Thread: Mega fire bears down on Sydney and the Hunter

On the news last night there was a brief interview with one of the people whose home was saved - in the background were a couple of Series Landrovers. Anyone from here?

Highway is ok at New Italy just south of here, pretty much under control now but a mate is near Bulledelah and it's looking terrible, he has a timber mill on the river and they are ready to go if need be, its running across the ridges nearby and potentially can run into town and across the highway.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

On the news last night there was a brief interview with one of the people whose home was saved - in the background were a couple of Series Landrovers. Anyone from here?

yeah i saw that, good news story for them...

Originally Posted by rick130

Highway is ok at New Italy just south of here, pretty much under control now but a mate is near Bulledelah and it's looking terrible, he has a timber mill on the river and they are ready to go if need be, its running across the ridges nearby and potentially can run into town and across the highway.

Frightening times. I hope your mate and his family & friends stay safe.

KIWI's head home, the Americans arrive. It's times like this you appreciate your friends. We are really all in this together,

Stirring moment Kiwi firefighters perform an emotional haka to farewell Australia after fighting devastating bushfires ravaging the country

I live at Avoca Beach so we are getting lots of smoke and some ash.

The fires largely have been in National parks so far but are now approaching Glenworth Valley, which is owned by a friend and has 200 horses there.

Today is much more still as far as wind is concerned and the smoke is thinner.

My take is that no hazard reduction burning has been done for many years in the Wollombi or Dharug National Parks ( to the best of my knowledge), so these fires will clean up the understory.

I wonder if Sydney and the Central Coast could have been spared the density of smoke if hazard reduction burning had been done regularly by National Parks staff.
It is also ironic that the Koalas have suffered greatly through this when cool understory burns would have probably meant their survival.

I am worried whether some halfwit will light a fire on Cullens Road near my place, as the bush there is very dense with steep profiles. My house is probably unable to be defended due to the extensive unable to be cleared leaf litter and steep slope along with my large wooden deck.( built by a PO before the current building restrictions on decks were introduced).
Regards PhilipA

Re hazard reduction burning, I'm currently reading 'The greatest estate on earth' by Bill Gammage who has a huge amount of information about Aboriginal burning practices.
It's not as simple as just saying set fire to it. Aborigines had a range of fire practices, usually burnt selected small patches, and the regularity of their burning varied from annual through 4-5 years to 10 years depending on the type of vegetation. It's very interesting.

He compares paintings and photos of the same places to show how it was under Aboriginal management and how it has changed since they were removed from the land.
For example, they left lines of trees and burned between the lines to cause the green shoots to attract the roos and wallabies. Then the hunters moved through the lines of trees, encircled the roos, drove them into traps where more hunters chose which roos to kill, usually elderly males.

This management meant most burns were cool, not hot and destructive.
White settlers did not understand Aboriginal land managenent practices and either let the vegetation run wild or else cleared it for grazing, which caused a rapid decline in productivity and wasteland.

Gammage has some examples from around Uluru which show how it was under Aboriginal management, how it degraded after they were removed and it became a cattle station and how it is recovering under current indigenous management.
It's a very interesting book and there is a lot to learn.

So hazard burning can be good, but it has to be done using Aboriginal practices or it can just result in neglected vegetation and then really hot and destructive fires, as are happening now.

Re hazard reduction burns, a mate of a mate is a Nat Parks Ranger in Qld.
One of the big fires he's been deployed on recently near Toowoomba was hazard reduction burned only a handful of months ago.
It burnt again.

And FWIW several of the fires around here shouldn't have happened, it's wet and rain forest.
We're talking average annual rainfalls of 1700-1800mm.
Normally they can't be hazard reduction burned anyway.
These aren't normal conditions.