Australian Severe Weather Forum

Hi Twodogs (sorry for the name reference),

That is a scary situation - your can count yourselves very lucky!

On a similar note, several nights ago, I was invited to part-take in a

pre-recorded radio interview on a radio show in Dublin, Ireland. Promise you won't laugh at me:) I tried my best.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

if you guys want to see incredible fire footage , this is it. this fire front appears to be rotating hard and gives the impression of being close to a strong tornado , around 2 min mark watch the smoke rapidly rotate. taken from St Andrews.

Terrifying sound of bushfire

Nick

Nick,

Absolutely insane! The sound of that roar is similar to a tornado! Winds simultaneously picks up as the 'firestorm' approaches! Now those observations and video teamed with the pictures from Paul Graham and others of the fire's pyrocumulonimbus make this quite interesting. Many on this forum have commented about wanting to see what conditions were like inside to learn more about the dynamics that were associated with this event and I uess similar events in the past.

I would be interested in thoughts from others.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

I was in VIC for EWN work meetings with the Country Fire Authority and community Tues/Wed this week. We've got some new technology that will allow the CFA to locate their trucks or people via their mobile phone position, and display that on maps and send messages if necessary. The meeting was held at Arthurs Creek fire station and well received by those in attendance.

Arthurs Creek was just saved from being burnt by the Black Saturday fires when the wind changed. Their local community of Strathewen was not so fortunate with 27 people dying there.

On Wednesday morning a couple of the volunteers drove us around the Strathewen area, pointing out the devastation, people who had died or escaped, houses saved or not. It was very sad. The area has been very much changed in that there are now expansive views of the countryside from the roads where once it was just forest and hidden homes.

A couple of pics - not much has grown back in 6 months. The green on the ground was mainly moss.









Australian{Bushfire 7th feb 2009 St Andrews Vic}

This is the house where that incredible footage was taken. The home is just a couple of ks west of Kinglake




All photos for 5 August 2009

Michael,

Incredible images of the aftermath almost 6 months on after the Victorian Bush Fires disaster. Of course we may find vegetation wise that some parts of the forest may never recover - certainly not to the extent you describe! Extreme heat in the Tasmanian fires I think in the 1960's totally destroyed forests beyond the point they could recover due to the intense heat of the fires.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

I remember the same in the big Sydney fires of 1996(?). While many Australian plants require a bushfire to trigger them to drop seeds, the problem is that naturally occurring fires keep getting put out by humans.

So when the fire does finally come through, the fuel load is such that it burns much hotter than it would if there were regular fires, so hot that it in fact kills the seeds.

Rich, I think you'll find it was 1995....

Even though I have not commented much on this fire, I think it would be interesting to note that as one who does not live too far from the worst affected areas, it was strange to see the hot duststorm like cloud to the north just racing across the sky NE wards and an amazing speed from my vantage point between Camberwell and Alamein (where I was covering charter work for Connex who has lost power on the Alamein line just 1hr before the wind-change and firestorm began.

Also, a few days later I was on a school bus run in the northern areas of Lilydale (near Coldstream) sighting flames to my north less than 5kms away!

I lost 3 friends in the fires, 2 were teenagers trying to shelter in Kinglake West, the other in Marysville.

People in these locations were given the stay/go policy, but by the time they made up their mind to go (which from previous VIC fires would have been plenty of time) - they were quickly overtaken in the firestorm inferno and had no chance to escape!

A terrible event - and recently on the news, Sam the Koala, who was saved by firefighter, has also died - the latest victim some six months later!

Big Pete

Sorry to hear the loss of your three friends Big Pete. It was sad to see the face of the fires, "Sam the Koala", die during surgery on Thursday. I was reading this morning in the paper that she is going to be displayed in the Melbourne Museum as a symbol of the devastating fire.

Another point I was pondering over, and I don't know if it is a knee jerk reaction or based on pure evidence, either way it is important and serious, Victorian authorities have stated that they are expecting "a worse than Black Saturday" fire this season, (which starts very shortly) due the lack of rain and drought conditions, and  the abundance of fuel for the fires from dry vegetation.

