News
 Travel
 Hotels
 Tickets
 Living
 Immigration
 Forum

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

Source: yeeyi.com
[Social News]     12 Jan 2020
The fire may have burned the political credibility of Morrison's government, but questions remain as to whether it can reverse Australia's climate policy. Unable to tame the wildfires, a smoke outbreak in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, in late August last year brought the months-long Amazon rainforest fires to the attention of global opinion. Sighing for Amazonia, people did not notice that on ...

The fire may have burned the political credibility of Morrison`s government, but questions remain as to whether it can reverse Australia`s climate policy.


Unable to tame a mountain fire

At the end of August last year, a smoke outbreak in Sao Paulo, Brazil`s largest city, brought the months-long Amazon rainforest fire to the attention of global opinion. Sighing for Amazonia, people did not notice that on the other side of the Indian Ocean, there had been sporadic fires in Australia in the winter. On 7 September, in the first week of spring, there were more than 50 fires on the east coast and in the north.

A week later, the NSW fires escalated to an emergency alert level. In the following four months, the fire spread more and more widely, and gradually approached the densely populated big cities. In November, some six million residents in eastern New South Wales faced warnings of "disaster-grade" wildfires, including Sydney, Hunter, Illawarra and Shorehaven. The main road from Sydney to the south and west was once closed on December 21. The nearest one is about 130 kilometers from Sydney`s downtown.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

A fire broke out in the state of south wales fire and rescue agency circulara notice on november 10,2019.


As of January 6, more than 5.9 million hectares of land had been burned across Australia, while the Amazon rainforest fire in 2019 burned about 1.8 million hectares of forest, according to NASA satellite monitoring data, and the high-profile California mountain fire in 2018 affected only about 800,000 hectares. The spread of the Australian fire is about 1400-1500 kilometers long, equivalent to from Shanghai to Shenzhen.

To be exact, today`s Australia is not experiencing a "one-off" fire, people are facing the entire "2019-2020 Australian bushfire season "... People who don`t understand the situation often mistakenly believe that forest fires are of the same nature as urban fires and can be fully controlled by man-made means of prevention, monitoring and fire control. But in fact, forest fires, like earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, are large "natural disasters" with forces beyond human reach. "We always believe that man should be able to tame a mountain fire. However, we can`t do it. "Although we can land on the moon and we also have a global Internet connection, we still can`t tame the wildfires," said Park Williams, a Columbia professor. "

Traditionally, Australia is dry and hot from December to February of the following year, and is a high incidence of fires. A flash of lightning, a cigarette butt, is enough to trigger a fire. Dozens of sites often catch fire at the same time in forest areas. The forest fire spread very fast. The fires in the forest released a large amount of rising hot air in the center of the fire, and the low pressure caused the cold air outside to pour rapidly into the center of the fire from all directions. This creates a hurricane - like firestorm.

When the updraft collapses at a given location, the hot gas in the atmosphere drops vertically. When the hot air hits the ground, it spreads out on the surface, sending the scorching air to places that have not yet been burned, making them spontaneously combust without touching the flames. At the same time, as the updraft stays strong, it is able to throw burning twigs into the atmosphere and into other places where there is no fire, triggering new fires.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

NSW residents Nancy Allen and Bryan Allen stand on the doorstep on January 4,2020. The wind engulfed their place of residence with smoke.


On February 7,2009, a bushfire known as "Black Saturday" caused 173 deaths and more than 10,000 injuries in Victoria. A survivor at the time recalled that he had been observing the distant fire at his residence on Mount St Andrews in Melbourne`s north-east, and all of a sudden there was flames and smoke a kilometre north-west that hit him with the wind.

In order to prevent the "possible" fire, he went to the house to start the fire pump, ready to spray the outside of the room to add humidity. By this time, he was surprised to find that the fire had reached the small pasture in front of the door:" like a runaway train, the interval cannot even be described, more like a matter of seconds, the fire is too fast to imagine, let alone how to react. "Parker Williams began his research on the wildfires precisely because in 2011 he had witnessed the Las Conchas Fire in New Mexico... he lived a few dozen miles from the edge of the fire, and those still burning branches flew 35 kilometers in the air and fell like drizzle into his home`s backyard.

In the Blue Mountains, a suburb of Sydney, people have witnessed the 70m high wall of fire, while the city`s world-famous opera house is only 65m high. In fact, just as in the face of floods, people`s approach is to hold on to the dam and wait for the flood peak to recede. In the face of seasonal forest fires, the purpose of fire fighting is not to "extinguish" it hard, but to detect the fire as early as possible to control the scale, prevent it from entering a state of total runaway and wait for nature to complete its cycle. Nature rather than man determines when a seasonal bushfire will end. In December, the NSW Meteorological Agency said the current mega-fire could not be extinguished by waterbombers or firefighters. People can only expect the high temperature to recede and the heavy rain to come.


Atypical forest fire season

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under fire amid the unprecedented fire. Federal government has been slow to do anything. On December 11,2019, Sydney erupted with 20,000 people`s congress parade, only for Morrison to make an emergency allocation of A $11 million the following day. The fires in Australia grew fiercer over Christmas. The prime minister often takes his family to Hawaii for a holiday.

It wasn`t until early January that Morrison "woke up like a dream" that a series of emergency measures were finally launched: the Royal Navy`s largest ship, the amphibious landing ship, the Adelaide, sailed to the mountain-fire zone at the junction of the new state and Victoria for the first time in Australian history, when 3,000 reservists entered the rescue operation. Australian defence military base from brisbane to adelaide offers temporary accommodation for the victors. Federal government will spend $20 million on additional fire-fighting aircraft and spend $2 billion on post-disaster reconstruction.

The essence of Morrison`s "act of confusion" is the misjudgment of federal government, which Canberra`s rulers expect to spend the bush season using the usual means, but the situation has long been off course.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

Large swaths of NSW have been covered in smoke from aerial photographs.


In December, while Morrison was on holiday abroad, acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack comforted people in the city who were panicked by the smoke:" We`ve seen smoke before, too. We`ve been through the forest fire. "At the beginning of his early return from his holiday, Morrison took the same argument to justify himself: Australia is always experiencing a forest fire, which is just another season.

Forest fire is indeed an integral part of Australia`s natural ecology. The country has 157 million hectares of woodland, dominated by broad-leaved forests, with eucalyptus and maples accounting for 97 percent of all tree species. On the one hand, eucalyptus is rich in volatile oils that make it easier to fuel forest fire. According to the National Park Service, eucalyptus can accumulate nearly three times as much combustible material in the same area and for the same length of time. On the other hand, after a long period of natural evolution, the bark of eucalyptus can block the flames. When the fire burns out, the awakened buds quickly sprout from the remaining tree trunks, grabbing woodland resources. Some eucalyptus seeds must also be released after the fire. Eucalyptus is the dominant species in Australia with the help of forest fires.

Not only the plants, but also the animals learned to use it in the long years of living with the forest fire. There`s a real joke on Twitter:" If the animals in Australia don`t poison you or eat you, they may also set fire to your family." "The aborigines refer to the Milvus minarets, the Halias turus and the Falcoberigora as fire eagles, which approach the line of fire and prey on small birds, lizards and insects that have been frantically driven away by the fire as it sweeps across the grasslands. Some firehawks even know how to pick up burning branches and leave them on unburned grasslands half a mile away for the same effect. The aborigines also used forest fires to reclaim wasteland.

The emergence of the town made the forest fire a real problem. Open a map and you`ll see that Australia`s densely populated towns are on the eastern coast due to natural climate constraints. They look east over the ocean, backed by woodlands. In Sydney, for example, it has Gospers Mountain in the north and Blue Mountain in the west.

