'Megafire' in Australia Engulfs 1.5M Acres
npr.org
npr.org
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50969488
Maybe not exactly global but the smoke made it ~2000km to New Zealand!
https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/not%C3%ADcias/geral/fuma%C3...
Which, clearly, we are. What I never imagined is that people would be _paid_ to actively fight the fight against climate change.
Satellite imagery of the cloud from GOES-17: https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2020/01/20...
[0]: https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/35342
Particulates in the air can carry a few thousand kilometers, but they will also disperse and settle as they travel.
Living within a few hundred yards of a major street, or within a few miles of a major industrial district is going to have more impact on your health then smoke travelling from the other side of the world. Smoke particulates are also reasonably easy to remove from the air, using standard consumer filters.
Particulates in the air can circumnavigate the globe if they get high enough in the atmosphere.
I'd say that's definitely globally relevant. On the day that was posted you could look on Himawari and clearly see huge smoke clouds from space. It's terrifying.
The last time I saw, they were estimated to have released 75% of Australia's annual emissions budget from burning coal. The scale of them is mind-boggling. The total estimated to have burned is 5M hectares, which is twice as much as the recent fires in the Arctic, and over 5x the recent Amazon fires. And there's no sign they're coming under control yet.
The where?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bus...
Just skimming wikipedia and there are a bunch of bushfires that were bigger than this instance, and bushfires seem pretty common there
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.
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.
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.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
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/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)
Other examples of Australian plants that are adapted to bushfires to the degree that they require them to propagate are found in the genus Banksia [2]. Together with the genus Eucalyptus they comprise hundreds of plant species[3]. These aren't the only pyrophytic plants[3] that require fires. For example, Melaleuca quinquenervia is another pyrophytic plant of Australia [4].
Wikipedia says this of the Eucalyptus:
> Most species of Eucalyptus are native to Australia, and every state and territory has representative species. About three-quarters of Australian forests are eucalypt forests. Wildfire is a feature of the Australian landscape and many eucalypt species are adapted to fire, and resprout after fire or have seeds which survive fire.
Eucalyptus trees survive fire so they can be classified as a pyrophytic plant; they benefit from fires that destroy competitive plants. The Giant Sequoia trees of the US also survive fires and are are considered pyrophytes. However some plants are considered to be active pyrophtes because they encourage fires or the spread of fires. The Eucalyptus is an active pyrophyte because it produces inflammable oils.
The carniverous Byblis genus of plants and cogongrass are other examples of fire adapted plants found in Australia.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksia
[3] https://www.britannica.com/list/5-amazing-adaptations-of-pyr...
Previous severe big bushfires started much later:
infographic: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/ECEF/production/...
January and February are the hottest. December and March have similar temperatures. The seasonal weather and sea temperatures have delay relative to sun.
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.
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
24 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.
Source: NSW police official website
A reasonable assumption might be that fires in unpopulated areas in central Australia were probably not arson (no people there to set them) and these are the largest fires (no people there to fight them).
But rather early for any broad conclusions. All we can say is - there's been some arson but we lack the context or details to really understand the relative importance. Currently arson doesn't seem like a major factor and it is probably over represented in densely populated NSW relative to the rest of the country.
I would say there's little evidence to support a hypothesis of an "unusual arson wave".
The authorities (don't know if this is RFS or police in this case) seem to pretty confidently attribute fires to causes for the most part. The percentage attributed to arson is lowish but disturbing (20%?).
I imagine lightning strikes and ember spread from existing fires are fairly easy to diagnose. I'm not sure how you tell "fires spread from sparks from roadway incidents" from "arson" but I'm not an expert.
Weather patterns (hot and dry summer) create the conditions for a fire, an arsonist merely provides the ignition source. In the right conditions a single errant spark from a power tool can set off a giant bushfire. Or an arsonist with a single match.
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.
[1] https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/08/australia...
> Sad and tragic.
