Topic: Victoria bushfires 7 February 2009, record heatwave for SA, VIC, TAS and NSW 27 Jan to 8 Feb 2009

[Jimmy Deguara]

John,

You seemed to indicate with your final paragraph that the 'risk' with the wind change and stronger winds were higher. The death toll just simply does not match up. Were the wind changes also a factor in Ash Wednesday?

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jimmy Deguara]

John,

Thanks for the clarification. However, I was of the opinion that various sources at the time suggested the winds in Ash Wednesday approached 150km/h. This is the reason I wish if it were possible and you had the time was to prepare a table with mean approximate wind speeds as well as maximum windspeeds from the various events as suggested earlier. It would be much less confusing and perhaps and more standardised method of comparison.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Thomas]

Hi John,

Thanks for your discussion, it is very informative. Just a few questions, you say that temperature is about 4th in order of importance but that temperature did play a role in that this resulted the mixed boundary layer being 5km in depth. I have had a suspicion that the temperature its self is not so important as I have a hard time imagining 10C (as in 35C or 45C) would make much difference when the fire is burning at over 1000C. You mention however that deep mixing over the lowest 5km is important in drying the air a ground level which I can understand is important. I guess this brings me back to my previous question, do dry adiabatic lapse rates in the lowest 4-5km help 'vent' the smoke form the fire? Do pyrocumulonimbus enhance their parent fire?

Michael

[nmoir]

hi guys , sorry this has taken a while and i will put up some pix at some point but i doubt they will add much as you would have all seen  enough. i have just returned from covering the aftermath and  having also been in canberra for those fires something i would like to throw up is the contribution of the pine plantations which are throughout the bushfire damaged areas and also played a major role in canberra. The pines though dont spot as far as eucalyptus do have far more intense embers and seem to explode into flame even quicker than the oil filled gum trees. i think at the end of this apart from the extreme temps , topography , winds and arson that town planning will need to be better looked at as once again these plantations in many cases came very close to properties and towns , it makes me wonder about other locations where they are such as in the central tablelands of NSW

i have covered bushfires for well over a decade including all the major sydney fires and canberra and experienced the 94 fires in the blue mts and i am a big believer in the leave early or defend routine but this was of a magnitude too strong. john allen has said that many died in there homes and this is very true and if i had not seen the damage myself i would not have believed it but many places were not destroyed by embers (canberra) but incredible direct flame , if you were not listening to a CFA scanner or paying extreme attention on that day and you were in the wrong place then it appears your fate was sealed , home prepared or not.

serious disaster planning like the automated tornado warning systems and shelters in the USA will probably be a good way to go i would think but that debate will come soon once the initial shock of this unbelievable event has passed.

on the wind speeds , i did not see the pyro tornado damage that i saw in canberra but i was not able to see much of the area as they were large fires in size.  i would think though the massive inflow that a fire of this size would require at the front of the fire would create extreme winds  , any thoughts on these very localised winds ? (perhaps that is where the 150kph from ash wednesday JD heard about came from.

[Richary]

Whilst I can't comment on the actual wind speeds there, one report (from a CFA member I saw being interviewed) stated the fire travelled 25km up a hill in 7 minutes. That gives an approximate speed to 200kph which seems extreme but could well be possible.

As for the pine plantations, I remember seeing them burn quite well when I lived in Canberra many years ago when the hills to the east of Farrer weren't covered in houses. A similar situation of pine plantations near houses/towns is also common in the Adelaide Hills as well as the South East of South Australia. In fact the Adelaide Hills is a nasty area because of the mix of gums and pines, so if a fire gets going the pines can give it the really intense heat while the gums can contribute to the spotting.

[Michael Bath]

Permanent links to the Melbourne radar on the 7th February 2009. It's a pity the main radar was offline for three and a half hours during the afternoon. The airport radar was not available for 90 minutes too.

---> Melbourne Airport 128km scale radar loop
0100 to 1040 UTC (0510 to 0640 missing)


---> Melbourne 128km scale radar loop
0100 to 1900 UTC (0342 to 0700 missing)


---> Melbourne Doppler radar loop
0100 to 1900 UTC (0342 to 0700 missing)


Melbourne 00z

[Twodogs]

I've just returned from a holiday in the Mansfield / Alexandra area and was one of those caught (although not badly caught) in the fires, and I'd just like to post some personal observations on what it was like there.

We were away on holiday in Alexandra (3rd Feb) and just outside Mansfield (4/5/6/7 Feb) and conditions were pretty extreme.  I'm sure you guys don't want to know about the holiday, so I'll cut to the chase.

Friday - we went on a trip up to Woods Point - a very steep climb up a gravel road and the car (land rover freelander) decided that it was a bit too hot, so the fuel decided to evaporate neccesitating stopping every 10 mins or so to let the engine cool down enough to actually go.    When we were almost at Woods point, the car conked out (again) and I decided that it was really too dangerous to continue, so turned back.   Had to stop quite a few times on the way back to let the engine cool enough to continue.    Finally, after a couple of hours, we got back to where we were staying.