Over the years, Australia has accumulated rich experience in forest fire fighting to protect human life and property safety. As early as February 1930, Australia was the first to use aviation surveillance as a means of detecting forest fires in Victoria. Nowadays, people can call the police "000" when they find the fire. High mountain watchtowers are built and observed 24 hours during high fire risk. There are also firefighter patrols, aircraft patrols, infrared monitoring, GPS aerial positioning, satellite remote sensing technology monitoring, aerial photography and aerial scanning detection. Scanning detection by the aircraft from 8000 meters high, in a width of 20 km, speed of 700 km/h scanning and detection, the received real-time image superimposed on the map, the white point is the point of fire. It can be said that the use of advanced monitoring technology, Australia has.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

On January 3,2020, people trapped by the fire in the Victorian town of Marakota were evacuated with the help of the military.


The fire caused many to wonder that federal government had been doing nothing for so long, and that the main force in the fire department was volunteers. In fact, Australia`s forests are owned by the states and are divided into two parts according to their ownership: forest and private forest. The division of ownership determines the absence of a national unified forest or forest fire management agency in Australia. State and local governance is primarily responsible for disaster management under Australian law. The blaze, in which the state of NSW declared a state of emergency twice, did not ask for additional help from federal government.

There are two fire organizations in NSW. The NSW Fire and Rescue Team has 7,000 professional firefighters who are primarily responsible for fire fighting in urban areas. And the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) is responsible for covering 95 per cent of the state`s territory, and forest fire prevention is their most important task. The RFS is the world`s largest volunteer fire-prevention group with 900 salaried staff and 70,000 volunteer members. The group is divided into more than 2,000 community - based fire brigades.

It makes sense to take the volunteers as the main force to fight the forest fire. It`s a bottom-up movement. Australia is sparsely populated, and communities are often the first force to discover and fight fires. The first community volunteer fire brigade in the new state was established in 1896. Then every place began to organize their own fire brigade. Government regulates their training and equipment use through law. It wasn`t until 1997 that government consolidated the groups, formally shaping today`s "rural fire department" model.

Stuart Ellis, a former leader of South Australia`s Rural Fire Agency, said the model was crucial to the fire fighting in forest fires. The volunteers who live in the area are the nearest people to the fire, who protect their homes and property and have strong motivation. They are also very familiar with local combustibles, weather and terrain conditions. Only through this model can the Australian states mobilize the most human resources at the minimum cost.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

Firefighters at the New South Wales Village Fire Department are battling the blaze on January 2,2020.


In australia, citizen must have a fire education at the age of 12 and fire fighting skills at the age of 16. Schools also offer fire prevention education classes, employing full-time fire officials to teach fire prevention knowledge and fire fighting skills. Citizens who have reached the age of 16 may apply to volunteer. Fire volunteers in Australia are by no means vegetarians who know little about forest fires. Qualified volunteers are required to receive six-month training, learn the knowledge of rescue and relief, and master basic skills. Once you become a volunteer, it means you`re ready to be called 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to go to the disaster scene. Even in the absence of disasters, regular volunteers work at least six hours a week at fire stations, and at least 20 hours a week when promoted to station master and management.

The fire-fighting system, which has continued to grind out improvements over the past 100 years, has helped Australia through one forest fire season after another and has proved effective. Morrison`s problem is that the system is designed for the typical Australian bush season. Today, the problems people encounter have changed.

The tragedy is not without warning. In april last year,23 members of the fire industry wrote an open letter to federal government. At the time, Australia was on the eve of the general election. They called on government to be wary of "the frequent occurrence of catastrophic extreme weather events ", to rush to buy fire-fighting facilities, including large fire-fighting aircraft, and to hold gearings to discuss how government should improve its emergency response.

The lead of the open letter was Greg Mullins, the former director of the NSW Fire and Rescue team..." I`ve been on fire since 1971, when the season was very predictable," Marlins said," and it`s going to start in Queensland and gradually head south." We also know that if we meet an El Nino or a drought, things will change. But since the 1990s, I`ve been unpredictable. And we`re using the same emergency resources we used from the 1970s to the 1990s. "

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

In November 2019, a NSW forest fire burned the house across the motorway.


