Anorak’s Penny Watches The Australian Bunyip Fires
THOSE Australian fires: Anorak’s Penny looks on, and more…
I have close family in St Andrews – this is just north of Melb 11 dead there and my mob live on property in St Andrews which has been destroyed. My Aunty & cousins have saved most of the main house but the studios, out buildings and entire property, the township that they built obliterated. The family is safe, and they are lucky as 11 of their close neighbours perished.
My parents are close to the city. Mum is in Geelong as you know but as yet The Great Ocean Road and Ballarine Peninsula have not gone up, but they’d be expecting it.
The temperatures and drought are the worst in history temperatures reached 46.5 (116) 3 days in a row last week. Didn’t know that the news was so wide spread. I remember the devastating fires of ‘83 where half the state was wiped out but this is much worse and the death toll will get much higher – it’s close to 100 right now.
I have friends in one of the regions (who survived and rebuilt after Ash Wednesday 83) and they are ok at this stage but on high alert packed and ready to go. It’s like a tinder box down there. We just drove through most of the affected areas recently, it’s dreadful and incredibly sad.
I’m planning a fund raiser to help out the schools that have been lost – this is a natural disaster and will take a lot of time to rebuild. It’s very emotional to read about all those people lost. I’ll try and get something up but have got a lot of work this week and reading notes tonight. Feel free to put this up.
Thanks for concern, Victoria gets hammered in the fires. NSW had a dreadful time in 1994 but we’ve never seen anything like this.
Bolt explains why it’s happening:
Greens leader Bob Brown says bushfires like the ones raging across Victoria and New South Wales this weekend will be more frequent if climate change continues…
“Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 per cent, 50 per cent more,” he told Sky News.
“It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”
It’s not just this or that fact which makes these comments grossly inapppropriate.
Some of the many fires, driven by historically-high temperatures and roaring winds, are believed to be deliberately lit.
Tim Blair:
Veteran newsreader Brian Naylor and wife Moiree are among those killed in Victoria’s bushfires. Their son Matt died only last year in a plane crash. Matt’s widow and her two children, who lived on a neighbouring property, escaped the blaze.
The toll for the fires is now 84 – worse than Ash Wednesday and worse than Black Friday. These current fires, which aren’t over, are Australia’s deadliest.
More to follow…
Posted: 8th, February 2009 | In: Reviews Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
