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Ember alert for the Horsham area
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Posted by ozmantis VIC Aust (My Page) on Mon, Jan 23, 06 at 21:00
Apparently Horsham is under an official ember alert and there have been reports of large embers landing on southern Horsham. Here is a pic of the smoke haze looking south towards town from the front of our house.
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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| I've been thinking of everyone in the bushfire areas and praying that you will all be okay. My fingers are crossed and I am wishing for lots of rain to put the fires out. |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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Yes been keeping a eye on the news from down south also, with so many family and friends living there.
Just hope it does not do too much more damage, a terrible thing to happen my thoughts and prayers
Are with you all too, and I hope that you all come through these terrible fires OK.....Cheers..MM. |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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- Posted by ashmeri Cent. Qld.Aust. (My Page) on
Wed, Jan 25, 06 at 2:44
Thinking of you all in the fire areas, amazing how far those embers can travel in the wind,
Praying you get some releif rain and no high winds.
Marion |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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The wind has gone around to the North so the smoke and ash have gone from here. But, Halls Gap is surrounded by fire and tommorow is meant to be 40 deg with strong northerlies.
The town is mostly deserted with only 1 in 5 townsfolk staying on. Scary stuff. |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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| goodluck with it ozmantis keep your gutters clear of leaves ciao paradisi |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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| Wishing you and everyone in that area all the best. Let's hope the fires will die down soon. Take care! :) |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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| Hope it's all okay. Halls Gap is always a fire trap it seems. |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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| It wont be for many years now. Nothing will be left to burn. |
RE: Ember alert for the Horsham area
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| Now the fire danger seems to have passed for the moment perhaps some comments. After the 2003 fires Mark Stone head honcho with the National Parks dismissed the value of fuel reduction burning because the fire in the mountains traveled through the canopy so the amount of fuel in the lower story was assumed to be meaningless. It is the build up of dead leaves and twigs, along with a proliferation of flamable shrubs in the understory that gets the fire into the canopy, killing the birds, possums and gliders as well as everything else. In addition, the loss of around 80% of houses has been attributed to ember attack. The burning embers are a result of the intense fire caused by this same build up of flamable fuels. If you double the fuel load the rate of spread doubles meaning twice as much burns in half the time, this gives a fire of four times the intensity. Fuel levels were such in many areas of the Alpine area burnt in 2003 that a fire intensity of perhaps 100 times what would be natural was quite probable. These fires left massive devestation and where heavy rain followed massive erosion and siltation of rivers and creeks. People with a lifetime of bush experience are continually ignored and while this happens such fires will always be happening from time to time. Fires of this nature can often only be put out by back burning from a mineral earth break and this should be done while they are only small. I recently had to do a minimum skills course with the CFA (I joined around 1974) and in that I was told that we now no longer back burn because of litigation. Back burning allows the fire fighter to have the fire at the containment line when weather conditions are best (eg. night time) and it is safe to have people on the fire lines. If th ere is no back burning then the fire most probably reaches the containment line under the worst weather conditions when the containment line is worthless. If we are sent into a fire situation to back burn along a containment line then once we have lit up the back burn it creates a safe haven of burnt ground in the event of an emergency, properly done you should be safe. If we are on the containment line awaiting the arrival of the fire without a back burn then we have no burnt out area at the arrival of the fire so we do not have the same safe haven. The response is to pull fire fighters out before the fire arrives at the containment line and then put in another one somewhere else. Fire bombing planes and helicopters are totally meaningless in a large forest fire but valuable for protecting assets and small spot fires. My thoughts go out to all affected by the fires.
Neil |
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