> Incidentally, this is also how many animals that cats are estimated to kill in the United States each year.
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.
Not entirely true. Forest fires and prairie fires are a part of some plant lifecycles.
https://www.britannica.com/list/5-amazing-adaptations-of-pyr...
Wildfires aren't part of the fauna. This is true. But even without humans, there are wildfires. When wildfires happen, they create a new playing field for species to inhabit. Moreover, life has adapted over the course of millions of years to a low number of wildfires i.e. the spread of a species over a large territory whereas wildfires may be incidental and localized. The adaptability of a species to wildfires - amongst other things - is what defines it's resilience.
The difference here is that the size and scope of these fires is far beyond the resilience of entire regional ecosystems. When this is over, what is lost won't return. It will be replaced by different species - plants and animals - that might not be as diverse or rich.
We can safely assert that wild cats are inherently part of the ecosystem. However, if a billion animals being killed a year by cats, well, that's not due to the mere presence of cats as a species. But because of the overwhelming number of cats in the ecosystem. And that number is anything but normal.
Cats are domesticated animals. The main reason why there are so many out there is simply because society tends to keep and protect cats. Cats and humans live in a symbiotic relationship. And that's why cats thrive as a species. Much to the detriment of other species.
Put more poignantly, nobody would argue against the need for pet owners to keep their dogs to a leash and their pet snakes and other predators locked in cages. But cats are the major exception. There are no laws that restrict home owners to let cats go out of the door and roam the neighborhood killing each any small bird, mammal or reptile around. Whereas other wild species who espouse pretty much the same behavior - rats, foxes, mice - are seen as pests.
And so, we can safely assert that neither mega wildfires nor the strain cats impose by their numbers are natural occurrences. In both cases, they are manifestations causes by irrational human behaviours.
I have not heard of anyone having a problem with rats and mice hunting other animals. They are mainly considered pests because they eat human food stores. And the only context I have heard of foxes considered pests is when they hunt livestock, chickens, geese etc. If a domestic cat starts hunting chickens, I am pretty sure it will have consequences as well.
In Canada rats are a bigger threat to bird species than cats, topped only by humans. Or visit an island environment Galapagos where they've been introduced.
Don't forget the plague and other diseases. "peste" literally means "plague" in French.
[1] https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/animal-pest...
As you say, the real issue is massive ecosystem destruction and rare and/or endangered species being killed. But that doesn't spread on social media quite as well as the feeling driven "one billion animals died!"
Isn't this the entire problem with climate change in general? It's really hard to get people concerned with very small temperature changes over long periods of time because we use our human perspective; it's hard for us to understand a geological time scale.
These types of observations help IMO.
>> 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.
Well, domestic cats are considered an invasive species in much of the world, and in Canada are the #1 killer of birds. Studies show they are the 3rd biggest offender towards putting species at risk. The story is worse on islands, of which we have many.
>> Finally, wildfires don't support life. They're naturally occurring things, but they are not an activity occurring in the support of other life.
This is absolutely wrong. Lots of forests in Western Canada depend greatly on regular, large-scale fires to support specific species of flora and fauna. Our excellent job of preventing these fires is likely to blame for many huge problems like mountain pine beetle and predator/prey imbalances.
https://graphics.reuters.com/AUSTRALIA-BUSHFIRES-SCALE/0100B...
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.
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).
But if they used km^2 then almost everyone would be able to visualise it, as almost everyone knows what running or walking a km feels like.
That sounds quite incredible to me - a quick search turned up plenty of WA firebreak building guides, as well as the Brush Fires act of 1954 which seems to mandate construction of firebreaks by landowners in certain situations.
This may be true in downtown Sydney or a National Park, but it's very much not the case in most of rural Australia.
If you don't get it, it's illegal to build an extension to your home.
Therefore, it is illegal to build extensions to your home.
That's the flow of your logic.
