Fire Awareness

[Psi]

At this point I don’t think anyone is unaware of the tragic situation in California and the also in my mind unforgivable reactions from many people in power or with sufficient voice to sway those in power.

I haven’t seen this pop up in the “in the news” thread but I am watching the situation as an Aussie has just be gobsmacking how unrealistic and blinkered some reactions are.

Down under - we know fire - it’s a real threat and in recent years way more so.

Whether you believe in global warming or climate change - or even if you disbelieve these theories and it’s all part of a natural cycle - you cannot dispute that weather is becoming more extreme in recent memory.   If you want to dispute this fact in recent memory then how about you discuss that with insurance companies that are seeing the changes to their bottom lines and pulling back insurance on properties in areas deemed high risk, be it fire or flood.  

The reality of it is - with the extremes we are facing with the weather - be it the El Niño or La Niña, or the Indian Dipole or any other weather cycle near you - many of them are tending to be more extreme.

The reason this is a concern is that any planning, and physical systems and any mitigations to impact this need to change.  How? that is still up in the air.

Down here - we also know our politicians - Scotty doesn’t hold a hose…

We are talking impacts that may last decades - and our current systems to support - failing to support etc are based around systems that might have been designed decades ago.    A 4 or 5 year political term only looks to itself and not the greater good.

I have looked at satellite images of LA and NASA FIRMS and what I see isn’t 2, 3 or 4 years of neglect and planning.  It’s measured in decades.   I can see population centres that based on Santa Ana winds and mountain canyons are focused into fire corridors.    The raw growth up until population centres doesn’t have fire break after firebreak because that doesn’t look nice.   The before and after shots of many places do not seem to be suitable for such a high risk area.

Yes there are very recent aspects that need to be accountable, but a plumbing system failing due to overuse or something well beyond its scope isn’t that occurred in that time.   Redundancy to provide independent pumping facilities to higher elevations and greater supplies of water needs to have been developed.    Here I believe properties over a certain size need to hold a certain level of fire fighting capability and have tanks to support that.   I highly doubt any urban / sub-urban fire hydrant system is up to supplying the level of water needed.    Our recent fires in the Grampians and airlift support relied on pre-cached depots of water that I believe are becoming something that will be standard for all future fires - but that doesn’t mean it will be safe for aerial support.   Tragically even there the conditions can exceed those that are safe and unfortunately we have seen deaths amongst those who fight the fires for us all.

Our fire seasons in the last 5-10 years have increasingly overlapped which means we are less able to share resources.    10 years ago the sky crane Elvis was i believe well known both here and in the US (and sounded hellishly loud on a low pass overhead)

Something needs to be done - and honestly - at the moment - despite the “free speech” you have over there the best thing - is tell your politicians to shut up.   Let the professionals deal with it, and then have your report.    

The grandstanding will occur later and it will still hamstring future responses but right now what anyone in the fire zones needs is compassion.   

Lets give them that.