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'Megafire' in Australia Engulfs 1.5M Acres
- giacaglia 7y agoIs this historically different from previous instances? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia Just skimming wikipedia and there are a bunch of bushfires that were bigger than this instance, and bushfires seem pretty common there
- WBrad 7y agoKeep in mind the article is talking about individual fires rather than the all the fires going on simultaneously. So far 26M acres have burned in this season and in populated areas unlike most other bushfires.
- zapita 7y agoTwo things to note when looking at that list: 1. Bushfires may be more frequent in some parts of Australia than others. So two bushfires of equal size, but occuring in different regions, may not necessarily be equally common. 2. The list on Wikipedia is referring to final surface burned, after the fire is contained, or has burned out. However the 1.5M Acre figure mentioned here seems to be only the current surface burned - presumably it will continue to expand and burn more.
- goodcanadian 7y agoBushfires are a natural part of the ecosystem in Australia. Many plants are adapted specifically to survive and thrive after bushfire conditions. However, bushfires on this scale is somewhat unprecedented. It's a bit like 5 hurricanes hitting Florida in one summer. Aren't hurricanes normal in Florida?
- markdown 7y ago> It's a bit like 5 hurricanes hitting Florida in one summer. Aren't hurricanes normal in Florida? Except if 3 of those hurricanes arrived before hurricane season.
- pacala 7y ago... in NewYork.
- monkeycantype 7y agoI'm reading that last question as irony, experience suggests others will read it as an un-ironic rhetorical question. So while recognising, what I believe is you're ironic phrasing, I'm addressing what I think will be the un-ironic reading others will take, you good with that. Yes fire is a normal part of Australian ecosystems, and it is unknown whether this spread with Eucalyptus trees or whether Eucalyptus trees spread with humans using fire. But : The Australian climate is getting hotter: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtm... 'The national December mean temperature, 3.21 °C above average, surpassed the previous December record set in 2018 by more than a full degree.' British conquest and subsequent settlement has ended traditional indigenous fire practices in most part of the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming Which means that the fuel load are not reduced by smaller cooler burns below levels that would feed a catastrophic fires. https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/bushfires-managing-landscapes https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/bushfir... Partisan politics has made it very difficult for many Australians to look directly at these topics. So while fire, is a terrifying but not unexpected feature of living in Australia, the scale of this year's fires are a unique horror that I believe will push enough Australians to engage with that difficulty. I think we are going to see fast significant shifts in political discussion from this, that both the emotive calls to action, and populist denials or diminishment will we perceived as a distraction from direct sober engagement of an existential threat. ( As I first typed this I accidentally capitalised that as Australian Ecosystems, because I once worked for a company by that name that did environmental work, including controlled burning)
- nabla9 7y agoThis is historically different because severe fire weather started early in spring. The dry hottest summer months are still ahead. I'm not sure how long this will go on? Previous severe big bushfires started much later: infographic: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/ECEF/production/_110355606_fires_australia_history_dec31_640-3x-nc.png https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/ECEF/production/... article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043
- lalos 7y agoAustralia's summer is from December to February.
- nabla9 7y agoThe current bushfire season started 5 September. Very early. January and February are the hottest. December and March have similar temperatures. The seasonal weather and sea temperatures have delay relative to sun.
- glangdale 7y agoFebruary is hot as hell here in Sydney. There's a long, likely dry spell to come. Any analysis of how bad the fires are historically should compare hectares burned "to this date" not "in total". As an anecdote.. We live in Sydney. My wife was talking to her father who was being evacuated from his town in Northern California due to fire. We could smell smoke in Sydney already, despite being in the opposite season.
- rolltiide 7y agoThe mega bush fire was much larger and 50 years ago and therefore could not have been validation of a climate change feedback loop. So today's fires are weak ammunition for reallocations of public resources towards climate change efforts, compared to existing arguments that can't gain consensus. I can see how it isn't budging consensus. edit: removed bad news regarding arson
- elygre 7y agoDo you have a reliable source for the claim that “many of today’s Australia fires are arson”?
- rolltiide 7y agoWell as I looked it up all of today's headlines are refuting prior days headlines about arson. So now I'm synced up.
- glangdale 7y agoThese headlines were only ever in dodgy conservative media sources (generally conflating people being warned for campfires, BBQs and angle grinders outside with "arsonists deliberately setting fires"). You should check the ownership of the news sources you previously used and stop reading them.