Sat - went into Mansfield for supplies, then back to the farm.   We went to sit in the Delatite River for a while, but it was so hot it felt like someone had hairdryers on full blast streaming directly into your face.  Dunking my face into the river, it took only about 15 seconds to heat it back up again - it was absolutely unbearable and seemed to be getting hotter.   About 3pm we went back up to the homestead and tried to keep cool in the house.   I looked up at the sky and saw smoke, but when I remarked on it to the owners, they said it was only dust.    To me, it seemed to be the wrong colour and was moving "wrong" to be dust, but it was fairly high, so I didn't worry too much about it.   About 8-ish (pm) after we'd seen the news and knew that there were a few bushfires (but at that time, didn't know how serious they were) the smoke came down to ground level.  Vis at that time was around 2-300 metres and a very strong smell of smoke.    About 10-ish, the owners came in and told us that all of the roads out of the area were cut, but that we weren't currently 'under threat', however due to the spotting & supposed wind change, they'd be on Fire Watch all night.   There was also a fire at Mt Buller (which was about 10km away in a direct line-of-sight to us).   The only way out was via Benella, which was about a 2 hr detour.   Due to the heat (it was still above 40 degrees at 8pm), we thought it would be safer to stay (mind you, nobody had contacted either us, or the owners of the property to let us know what was going on - the only info was coming from the CFA and DSE websites).

We woke up pretty early on Sun morning, and the vis was down to around 50 metres - smoke was very thick and it was still over 32 degrees (please note, no monitoring equip other than the thermometer in the house - which was showing 32, but it felt hotter outside).   Decided that it would be better going in the relative cool and stillness of the morning, than waiting until mid-morning, so we headed off on the detour.    The smoke stayed thick and low all the way to Benella, then down the Hume almost to Sunday Creek (just north of Wandong / Kilmore) when it started to lift and the temp felt a lot cooler.   The police had just opened the Hume again and we were one of the first through - fires were still burning on either side of the freeway (on the median strip) but with the wind dropped to almost nothing, it was reasonably safe.

Looking at the burnt (and burning) areas, there were a lot of shrubs/bushes/trees that were only burnt up to about 30cm from the ground, but the leaves were untouched, so the windspeed must have been incredible at those points.  CFA and DSE tankers were still running around blacking out the area - with my extemely limited knowledge of both weather and fire, it looked like there were a lot of micro-climates - some areas were completely devastated, but others very close by had only burnt to between 30cm and a metre from the ground, and some were still burning.

Sorry there's no definative data from the area, but it was the last thing on my mind at that time! 

Niall

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Twodogs (sorry for the name reference),

That is a scary situation - your can count yourselves very lucky!

On a similar note, several nights ago, I was invited to part-take in a

pre-recorded radio interview on a radio show in Dublin, Ireland. Promise you won't laugh at me:) I tried my best.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[nmoir]

if you guys want to see incredible fire footage , this is it. this fire front appears to be rotating hard and gives the impression of being close to a strong tornado , around 2 min mark watch the smoke rapidly rotate. taken from St Andrews.

Terrifying sound of bushfire

Nick

[Jimmy Deguara]

Nick,

Absolutely insane! The sound of that roar is similar to a tornado! Winds simultaneously picks up as the 'firestorm' approaches! Now those observations and video teamed with the pictures from Paul Graham and others of the fire's pyrocumulonimbus make this quite interesting. Many on this forum have commented about wanting to see what conditions were like inside to learn more about the dynamics that were associated with this event and I uess similar events in the past.

I would be interested in thoughts from others.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

I was in VIC for EWN work meetings with the Country Fire Authority and community Tues/Wed this week. We've got some new technology that will allow the CFA to locate their trucks or people via their mobile phone position, and display that on maps and send messages if necessary. The meeting was held at Arthurs Creek fire station and well received by those in attendance.

Arthurs Creek was just saved from being burnt by the Black Saturday fires when the wind changed. Their local community of Strathewen was not so fortunate with 27 people dying there.

On Wednesday morning a couple of the volunteers drove us around the Strathewen area, pointing out the devastation, people who had died or escaped, houses saved or not. It was very sad. The area has been very much changed in that there are now expansive views of the countryside from the roads where once it was just forest and hidden homes.

A couple of pics - not much has grown back in 6 months. The green on the ground was mainly moss.









Australian{Bushfire 7th feb 2009 St Andrews Vic}

This is the house where that incredible footage was taken. The home is just a couple of ks west of Kinglake




All photos for 5 August 2009

[Jimmy Deguara]

Michael,

Incredible images of the aftermath almost 6 months on after the Victorian Bush Fires disaster. Of course we may find vegetation wise that some parts of the forest may never recover - certainly not to the extent you describe! Extreme heat in the Tasmanian fires I think in the 1960's totally destroyed forests beyond the point they could recover due to the intense heat of the fires.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Richary]

I remember the same in the big Sydney fires of 1996(?). While many Australian plants require a bushfire to trigger them to drop seeds, the problem is that naturally occurring fires keep getting put out by humans.

So when the fire does finally come through, the fuel load is such that it burns much hotter than it would if there were regular fires, so hot that it in fact kills the seeds.

[Peter J]

I remember the same in the big Sydney fires of 1996(?)....

Rich, I think you'll find it was 1995....

[Peter J]

Even though I have not commented much on this fire, I think it would be interesting to note that as one who does not live too far from the worst affected areas, it was strange to see the hot duststorm like cloud to the north just racing across the sky NE wards and an amazing speed from my vantage point between Camberwell and Alamein (where I was covering charter work for Connex who has lost power on the Alamein line just 1hr before the wind-change and firestorm began.

Also, a few days later I was on a school bus run in the northern areas of Lilydale (near Coldstream) sighting flames to my north less than 5kms away!

I lost 3 friends in the fires, 2 were teenagers trying to shelter in Kinglake West, the other in Marysville.

People in these locations were given the stay/go policy, but by the time they made up their mind to go (which from previous VIC fires would have been plenty of time) - they were quickly overtaken in the firestorm inferno and had no chance to escape!

A terrible event - and recently on the news, Sam the Koala, who was saved by firefighter, has also died - the latest victim some six months later!

Big Pete