The new bushfire reality

A WhatsApp message came in yesterday morning from a good friend in the UK. She’d read reports of the devastating bushfires in Australia, and asked what the story is where I am. As I replied, it felt as if I was writing less-than-credible fiction rather than a periodic catch-up.

‘Eastern Australia resembles a climate war zone. I don't think that is an exaggeration. More than five million hectares had been burnt a few days ago, but it’s more than that now. Parts of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia are burning, too, as well as New South Wales where the fires have done their worst so far.

It is estimated that almost 500 million mammals, birds and reptiles have directly or indirectly died by fire. It’s hard to know how accurate the figure is: we’ll be counting that particular cost for the rest of our time on the planet. The koala population of New South Wales, decimated this century as a result of tree clearing for crops and cows as well as houses, has been reduced by a third. Koalas cry out when they are distressed. I have seen them being 'translocated' before the dozers move in: it is a gut-wrenching and pitiful sound. Horror stories from people in the burning bush describe koalas screaming as they're trapped in flaming trees. Catastrophe writ large and heartrending.

The maximum temperature in all states and territories of Australia was 40+ on Monday. Yes, even in Tasmania. Hobart experienced its highest December temperature ever recorded. Forty-odd degrees in Hobart is ridiculous.

We had 43 degrees in St Kilda in Melbourne (and it was the same on moving day a week ago). But at least in Melbourne we get frequent fronts moving through. There used to be high temperatures for several days on end, we’re told, but in the couple of years we’ve been living here we've had them one day at a time, mercifully. A wind change can mean a 20-degree drop in an hour, which is crazy.

Responsibility for firefighting in Australia is largely that of state governments. They can no longer cope with fires on this scale, however. Our climate-change-denialist federal government is using this division of responsibility as an excuse to stand back from the crisis, serving their fossil fuel masters (donors) well. But our pentecostalist PM was forced to cut short his Hawaiian Christmas once volunteer firefighters began to die. Two were killed when their truck was rolled by a falling tree: both were in their 30s with young children. Their families' Christmas holidays will be forever ruined by heartbreak.

For ordinary Australians, volunteer firefighters are the highest class of local hero, and rightly so. They work until they drop to the ground to sleep, literally. These lifesavers – like those on the beaches – are unpaid, and have to return to their “day” jobs after working nonstop for weeks in the closest thing to hell most of us can imagine. [Career firefighters control urban fire stations.]

Previously unknown conditions have been experienced in this season’s fires: the height and intensity of flames; the amalgamation of fire fronts; the creation of massive pyrocumulomimbus thunder clouds, complete with updraughts, downbursts and “firenadoes”. Witnesses describe fire “falling out of the sky”. Lightning strikes create new fires, as do flying embers, sometimes carried kilometres beyond the fire front by wind shear. Strong, squally, often spiralling winds are totally unpredictable. Two fires can become one at alarming speed. Surviving a firestorm requires remarkable foresight… and more than a little luck.

How a bushfire creates a storm, courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology

70-metre-high flames in New South Wales

Bushfires reached the northern suburbs of Melbourne a couple of days ago. Yesterday, in Gippsland in the east of Victoria, thousands of holidaymakers sought refuge on the beach as fire encircled the town of Mallacoota. Another firefighter died, close to the Victorian-NSW border: he was 28, and expecting his first child. When words are inadequate.

Most people act sensibly during bushfire season. They prepare beforehand by clearing ‘fuel’ from on and around their homes. They usually have the choice to stay and defend their property, but there comes a point when movement (escape) is prohibited, and you cannot rely on rescue by firefighters. In this new incarnation of bushfire season, it seems prudent to abandon thoughts of saving your home and get the hell out.

There have been apocalyptic skies over Sydney for weeks, with air quality measurements many times higher than internationally recommended levels. Australian smoke blankets New Zealand’s South Island. In towns along the south coasts of New South Wales and Victoria the New Year’s Eve nightmare continues. People can neither get in nor out; food supplies are running low; comms are down. Who knows if your friends, family, animals and home are still standing? Is ‘chaos’ a fair description of these communities’ breakdown? Is the federal government guilty of a crime against humanity by knowingly failing to adequately protect its citizens from existential risk?

What has occurred in Australia during years of drought and weeks of bushfire has been predicted by this country’s esteemed climate scientists and fire chiefs for years; and ignored by a succession of right-wing governments. “Australia has always had lengthy droughts and fierce fires”, they cry. Indeed it has; but these are different, as the majority of its people appreciates. The government insists it will not change its climate policy, paltry as it is. The nature of a crisis that has developed more rapidly, extensively and dramatically than people were expecting demands that such prevaricating “leaders” be brought down. Why should the people tolerate more than another two years of gross ineptitude and negligence? The rest of the world should observe and learn, rapidly.’

This image breaks my heart.

picture source: news.com.au