Just as the emergence and end of the forest fire season depend on natural arrangements, natural conditions also determine the unusual forest fire season this year. Traditionally, the bushfire season began in november and ended in february, but fires began in queensland last august. Australia suffered two consecutive years of drought. In november the fires started, the driest in australia in 40 years. The average rainfall for the past month was about 100ml, but only 18ml this year. It is accompanied by widespread heat that persists. On December 16, Australia had an average maximum temperature of 40.9 degrees Celsius, the highest in history. The record was broken within 24 hours, and the next day the record was set at 41.9 degrees Celsius.

High temperatures mean that forest areas are more prone to fires, and prolonged droughts mean that vegetation and soil moisture have reached record lows.

Rainforests, swamps and other areas that were otherwise less prone to fires have become a bit. Historically, australia had experienced similar fires in 1974, but the fires were largely confined to remote western grasslands because of the abundance of rain before the forest fires. This time, the drought in the forested areas led to a significant eastward shift in the fires, bringing them closer to densely populated areas.

On january 5th prime minister mr morrison said forest fires were expected to continue for nearly two months. Super long forest fire season, super many fire spots, super large fire makes people tired of coping. Fire fighting facilities are not enough, fire volunteers must be connected to the axis, both fire volunteer and personal work, rest of the traditional mode is unsustainable. On December 29, Morrison announced a four-week paid leave for fire volunteers among federal government employees to facilitate their participation in the wildfires. Meanwhile, for the first time, he changed freak, announcing that fire volunteers in new south wales could apply to federal government for a subsidy up to $6000.


More significant climate impacts

The damage from the atypical forest fire season is also atypical. After a "normal" forest fire, the natural environment can be quickly restored, but this time it is difficult to have optimistic expectations. An estimated one-third of New South Wales`s koala population has been destroyed and a third of the habitat of various organisms has been completely destroyed, said Australian Federal Environment`s minister Susan Ley. And Chris Dickman, a professor of ecology at the University of Sydney, estimated that as of the end of December, about 480 million animals had been affected by the blaze in New South Wales alone. Although many of the more mobile animals, such as kangaroos, emus and other birds, may survive the fire, the loss of food and shelter remains a problem.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

Volunteers look after a koala who was injured in the blaze at the koala hospital in Port Macquarie on November 29,2019.


Some of the losses may be permanent. South-east queensland extends to north-east new south wales in the okawana rain forest (Gondwana Rainforests of Australia) is a prized world natural heritage. Australia used to be part of the ancient southern super-mainland Gondwana, which is densely packed with rainforests. The Gondwana rainforest retains Australia`s oldest vegetation type. where concentrated growth of primitive plant communities. The world`s oldest ferns and conifers can be found here. Although only 0.3 per cent of Australia`s area is rainforest, it raises about half of Australia`s plant population and about a third of its mammals and birds, providing a valuable habitat for more than 200 species of rare and endangered flora and fauna. The rainforest was also involved in the disaster. It is unknown how bad the situation is.

In his New Year`s address on December 31, Morrison urged people to be grateful to live in "the most amazing country on Earth," remembering that" there`s no place on this planet that`s more suitable for raising children than here "... Australians at the moment are hardly empathetic. On the first day of the New Year, Canberra has the worst day of air quality in history. The air quality index at a suburban testing point reached 4650.

The following day, an elderly woman died of respiratory failure after arriving in Canberra by plane from Brisbane. The hospital reported their MRI machine was unable to work because of the effects of smoke. Steve Robson is a Canberra obstetrician-gynecologist. During the cesarean operation, the patient told him he could smell smoke and felt bad. "I don`t feel good, to be honest. "He replied," The dawn of a new decade is usually a time of optimism and hope." And today, every parent I meet tells me that they feel panic for the future of their children`s climate."

The concern about the fire is not just the consequences of the fire, but also whether such a disaster will change from atypical to typical and become the norm for the future.