- keanzu 7y ago24 people have been charged over alleged deliberately-lit bushfires 53 people have had legal actions for allegedly failing to comply with a total fire ban, and 47 people have had legal actions for allegedly discarding a lighted cigarette or match on land. https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_article?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGZWJpenByZC5wb2xpY2UubnN3Lmdvdi5hdSUyRm1lZGlhJTJGODIyNjQuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_article?sq_content_s... Source: NSW police official website
- 7y ago
- 0xff00ffee 7y agoI've seen this link pop up as a meme on conservative reddit forums for the past month, but with additional text using it to dismiss climate change. Keep in mind, Australia is huge and has different climates. While this isn't the biggest fire of all Australia, it is the biggest fire of that region in history by ~10x (according to that wikipedia link). This is highly unusual. And as a result of being in populated areas, it has done the most dollars of damage of any fire. This is what climate change advocates are pointing to: increased fires in areas that normally do not have them.
- just2043 7y agoAlso look at the history for that page. There are frequent updates/changes and later reversions to some of these numbers. Take the measurements with a grain of salt as people edit to prove a narrative.
- aaron_m04 7y agoWouldn't the same thing happen if new information comes in about a changing situation?
- dobleboble 7y agoAn account with no posting history and you're pushing an anti-climate change narrative?
- sakopov 7y agoIf anyone is curious about a billion animal deaths figure in the article here's what this appears to be based on [1] [1] https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/08/australian-bushfires-more-than-one-billion-animals-impacted.html https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/08/australia...
- john-radio 7y agoStealing this take from David Steen: > Sad and tragic. > Incidentally, this is also how many animals that cats are estimated to kill in the United States each year.
- alfromspace 7y agoNature is a cruel place. It's hard to grapple with as somebody who values animal life equally to human life, but also is cognizant of how far beyond our reach it is to remove all the tragedies that are really just part of the ecosystem.
- pera 7y agoThat seems to me a quite useless and potentially misleading comparison. Scientists should be aware that everything they say can be used against their own work in the wild world of social networks.
- throwawaymath 7y agoWhat's the point being driven at here? Is it minimizing the deaths of Australian wildlife, or is it making a quip about the sheer scale of cat hunting activity? If it's the former, that seems like a bad comparison. The Australian wildfires are destroying ecosystems on a scale cats don't really do. And a much greater variety of wildlife is dying than what cats will typically kill. Finally, wildfires don't support life. They're naturally occurring things, but they are not an activity occurring in the support of other life. Cats kill to hone hunting skills (or simply to hunt, if they're actually hungry). With that observation we can impose a reasonable normative, which is that we don't need to accept wildfires the same way we accept predator activity. Put simply: I don't see that these two things belong to the same category of destruction.
- abstractbarista 7y agoSo once it finishes, we should have a clean slate with vastly reduced fire potential, right? Seems like there was a build-up of combustible material for some time, and nature decided to run its course.
- draw_down 7y agoSure, after you burn a house down it's really hard to burn down again.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoForest management will go down into one of the biggest failures of our generation. Combine that with a adverse climate and arsonist, and it’s going to be an awful next few decades.
- asdfwvwe 7y agoTrue. This could have all been prevented with controlled fires during winter time. However, they are illegal to do in Australia. Creating a firebreak to save your home from a bushfire is also illegal and heavily punished.
- polemic 7y agoThe season where it is safe to do controlled burns has been shrinking due to climate change. So no, this is not true. Don't spread FUD.
- asdfwvwe 7y agoThe more reason to do them when it's safe.
- viraptor 7y agoThis will be interesting to see in the few next years. Either the way we do the burns will have to change, or we'll just have to accept unsafe burns as better than massive fires a few years down the line. So far I haven't heard any announced alternative ideas.
- etaioinshrdlu 7y agoI wonder if there's a point at which the particulates from the fire become globally relevant. Knowing what we know now about how awful particulates are for health and cognition, we would be in a bad place as a species if none of us can breathe clean air.
- keanzu 7y agoAustralia fires: Smoke turns New Zealand skies 'eerie' yellow https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50969488 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50969488 Maybe not exactly global but the smoke made it ~2000km to New Zealand!
- fernandopj 7y agoTry Brazil: smoke made it to southern states, ~7700 miles https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/not%C3%ADcias/geral/fuma%C3%A7a-de-inc%C3%AAndios-da-austr%C3%A1lia-chega-ao-rio-grande-do-sul-diz-metsul-1.391494 https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/not%C3%ADcias/geral/fuma%C3...
- lancewiggs 7y agoIt was terrifying. The sky gradually changed colour and we, in Auckland, felt as though we were living in a post apocalyptic dystopian future. Which, clearly, we are. What I never imagined is that people would be _paid_ to actively fight the fight against climate change.