Hazard reduction burning is not illegal in Australia [1]. I don't know where you got that idea from.
It is also legal to create a firebreak [2].
[1] https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/resources/publications/hazard-red... [2] https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/18453...
> Shane Fitzsimmons told the program that while hazard reduction burning is part of a “really complex argument”, “environmental clearances are invariably not our problem with hazard reduction burning”.
> “Our biggest challenge with hazard reduction is the weather and the windows available to do it safely and effectively,” Mr Fitzsimmons said.
> “Sure, there’s environmental and other checks to go through but we streamline those. There’s special legislation to give us clearance and to cut through what would otherwise be a very complex environment.”
https://www.news.com.au/national/rural-fire-service-boss-rej...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/05/expla...
> Former fire chiefs who have been calling strongly for action on climate change, and who have been trying to meet Morrison for months, have also been calling for increased funding for hazard reduction.
More hazard reduction may be required, but this is orthogonal to the above. I have seen no evidence of the Greens blocking hazard reduction burns requested by the RFS.
As the article states, fire chiefs have been trying to meet with the Australian prime minster for months, but have been ignored. this suggests that any blame for poor preparation leading up to this bush fire season should be attributed directly to the party in power. To me the motivation behind this spread of disinformation is very clear.
The Murdoch media has decided to run with the idiotic idea that there was an 'easy' opportunity to reduce fuel loads and it was prevented by unspecified environmentalists at unspecified locations (the claims are always super-non-specific, for obvious reasons). In fact, as the fire chiefs point out, the limitations on hazard reduction burns have largely been due to weather (too wet or too dry).
Needless to say, the actual statement from the fire chiefs is extremely nuanced and well thought out. It's almost like they know something about fighting bushfires, unlike all the amateur hour geniuses that have emerged from the woodwork to sit in their pajamas theorizing on every major venue 24/7 including public holidays.
The problem is that there isn't enough money for the man powered required to control burn everything. And 50 to 100 years of "don't let anything burn" has led to a LOT of areas with a lot of build up. Those areas require a lot of care to controlled burn correctly and are often way way WAY out there - making it harder/more expensive to control.
There is also the problem of encroachment of civilization on the forests. At least in CA there are houses basically built into the forrest, or right up to the edge. How do you burn those areas assuring the residence 100% safety?
People will be in the streets, crying for blood, and won't give up until the Department of Controlled Forest Burns is dissolved, and its executives are sleeping in the Bay, wearing cement overshoes.
Yes, you can buy insurance for this sort of thing, but no, money doesn't grow on trees, and insuring your controlled burn program is not going to come cheap.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/forests-wildfires-1.44449...
>That complete lack of regrowth happened most frequently at lower-elevation sites that have become measurably warmer and drier in the past 30 years, said Stevens-Rumann, an assistant professor in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship at Colorado State University. Those areas may no longer have suitable conditions for the growth of tree species that were there before and may become other types of ecosystems, such as grasslands.
>The fire was so intense in some places that it burned up all organic matter needed to help the soil retain nutrients and moisture required for trees to grow.
>[I]n some cases, the dominant black spruce and white spruce are being replaced by deciduous trees such as aspen. That's especially the case for forests that burned less than 80 years ago, where trees haven't yet had time to develop fire-resistant seed cones. Spruce trees are also outcompeted in drier areas, suggesting climate may also play a role, Whitman said.
Aspen is a natural fire break species. So it'll actually prevent more big forest fires in the future.
If it's something else, it might need to be hidden even better.
In short: humans aren't required for fire to exist. Your argument is faulty.
Insulting natives for lighting fires shows complete disrespect and ignorance of the underlying environments, flora and fauna as well as their part in all of it. You aren't advanced and knowledgeable: you're just ignorant, smug, and delusional.
I agree that there seems to be a bit of bias (if not racism) in the OP's point, but there's no denying that the vast majority of fires are created by humans, whether indigenous, farmers, or hikers.