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Comment by longtom | Hacker News Reader

Wished such news articles would ways contextualize such news with a graph of the fire activity in previous years, if not in the entire recorded history. I want a figure how many standard deviations this is above the mean.

Edit: Something like this:

https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/145000/14...

Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145998/fires-take-a...

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BBC has nice info-graphic comparing different Australian fires. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043

direct link to image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/ECEF/production/...

Something like this?

https://ibb.co/1dmJ1xJ

Thanks. Interesting how rare and extreme these events are. This suggests a runway process is involved in that the fire spreads and multiplies in just the right conditions, but presumably it takes a while for nature to grow enough to become vulnerable to a large fire again? Not enough data here to tell for sure. It is interesting that some plants have evolved to require fire to survive and reproduce (pyrophytic plants), so wild fire is by no means unnatural. There does not seem to be a positive trend here.

So graphs like that should be read together with information about how the bush management changed over time. See this long thread for example: https://twitter.com/JediJeremy/status/1208997157346242561

I believe in recent past we've gone through: "everything's burning, let's put it out", "we've had massive fires, let's do planned burns", and now "let's defund organisations that can do effective bush management". This will explain some of the changes visible. The current area is due to the buildup nobody managed - neither by government organised burns, nor fire stick farming.

The window for conducting planned burns has also been shrinking over time (either too dry and it will run away or too wet).

Yep this is exactly it. There is a periodic phenomenon going on here. We do not measure or collect data long enough to look at it like that. I think the trend is hard to spot here.

That's not what this article is about. Sometimes you have to go looking for an article specifically about the historical context. Here's one I found on initial search [1].

> For the forests and woodlands in the eastern half of the state, this is unprecedented.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/22/austr...

Doesn't matter what the post is about. Always gimme context pls

I can't help but ask if you have an agenda.. is it to say "See, the NASA graph shows it's not much worse than previous years, climate change is nothing to worry about!"?

The graph starts in 2014, that's not exactly a "pre-climate-crisis" year...

it starts in 2014 and shows a pretty clear upward trend for such a short time period

LOL, you guys have a really sensitive "climate denial sensor". I am about as critical of ignorant consumerism as it gets. For example I do not think millions of people need to travel >200 miles a day. But I am also aware that reducing consumerism is associated with a risk of mass unemployment and social unrest. Nonetheless I desire context. It's just my need as a nerd to get the full picture rather than "look at this scary context-less number".

You want the full picture, yet post a graph that starts at 2014?

Pretending that fires have gone up 10x[] this year is an agenda, too

[]Yeah made up number, not the point

It's not an agenda. News sometimes miss important context.

The Brazilian forest fires this year are a good example. It took weeks until we learned that the forest fires are not significantly worse than previous years. Brazil has been burning at the same rate for many years.

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