In April last year, an open letter from 23 fire elders was not answered by Morrison government. People speculated that this was because they thought the forest fire season crisis was the result of warming, and in an open letter they called on government to do more to tackle climate change, something mr morrison would not like to talk about. Some commented that federal government had been slow to make a difference during the forest fire season, and that it wanted to make small and small, so as to avoid being used to play up climate issues.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

In January 2020, firefighters took a break from eating between the slightly falling temperatures.


On january 6th, under pressure of public opinion, mr morrison made it clear that government never denied links to climate change and fires. But in fact, government has been vague on the issue. On december 22nd mr morrison criticized the opposition for trying to link climate change, drought and bushfires to make political points on the issue. Government will not change its climate policy. On January 2, at a news conference, Morrison equivocated that he had always known about the "broad global climate change and the world`s weather, and the drought in parts of the region," but that" no government anywhere in the world could actually say it was associated with a specific fire."

Michael E. Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, witnessed the fire in Sydney. Over the years, climate scientists have become more confident in talking about climate change and the relationship between such disasters. Just as clinical medicine has invented new diagnostic tools, we have developed many sophisticated tools to diagnose the effects of climate change on extreme weather, some of which amount to X-rays," he explains," these models are a major advance in the world`s scientific community. But no tools are perfect. Like the diagnosis of clinical medicine, some body damage, such as soft tissue damage, cannot be found through X-rays. As a result, medicine has developed more sophisticated tools, such as magnetic resonance imaging. Similarly, the impact of climate change on extreme weather is subtle, and this generation of climate models has yet to give the full answer. "

"Skeptics like to take advantage of this uncertainty in science to justify their views," while in Michael Mann`s view," Australians can see the increasingly obvious fact - that dangerous climate change is already there for Australians just by waking up in the morning, turning on the TV, reading the newspaper, or looking out the window. ""This is not something as profound as building a rocket. Warming oceans evaporate more water into the atmosphere, which is why in some coastal areas we encounter more terrible floods. Warming land also evaporates more water into the atmosphere - so the drought becomes more severe. Warmer weather causes the right end of the bell-shaped curve to go higher and higher, so you`ll experience more and more severe heat waves. The combination of drought and heat waves, you get worse wildfires. "

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

On January 5,2020, residents Brian Blackman and his wife in East Queensland, Victoria, died and the buildings around them had been burnt.


Back in 2005, Australia`s Federal Organization for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIRO) published a report on the impact of climate change on fire-prone weather in south-eastern Australia (Climate Change Impacts on Fire -weather in South-East Australia) predicting the use of climate change models: the number of days in the annual forest fire risk indicator system will rise from 23 to 36 days in the next 40 years.

The same is true not only in Australia. From June to August this year, much of Europe experienced a deadly record-breaking heat wave, with some countries reaching more than 40 degrees Celsius, or 1.5-3C higher than in the past. Sweden also has the worst forest fires in history. In 2018, there were nearly 60 fires in the US state covering more than 400 hectares. The California`s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, released by California government in August of the same year, predicts a 77% increase in the land area of California`s annual wildfires by 2100 if global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

The capacity to respond to these changes is limited. During Reagan`s first term as president, federal government allocated just a few hundred thousand dollars a year to extinguish the wildfires. But in 2018, Washington put out $2.25 billion to put out the wildfires, and the actual cost of controlling them was about $5 billion. Nevertheless, the damage caused by forest fires continues to soar every year. For the past two years, the Australian fire industry has been warning of a problem: In the past decade or so, forest fire agencies in Australia and the United States and Canada have established good partnerships.

However, a clear trend is that both the northern and southern hemispheres are experiencing prolonged and even overlapping periods. Resource sharing in the past has become increasingly unsustainable. A new study by the Australian National University`s Climate Change Institute shows that there will be no more "winters" in Australia by 2050, and there will be a "new summer" in which temperatures will rise above 40 degrees Celsius and continue for quite some time.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

People call for more action on climate change and the health that comes with it, at the Sydney demonstration on December 11,2019.


