Bushfire season 2024-2025

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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The Grampians in Victoria have been burning for days, and are expected to burn for weeks.

Total Fire Ban declared for Victoria tomorrow, and Catastrophic conditions expected on Boxing Day.

Stay safe, all.
 
This is one of the reasons I prefer Ireland. It's dull and mild here.
 
Today's fire danger rating for the Mount Lofty Ranges (AKA Adelaide Hills) is extreme.

Currently there is only one fire burning in our State, in the 'Onkaparinga Hills' between Clarendon and the Southern suburbs.

It's quite small (1 km circumference) and the current status is 'contained'.

Gossip is that the CFS are most concerned about the cool change that is heading our way for Boxing Day.
(Because the gust front can spread fires very quickly, if any are burning when it arrives.)

Merry Christmas everyone.
 
I’m not really concerned about Melbourne. We’ve had a string of mild days with rain. 30C today and 40C tomorrow, but then a change and more mild weather. Compare that to Black Saturday where we had little rain beforehand and a several 40C+ days in a row before the devastating bushfires.

Also in recent years we have made great strides in undergrowth removal, burn offs and strengthening power lines.

Yes, I could be wrong, but I don’t think the conditions will be dangerous here.
 
Well that extreme weather was pretty scary. One thing I learned was to reduce the size of my Vic Emergency app watch zone a bit, so I wasn't panicking quite so often.
 
dudalb said:
You forgot the important diffrence concerning wildfires, Ireland is very, very, wet.
Click to expand...
You can say that again. We were in a town in South-west Ireland where the locals were afraid a drought was imminent and the rivers would dry up. It hadn’t rained in a week…..
 
This weekend we are facing two very hot days in a row, not just the one. It’s not particularly windy in Melbourne, which is good.
 
dudalb said:
You forgot the important diffrence concerning wildfires, Ireland is very, very, wet.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:
There is little connection between rainfall and wildfires. Brazil, for example, has far higher precipitation than Ireland, but loses about twice as much tree cover to wildfire. Australia has about half the rainfall of Ireland, slightly higher than Canada a country that sees far higher loss of tree cover to wildfires.

Forestation patterns, land use, human activities etc cetera have more relevance t fire risk.
 
catsmate said:
:rolleyes:
Australia has about half the rainfall of Ireland, slightly higher than Canada a country that sees far higher loss of tree cover to wildfires.
Click to expand...

Even if true, this is meaningless. Australia has tropical rainforests which get a lot of rain, but bushfires are very rare. We also have uninhabited deserts where bushfires can burn for weeks and nobody notices. My state of Victoria is the most at risk (because of the regular hot northerly winds). If Victorian forested areas had the rainfall of Ireland, we would have very relaxed summers.
 
Indeed, our rainfall is mostly in certain areas, where all the trees are, and where almost all of the humans live.

It used to be that a wet spring was the harbinger of a bad bushfire season, because in the wet all the grass and plants would grow, and then dry out in the hot summer, providing a huge load of tinder on the ground.
 
arthwollipot said:
It used to be that a wet spring was the harbinger of a bad bushfire season, because in the wet all the grass and plants would grow, and then dry out in the hot summer, providing a huge load of tinder on the ground.
Click to expand...
This is still the case, but we have become much more serious at burning off and reducing undergrowth.
 
Heavy rain across Victoria today, which was very welcome. We were at our son’s house in Carlton, which got 20ml in 7 minutes!
 
Although 42C (108F) in Melbourne today, bushfires are almost unthinkable. Not only because of the mild days beforehand (only 26C yesterday), but the thunderstorms. I’m not talking about storms which often come with a change, but during this ridiculously hot day. I have never experienced this in Melbourne before. This is literally a tropical weather system.

I would like climate change deniers to explain this.
 
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