- rohfle 7y agoAccording to CIMSS Satellite Blog [0], the cloud of smoke from the Jan 4th flare up (the one that reached New Zealand) is still visible from space - traveling across the Pacific with some of the smoke even reaching Antarctica. Satellite imagery of the cloud from GOES-17: https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2020/01/200105_200107_goes17_truecolor_Australian_smoke_anim.mp4 https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2020/01/20... [0]: https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/35342 https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/35342
- askvictor 7y ago
- dduugg 7y agoIs there a reason to use acres at this order of magnitude? In case anyone else finds it easier to imagine this way: 1.5M acres converts to 2,343 mi^2, which i can then envision as multiples of a reference area (7 NYCs).
- meddlepal 7y agoBig scary numbers drive the climate change narrative.
- dwaltrip 7y agoWhat do you think is a stronger primary cause for the climate change narrative? - Exaggerated or misleading numbers in the news and other popular, non-scientific media - Human CO2 emissions over the past 100 years
- naiveprogrammer 7y agoBut we need to strike a balance here. I agree with the person above that putting big numbers as to exaggerate and drive panic is not really a prudent approach. At the end of the day, it hurts more than helps for a very simple reason: people remember. If you sell a doomsday scenario and nothing happens, people will start to dismiss your claims, like the boy who cried wolf. I recall 20 years ago seeing articles claiming that "Snow will be a thing of the past" or "Arctic to be ice-free by 2020". Nothing happened. Now we hear that we are facing mass extinction in a few decades. People get anxious and nervous when they see that, but then when nothing happens they will start to discount heavily your claims.
- nolok 7y ago> if you sell a doomsday scenario and nothing happens, people will start to dismiss your claims You are massively missing the point: what is happening in Australia the past few weeks / months, the 4-50°C temperature, the gigantic fires, ... Are not warning signs or a possible doomsday scenario people are trying to sell. It is the doomsday scenario actually happening in its early phase. It's too late to avoid it, it's happening, now the best we can do is slow it down and try to reverse course. > I recall 20 years ago seeing articles claiming that "Snow will be a thing of the past" or "Arctic to be ice-free by 2020". Nothing happened. Of course, if by nothing happened you mean it is actually happening faster than even predicted and the ice coverage is thinning so fast you can see it on year-on-year comparisons.
- billfruit 7y agoI'm curious at the use of acres in this article, or even otherwise. This is about 6070 km square kilometers, which is a square of about 77 kilometer.
- polemic 7y agoWikipedia says Brighton is 82.79 km2. So this is about 70x larger.
- mrb 7y agoHere is what a 6070 km² square looks like: https://i.imgur.com/kEFBxZg.jpg https://i.imgur.com/kEFBxZg.jpg
- ddevault 7y agoAbout two Rhode Islands, or one Delaware.
- KuhlMensch 7y agoA nice series of visualisations for those looking for more context https://graphics.reuters.com/AUSTRALIA-BUSHFIRES-SCALE/0100B4VK2PN/index.html https://graphics.reuters.com/AUSTRALIA-BUSHFIRES-SCALE/0100B...
- forwhomst 7y agoNobody in NPR's audience knows how big a kilometer or square km is.
- gerdesj 7y agoYou'll need this: https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-conv... I suspect that acres were chosen because it is a reasonably familiar unit, given the organ is NPR, and makes for a huge number. If you are aware of an acre, you will know it is a fair sized bit of land and 1.5M of them is absolutely huge. For us European types (lol - UK) 0.3 Wales or 0.2 Belgiums gives an idea as to absolutely awful these fires are.
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- rafaelvasco 7y agoAnyone saying this fire is a natural occurrence is completely deluded. There's no such thing as random in the Universe (shocking to some but true), everything has an inherent reason. A causal force. In this case it appears to be humanity itself.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y agoI'm not sure what you're trying to say? If it's global warming, there is no need to hide it behind conspiratorial esotericism. If it's something else, it might need to be hidden even better.
- rafaelvasco 7y agoGlobal warming yes. Sorry about the "esotericism". No conspiration intended. I forget to keep it filtered down. People can be really sensitive to it i find. It's natural for me, not so much for most.
- sfgweilr4f 7y agoInteresting theory but those of us on planet Earth are dealing with plenty of fires started by lightning.
- rafaelvasco 7y agoIf that was the end of the story it would be great.
- sfgweilr4f 7y agoIt basically is. Lightning is not caused by humans in the majority of cases. In short: humans aren't required for fire to exist. Your argument is faulty.
- rafaelvasco 7y agoYou're just assuming it was lightning. Or that lightning was the only culprit. Which is most likely false; Natives have been setting control fires for centuries, yes. That's wrong and primitive i think. But the problem was most likely aggravated by climate changes;
- fl0under 7y agoCheck out the images in this story https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australian-bushfires-photos-before-and-after/11854888 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australian-bushfir... for some before and after fire photos