Question NSW is on fire. We’re fucked.

The last few weeks have seen New South Wales go the direction of the current situation over the Pacific in Calafornia, with 350 dead in a series of catastrophic bushfires. The damage has now exceeded that of the 2009 Black Saturday fires twice over, and tommorow is expected to bring the worst fire damage Australia has ever seen. Our firefighters are undermanned, underfunded, and there’s too much at risk for them to protect. I’m in the Inner city, so I should be safe, but with Sydney declaring a state of emergency, and the first ever fire emergency status in our city’s history being thrown up...it doesn’t look good.

Tommorow, a heat wave is coming through, with strong winds expected to fan the flames already consuming much of the state. Sydney’s inner suburbs are surrounded by national parkland. If the fires get there, we could be looking at the city outskirts being showered with hot embers. My grandmother lives out that way, and she’s got a particularly unsafe backyard.

I’ve got friends up on the Northern Beaches who might lose tgeir lives or their homes in coming days. I’ve got some friends out west who’ve already had their entire home burn to the ground.

This is the biggest bushfire season we’ve had ever. Period. I’m sure it can only get worse from here as our climate gets hotter.

Yep, coming from someone who's been looking north up into a still-raging fire, I feel your pain.

And smell the smoke.

And, people- get used to it. They were predicting shit like this back in the 80s.

Wow, I hope your friends and family stay safe.

I am not from Australia but I did read some comments from Australians saying that in their not so respectful opinion it would take Canberra burning down around them before the politicians stopped playing their fiddles and started taking seriously the ever growing magnitude of these perennial fires.

I remember Black Saturday well. We had about 6 seperate fires within half a mile of my house, and damn near lost the suburb to the south.

Come to think of it, we got warned with last years St. Patrick's day fired too.

One of my daughters is now up in NSW, and had to pack for evacuation, though they didn't have to go in the end.

A couple of the neighbours, fire fighters, are up there too and sent back some amazing pictures.

So, update on the fires:

* Sydney is currently encircled with fires. Most of the state is on fire, and the smoke is beginning to get thick.

* The government refuses to publicly comment or act on the fires, despite them reacting to the less destructive 2013 NSW bushfires. Six years ago. Albiet, that was a different government, and not the "almighty" Scomo.

* Two of our extremely small fleet of firefighting helicopters have crashed due to mechanical failure. I don't know what happened to the pilot of the first heli, but thankfully the pilot of the second one is OK, and managed to walk away from the crash.

* The fires haven't reached the city quite yet, but if this goes on for much longer, there might be new fires starting up in the city outskirts due to falling ash.

* Drought conditions still persist, which is not helping the situation one iota.

* To top it all off, the government is also beginning to try and make the right to protest illegal, due to the number of climate change protests. Y'know, protesting: a basic democratic right, and part of our constitution (TMK).

In advance of the helpful "why don't you just move" suggestions, see attachment.

CrazyMinh wrote: So, update on the fires:

* Sydney is currently encircled with fires. Most of the state is on fire, and the smoke is beginning to get thick.

* The government refuses to publicly comment or act on the fires, despite them reacting to the less destructive 2013 NSW bushfires. Six years ago. Albiet, that was a different government, and not the "almighty" Scomo.

* Two of our extremely small fleet of firefighting helicopters have crashed due to mechanical failure. I don't know what happened to the pilot of the first heli, but thankfully the pilot of the second one is OK, and managed to walk away from the crash.

* The fires haven't reached the city quite yet, but if this goes on for much longer, there might be new fires starting up in the city outskirts due to falling ash.

* Drought conditions still persist, which is not helping the situation one iota.

* To top it all off, the government is also beginning to try and make the right to protest illegal, due to the number of climate change protests. Y'know, protesting: a basic democratic right, and part of our constitution (TMK).

If they make protests illegal, make it unfeasible to enforce

CrazyMinh wrote: So, update on the fires:

* To top it all off, the government is also beginning to try and make the right to protest illegal, due to the number of climate change protests. Y'know, protesting: a basic democratic right, and part of our constitution (TMK).

Well I'll say it

If they have that many protesters with TIME on their hands?

Then kit them up, train up and go fight the fires!

Big fan of put up or shut up myself!

To indicate how bad this is, here’s a photo I took from a friend’s apartment in the same building where I used to live before a certain repairman burned my house to ash. This was taken about an hour (EDIT: My phone’s clock is broken, and I checked my computer’s clock right before I took this. It was taken at 11:13, but my phone’s tagging data says 12:13. It’s now 12:23. Sorry) ago:

Scary video showing what's hapening globally,

An interesting historical perspective on Australian fires.

Look back to the 6th. of February 1851, 168 years ago, when 5,000,000 hectares of Victoria, and Southern Australia went up in smoke.

The Black Thursday bushfires were a devastating series of fires that swept the state of Victoria, Australia. in 1851. Fortunately, only twelve human lives were lost owing to the small sparse population at the time, however, one million sheep, thousands of cattle and countless native animals also died.

The Black Thursday bushfires were caused in part by an intense drought that occurred throughout 1850 when the continent suffered from extreme heat. There was at that time, no ‘excessive’ CO2 in play.

“The temperature became torrid, and on the morning of the 6th of February 1851, the air which blew down from the north resembled the breath of a furnace. A fierce wind arose, gathering strength and velocity from hour to hour until about noon it blew with the violence of a tornado. By some inexplicable means, it wrapped the whole country in a sheet of flame — fierce, awful, and irresistible.”

It is believed that the disaster began in the Plenty Ranges when a couple of bullock drivers left logs burning unattended, which set fire to long, dry grass affected by the recent drought. Aboriginal people had managed these areas for tens of thousands of years, using fire-stick farming to clear out fuel build up and maintain tracts of walkable land and hunting grounds. Their displacement by Europeans meant a complete regime shift in the ecology of the Australian bush with the result that tremendous fires become possible. Over 16 years from the settlement, this process led to a catastrophic build-up of fuel.

The weather reached record extremes. By eleven it was about 47 °C (117 °F) in the shade. Survivors claimed the air was so full of smoke and heat that their lungs seemed to collapse. Pastures and plains shrivelled to wastelands, water-holes disappeared and creeks dried up. The hot north wind was so strong that thick black smoke reached northern Tasmania. A quarter of Victoria lay in a heap of desolate ruins. People fled to water to escape the suffocating air around them, returning after everything was over, to the sight of “blackened homesteads”and the charred bodies of animals that could not escape. The weather at sea was even “more fearful than onshore”. The intense heat could be felt 32 km (20 mi) out to sea where a ship came under burning ember attack and was covered in cinders and dust.

So, update on the situation here in Oz:

* A entire town near the Victoria-NSW border have been forced to shelter on their local pier as their town and all of the surrounding dry land is on fire. Last I heard, the Australian Navy had dispatched several ships to perform a rescue operation.

* Most of the state is still on fire, with something like 183 active fires. Most of the roads leading out of Sydney have been cut off by massive groups of fires, and much of the rural townships further inland have simply ceased to exist.

* Blacktown is currently on fire, and that's in Sydney's Western Suburbs.

* Sports stadiums statewide are being used as refugee centres for displaced residents from affected areas.

* Many Royal Fire Service volunteers have died fighting the fires

* Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, is actively helping fight the blaze as part of one of many volunteer fire crews that have popped up around the state.

* The current Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, took the opportunity to take a holiday in Hawaii. While he was enjoying his vacation, two volunteer firefighters died in a firetruck accident. The prime minister responded by holding a "press conference" over the phone to an Australian radio station. Upon his return, he proceeded to hold a New Year's Eve party at Kiribilli house here in Sydney. The protests were massive last night.

CrazyMinh wrote: * The current Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, took the opportunity to take a holiday in Hawaii. While he was enjoying his vacation, two volunteer firefighters died in a firetruck accident. The prime minister responded by holding a "press conference" over the phone to an Australian radio station. Upon his return, he proceeded to hold a New Year's Eve party at Kiribilli house here in Sydney. The protests were massive last night.

Sounds like you all got the bonfire going....just toss that PM right on top and get a new one!

To put things in perspective, the burnt area is about the size of West Virginia.

And some of those fires are expected to burn for at least two more months.