as it might seem. One of the first tasks is to determine who among the thousands at Mallacoota, Victoria, are willing and able to climb a ladder from a small boat up to the much larger Navy vessel built to carry 300 soldiers and 23 tanks. It is expected to transport about 800 evacuees. Those who can’t board the ship and still want to leave, may be removed from the burnt-over area by helicopters, but visibility degraded by smoke could make flying difficult.
Since Australia does not have a central point for collecting and distributing information about widespread bushfires, exact numbers are difficult to obtain, but on the continent between July and December approximately 12 million acres (4.8 million hectares) burned, the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
In New South Wales alone as of January 1, 2020, the numbers of destroyed structures include 916 homes, 73 facilities, and 2,107 outbuildings.
There have been approximately 17 deaths related to the fires in Australia, including three firefighters.
Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons on Tuesday described the crisis as the “worst bushfire season on record”.
Meanwhile, two senior members of the government decided it was a good time to take vacations. The New South Wales Emergency Services Minister, David Elliot, came back home from the UK shortly after his personal trip was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. Earlier he had said, according to the newspaper, that he would return “if the bushfire situation should demand it.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison cut his Hawaii vacation short following intense criticism.
Evacuees on the beach at Rosedale, NSW. Screenshot from the video below.
Residents and visitors in the New South Wales coastal town of Rosedale (map) had to evacuate to the beach on New Years Eve as a bushfire spread into the area.
Description of the Guardian video below:
Madeleine Kelly, 17, and her family were among people staying in Rosedale, a tiny coastal town 300km south of Sydney, when they were forced to flee to the beach ahead of huge bushfires on New Year’s Eve. The fires destroyed numerous properties in the town as horrified onlookers watched. The fire’s onslaught was halted when the wind changed, but people remained on the beach for hours afterwards before they could be evacuated to Moruya showgrounds by bus through the devastated town.
Two residents have been killed and dozens of structures destroyed
Extremely large pyrocumulus clouds tower over bushfires in New South Wales and spread over the Pacific Ocean. Sentinel-2A image, December 31, 2019, processed by @andrewmiskelly.
Very large bushfires continue to rapidly spread through areas of New South Wales and Victoria in southeast Australia, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of burned hectares, blackened forests, and destroyed structures in their wakes.
Victoria
Authorities in Victoria have confirmed that at least 43 structures have been destroyed in the Gippsland region where more than 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) have burned. Many of the structures were in the Sarsfield and Buchan areas.
The military is being activated to assist firefighters and the public. The Australian Defense Force will deploy Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, as well as fixed-wing aircraft and Navy vessels for firefighting support and evacuations. Authorities were considering using helicopters to fly in food and other supplies to people cut off by fires and road closures. Over the last few weeks fire aviation specialists from the United States and Canada have arrived in Australia help manage aircraft.
People sought refuge at the Mallacoota boat ramp as the fire approached the town. Instagram by @travelling_aus_family
In Mallacoota, a coastal community popular with vacationers, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people were directed to evacuate and take refuge on the beach. They endured dense smoke that turned day into night as the fire spread into the outskirts of the town, sparing most of the buildings as it passed by the area.
Map showing warning areas near bushfires in Victoria, Australia. The areas with a black line and grey fill are designated for evacuation. The red lines indicate “emergency warning”. The width of the largest emergency warning area is approximately 204km (110 miles), east to west. Map by Vic Emergency, Jan. 1, 2020 (local time).
Thousands of people have been left without power in East Gippsland, which AusNet said may not be restored for days.
Country Fire Authority chief officer Steve Warrington said the main fire front has passed the town of Corryong in northeast Victoria near the NSW border after destroying an unknown number of homes on the outskirts of community. An evacuation center was set up at Corryong College.
One resident described the situation in Corryong as “an absolute mess. Fires are everywhere but the town was standing strong.”
New South Wales
At least 40 homes appear to have been destroyed by fires in Conjola Park on the south coast of NSW as the fire burned through on December 31. Many residents fled to the beach.
An unknown number of structures have burned in Cobargo, including some of those along Princes Highway, the main street going through the town.
Before the fire. A scene on the Princes Highway, the main street going through Cobargo, New South Wales. Google Streets image.The same area after the fire, December 31, 2019. Princes Highway, the main street going through Cobargo, New South Wales.
Two men, a father and son, were killed in the Cobardgo area where they had remained to defend their property. Patrick Salway, 29 and his father Robert, 63, perished at the family property at Wandella, about 10 kilometers northwest of Cobargo as the 82,000-hectare (202,000-acre) Badja Forest Road fire approached Monday night.
Police said Patrick’s mother discovered the men’s bodies when she returned to the burnt-out property Tuesday morning.
An excerpt from an article at the Australian Broadcasting Network:
Susanne Lewington, who owns the Breakfast Creek Vineyard in Bermagui, near Cobargo, was forced to evacuate her property at 5 am. She is now at a shelter down the road and does not know if the devastation has reached her property.
“It’s very eerie down here, it’s really smoky, there’s ash everywhere,” she said. “I have no idea if we’ve lost our property. If we have a wind change it could go because we’ve very close to the creek and we’re close to the forest. The sky was black, we only got daylight a few hours ago.”
She said the drought had left her property without any significant water bodies that may have helped dampen the blaze.
“There’s not much left on the property, about 100 ducks, four cattle and 10 sheep, that’s all we’ve got left because I had to sell the rest due to the drought,” she said. “We’ve got no water left so we weren’t able to defend.”
Andrew Crisp, Vic Emergency Mgt Commission in Australia, said they have ordered fire aviation specialists from US and Canada, and firefighters “who can work in remote and arduous conditions”. Presumably in addition to previous orders. At 3:10 in the audio: https://t.co/0mkhgzNQnJ
A NSW engine crew is overrun by a bushfire. Screenshot from the video below. Po
The engine crew from Fire and Rescue New South Wales Station 509 Wyoming recorded the video below showing the moment their truck was overrun by a fire south of Nowra, NSW. The crew was forced to shelter in their truck as the fire front passed through. The video was posted by NSW Rural Fire Service December 31, 2019 local time.
The crew from Fire and Rescue NSW Station 509 Wyoming recorded this video showing the moment their truck was overrun by the bushfire burning South of Nowra. The crew was forced to shelter in their truck as the fire front passed through. #NSWFires#ProtectTheIrreplaceablepic.twitter.com/Hb0yVrefi9