Climate change is not a new topic in Australia. There is no doubt that this is an important issue. Australia`s Think Tank Roy Institute polled climate issues ahead of the May 2019 general election, with 64 per cent of respondents saying climate change is the biggest threat in the national interest, with another 60 per cent supporting immediate action and 28 per cent supporting incremental action, with less than 12 per cent favouring waiting until more concrete evidence is available.

But how much people are willing to pay to stop climate change is another question. The result of Australia`s 2019 federal election is that Morrison, who has been trailing in pre-election polls, has been able to go on to govern. Labour`s "ambitions to cut emissions" have lost out to the "economic card" of the liberal and national party, led by mr morrison, in australia`s slowest growth point in almost a decade and rising unemployment.

Morrison has been supporting the traditional energy industry. One of his most famous moves was in February 2017, when he spoke in the House of Representatives, holding a piece of coal:" This is coal, don`t be afraid or panic, it won`t hurt you." In my opinion, those worried about environmental pollution from the coal industry maintain a`sick fear` of coal." In this election, Morrison introduced an economic model saying that Labour`s proposed 45 per cent reduction in carbon emissions would "disappear" Australia`s 167,000 jobs, which would result in a $264 billion loss of A $26.4 billion in economic.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

Australian Prime Minister Alison Morrison inspects in Victoria on January 3,2020.


The conservative government has previously rejected four national climate policies. Some members of government have even suggested that australia follow the u. s.and withdraw from the paris climate agreement. Morrison rejected the idea. But he only acknowledges Australia`s stated goal before the Paris climate conference: to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% at 2005 levels by 2030. However, if no new policy is introduced, there is little evidence that government will achieve that. Last year, Australia was absent from the Common Country Climate Conference in New York.

Australia is the world`s largest exporter of coal. Morrison hopes to climb another high building. Last year, he worked hard to start construction on the Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin. In August 2014, India`s Adani Group, a large joint venture, obtained permission to mine the Carmichael mine, which has nearly one-fifth of China`s total coal reserves. For years, the project has been shelved because of opposition from environmentalists and scientists.

In a media interview on december 21st, mr. morrison said it wasn`t australia`s climate policy that led to an unprecedented fire. Australia has done enough to tackle global warming and "has done its fair share" in tackling climate change.

Australian mountain fire, why can't kill?

On 5 January 2020, the Australian Ministry of Defence sent a helicopter from the "Adelaide" to take part in the fire.


Australia is the epitome of the "Commons tragedy" of the global climate problem. Garrett Harding, a famous American economist, published his famous 1968 article in the journal Science," The tragedy of the commons," calling for attention to the impact on public resources caused by individual behaviour. For example, when the grass is fully open to herdsmen, each herdsmen wants to have an extra sheep. For pastures, raising too many sheep leads to a decrease in the average grass volume and a decrease in the unit income of sheep throughout the grassland. But for a single herdsman, adding a sheep increases the profits of a sheep. And when all herdsmen see this and add a sheep, the grass will be overgrazing, which will eventually cause all herdsmen`s sheep to starve to death.

The fire may have burned the political credibility of Morrison`s government, but questions remain as to whether it can reverse Australia`s climate policy. In the impression of Melbourne residents, climate change has been a recurring topic in Australian life over the past two years. Before the fire, it was discussed that climate change brought droughts and floods. In recent years, Australia has suffered a hundred years of drought, in Victoria, New South Wales and parts of South Australia and Queensland.

Australia cut its wheat output by 20 per cent in the winter of 2018 to 2019 and began importing food from overseas for the first time in 12 years. In March last year, Queensland was again hit by what the governor described as an "unprecedented, unheard of" flood, when more than a dollar a kilo of sweet pepper went up directly to more than nine. The supermarket made a special sign to explain that it was caused by Queensland waters. Droughts and floods have devastated Australian farmers in specific regions, but their impact is less significant for those in big cities. But this time the fire was different. It made people living in large eastern coastal cities collide with natural disasters.

Post a comment