ABC News article Wed Jul 29, 2009

Victorians have been warned that this summer's bushfire conditions are expected to be even worse than those which sparked the killer Black Saturday bushfires.

A leaked report from the state's Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) says a season with the "greatest potential loss to life and property is now in sight".

The report says the ominous forecast is due to Victoria's continuing drought and a forecast of El Nino weather pattern.

DSE's chief fire officer Ewan Waller says Victoria has been vulnerable to these type of seasons for a number of years.

"That is entirely due to below-average rainfall which will come into the 13th year and if we have that, if you get bad fire weather and ignition sources, then you will have disastrous fires," he said.

We all hope that this is not the case, but if it is, I hope the serious and valuable lessons taught along with the tragic loss of life will be not be forgotten.

On another note, it was good to hear that Michael Bath with EWN have had meetings with with the Victorian CFA, and hopefully a good warning system can be implemented to help to save lives.

Col

Could well have been, too lazy too google it :-) I remember the timing because I went away for 9 months in 1997, back early 1998 to find the trees starting to sprout gum leaves from the trunks and so looked all furry.

Col

I think you are quite right about the conditions down here. According to The Weather Channel (Australia), they are continuing to declare the agricultural areas as 100% drought declared. I think from a personal level, the fuel reduction burns and the clearings have not taken place at a time when it was best to do so - ie during winter. This places areas close to home for me (the Dandenongs) at probably the greatest risk since 1939. People here are expecting the worst, and were surprised it didn't happen this year (2009). Only time will tell.

Big Pete

Hi all, I have visited all the major fire effected areas and have photos that I will eventually share on here - I just havent had time to scratch myself lately.

Michael, my thoughts are that Strathewan was the worst example of the ferocity and the hopelessness that the fires produced on that day.  So many places were devastated and are eery places to visit but I found Strath be the worst and the fatalities support that I guess.  Nestled in a valley surrounded by towering forests with creeks and only one proper road in and out and the bridge burning - they stood no chance unless shear luck stepped in and reading a book about it, there was some shear luck.

The fire in the video taken from St Andrews is astonishing and I believe it has a direct link with the devastation of Strathewan.  Ever since Nick Moir posted the video, it haunted me.  I wanted to know where it was filmed from and what direction he was facing when the firestorm approached.  I knew the fires were travelling violently SE before the change and then even more violently NE after it but it didnt make sense to me that the fire could be travelling right to left from his vantage in St Andrews which effectly became the southern edge of the fire effected area in that region. It made sense to me that St Andrews should be south of this firestorm, hence it would be moving left to right if his vantage.  To find the answer I used the white pages to find his address using his name from the video, then I used google earth to find the address and based on the geography in his video I discovered that the location of the video, although classed as St Andrews is much closer to Strathewan township than St Andrews township.  His video is pointing generally SW - Strathewan is SW-W of his location. After watching the video many times, using the features of google earth, visiting the area and reading many accounts from Strathewan locals, I am absolutely certain that the footage of the firestorm is taken in the moments during and after it has ravaged Strathewan at the bottom of the valley, growing in intensity as it climbs the ridge and continuing SE towards St Andrews as the wind violently changes NE toward the end of the video and comes back towards the guy with the video from his left (south) on its way towards Kinglake.  I have no doubt having read survivor accounts from Kinglake, that the extreme behaviour in the video such as rapid increase in fire speed, height of flames and possibly rotating firestorm was replicated as the fire roared up the steep ridges to Kinglake in the minutes after the video.

Scary stuff.

Brad.

Hi Brad - yeah the video is not from St Andrews - the address is 105 rankines road, strathewen. Look 500 metres east of the Google Maps marker and you can see the house.

Your analysis of the wind change is pretty much how I worked it out too.

MB

Hi, as promised here are some HDR pics I shot from various bushfire areas in the months after the disaster. Brad.

These first 3 shots are from the Heidelberg-Kinglake Road as I made my way to Kinglake township.

Brad,

Your images and those of others in this thread illustrate the tragic loss of a beutiful part of the world! The shoots represent life but it would take an extremely long period of time to get this region back even close to its original ecosystem.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara