Record Heat Fuels Widespread Fires in Australia

“Those of us who spend our days trawling — and contributing to — the scientific literature on climate change are becoming increasingly gloomy about the future of human civilization,” Elizabeth Hanna, a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, told The Sydney Morning Herald. “We are well past the time of niceties, of avoiding the dire nature of what is unfolding, and politely trying not to scare the public.”

Dr. Jones, the government climate scientist, echoed that opinion.

“This event is turning out to be hotter, more spatially expansive and the duration is quite remarkable,” he said in an interview. “And that suggests climate change.”

Record Heat Fuels Widespread Fires in Australia

By MATT SIEGEL

Published: January 9, 2013/ The New York Times / http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/world/asia/record-heat-fuels-widespread-fires-in-australia.html?_r=0

SYDNEY, Australia — Bush fires raging across some of the most populous parts of Australia — feeding off widespread drought conditions and high winds — pushed firefighters to their limits and residents to their wits’ end on Wednesday as meteorologists tracked the country’s hottest spring and summer on record into uncharted territory.

Four months of record-breaking temperatures stretching back to September 2012 have produced what the government says are “catastrophic” fire conditions along the eastern and southeastern coasts of the country, where the majority of Australians live.

Data analyzed on Wednesday by the government Bureau of Meteorology indicated that national heat records had again been set. The average temperature across the country on Tuesday was the highest since statistics began being kept in 1911, at 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding a mark set only the day before. Meteorologists have had to add two new color bands to their forecast maps, extending their range up to 129 degrees Fahrenheit.

“From this national perspective, one might say this is the largest heat event in the country’s recorded history,” said David Jones, manager of climate monitoring prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology. Firefighters were struggling to contain huge bushfires in Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, which have scorched around 500 square miles of forest and farmland since Tuesday. Fires on the island state of Tasmania off the country’s southern coast have destroyed more than 300 square miles since Friday.

No confirmed deaths have been reported in connection with the fires, but about 100 people have been unaccounted for since a fire destroyed around 90 homes in Dunalley, Tasmania, last week. State agricultural officials say that tens of thousands of cattle and sheep are believed to have been killed in the fires, which have torn through some of the country’s most productive agricultural and farming regions.

Though the searing heat moderated a bit in some coastal areas on Wednesday, the government warned that the very hot air mass that blistered Sydney earlier in the week was moving up the eastern seaboard and would soon affect Brisbane, Australia’s third-largest city.

The fires have grown so large that they are plainly visible in photographs taken from the International Space Station on Tuesday and published by NASA. The intensity of the bushfires and the unrelenting heat prompted some climate scientists to decry what they see as public indifference to man-made climate change, which is widely seen as leading to more frequent extreme weather.

“Those of us who spend our days trawling — and contributing to — the scientific literature on climate change are becoming increasingly gloomy about the future of human civilization,” Elizabeth Hanna, a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, told The Sydney Morning Herald. “We are well past the time of niceties, of avoiding the dire nature of what is unfolding, and politely trying not to scare the public.”

Dr. Jones, the government climate scientist, echoed that opinion.

“This event is turning out to be hotter, more spatially expansive and the duration is quite remarkable,” he said in an interview. “And that suggests climate change.”

At least 141 separate fires were burning in New South Wales on Wednesday, 31 of them out of control. The deputy commissioner of the state’s Rural Fire Service, Rob Rogers, told reporters that it was a bad sign that the fires could not be contained during the brief drop in temperatures.

“We’ve got a huge swath of New South Wales that potentially is going to get new fires again this afternoon,” Mr. Rogers said. “It will be an absolute battle to get containment on most of those fires before the return of the hot weather on the weekend.”

Tuesday’s high added to a growing list of records set during this extended heat wave, including the first time the country has recorded seven consecutive days of temperatures above 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) and eight straight days to start the year that were among the 20 hottest on record. And there is little prospect of imminent relief.

“We expect it to stay very hot across inland Australia for the next week,” Dr. Jones said. “Beyond that, it’s hard to say.”

Bush fires destroy dozens of houses in Australia's south east

Firefighters in Australia battle "horrendous" wildfires including a blaze with a 24-mile front on the outskirts of Melbourne

Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney 6:35AM GMT 10 Feb 2014 / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10627837/Bush-fires-destroy-dozens-of-houses-in-Australias-south-east.html

Thousands of firefighters in Australia are battling wildfires across the country's south-east which have destroyed dozens of homes and set a coal mine alight.

The worst of the fires spread in swirling winds across the state of Victoria, which faced its worst threat since the Black Saturday fires in February 2009 which killed 173 people.

The fires, which include a blaze with a front more than 24 miles long, have spread across the state and reached the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia's second largest city.

Thousands of people were evacuated across the state, more than 30,000 residents spent the night without power and some rural train services were suspended. No lives have been reported lost but further losses of homes are expected.

In Kilmore, a town about 35 miles north of Melbourne, residents said the damage was "horrendous".

"You could just see houses exploding, it was absolutely incredible," a resident, Mark Schrimpton, told ABC after five houses on his street were destroyed.

"It was just horrendous. You could see more smoke that flames at one stage."

Authorities said they had learnt the lessons from Black Saturday, when many residents in fire zones were caught with little warning and were confused as to whether to evacuate or stay and protect their homes.

"There is no doubt Victoria is much better place - and yesterday showed that - than where we were five years ago in Black Saturday," said Dennis Napthine, Victoria's premier. "We have learnt the lessons."

Firefighters from interstate and from New Zealand joined the battle, as authorities deployed more than 200 tankers and 21 aircraft. Police are investigating nine cases of arson, which may have contributed to the 150-odd fires that have broken out in recent days.

Milder conditions have assisted fire crews but about 48 blazes in Victoria remain out of control. A fire has broken out in an open-cut coal mine in the Latrobe Valley, east of Melbourne, which is likely to take several days to control.

"They were ferocious fires, they ran hard, they hit homes," Craig Lapsley, the state's fire services commissioner, told ABC radio.

"We think we are up to above 20 significant impacts on houses, seven of those are confirmed to be total losses."

Other reports put the loss of houses at 30.