Bush fires

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Xelasnave.1947, Nov 17, 2019.

  1. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    In various forms. Some of the fires were accidental, others were through sheer acts of stupidity, others like some in Queensland's South East, flared back up again when conditions changed and became so favourable to fires.

    For example, the new Lower Beechmont fire on the Gold Coast (I say new, because the previous one about a month ago had destroyed so many homes and lives and had been contained within containment lines and burning in rugged bushland further out West) was started when the Army did live fire training in dense bushland at their Canungra base, using live ordinances - on a day of total fire bans and severe to catastrophic fire danger for the region.. That started a fire, and given it was so hot and windy, the embers flew up in the air and started fires in a few areas in that region.

    One fire in New South Wales that became a raging inferno, was started when one farmer decided to do a backburn on his property and into the adjacent national park to protect his marijuana crop.

    Another fire was started by teenagers. One on North Stradbroke Island off the QLD coast was started by lightning from a nearby storm a few days ago.

    The Tewantin fire near Noosa was a flare up of a fire that has been burning for weeks.

    For a lot of the other fires, the causes are yet to be determined.

    I know that some of the fires and smoke were so bad, they literally spawned their own weather system and caused lightning which started even more fires. Some spread from backburning efforts and sudden wind changes or gusts.

    It's not just actions. But the causes are varied and in some cases, we will never know why or how they started.

    Climate change has made the fires worse. Climate change has helped change the weather pattern in these areas, leading to hotter and dryer conditions in areas that were - a few years ago - lush tropical forests to now being so dry that they are virtual tinderboxes. You say you are in Sydney?

    I don't think you quite understand how these areas and zones have changed. And it has changed in a relatively short space of time. The ecosystem has changed drastically. Lush tropical forests that were always misty and damp are now dry and arid.

    These areas are now burning.

    Climate change may not start the fires, but it has ensured the fires are hotter, spread faster and easier and spread to areas where fires would normally not burn - in other words, many of the fires in QLD is burning in tropical rainforests.

    Fire scientist David Bowman said he was astounded by the scale and intensity of the Queensland bushfire emergency.

    But what really caused him concern are the fires further north, near Mackay, which have penetrated the region’s rainforests.

    “I know of no comparable event in scientific literature,” he said. “This isn’t a fire burning into the edge of a rainforest and stopping. This is a fire that seems to be burning through rainforests. And we’re seeing fires of astonishing intensity.”

    And the reason the fire can burn in these rainforests is because the climate has altered the weather patterns so much, causing such severe droughts that go for so long, that it has affected and changed the entire region.

    If we fail to address the cause that makes these fires worse and more common and allows them to burn as they are currently burning and in areas that should not be burning at all, then it will only get worse and it will only ensure that fires lit by nature, deliberate actions of humans or accidentally will be all the more common, destroy even more homes and result in more loss of life.

    If we were in a movie maybe....

    Any fire is a problem for us - particularly at the moment. Because even a fire started by lightning, for example, can be catastrophic because those embers can carry on the wind for up to 20km's and start fires elsewhere - which is what has happened on the East Coast to a large extent.

    I just want to address another issue..

    People have died in these latest bushfires because they refused to evacuate or left it too late to evacuate.

    I still find it astonishing that people still do not have their stuff sorted and ready to grab at a moment's notice in the event of an emergency. I live next door to what used to be fairly lush sub-tropical bushland. It's literally over my back fence.. I have saved all photos to the cloud and memory sticks, as well as papers, etc, and it's all stored in bags, along with changes of clothes, toiletries, spare school uniforms for my kids and medications, etc, ready to grab as we get out the door to the car... If we get a watch and act warning, those bags are in the car and all the sprinklers are turned on and the pets are gathered - my kids get their school bags and put them in the car and we leave. And my neighbours do the same. We don't wait for a 'prepare to leave'. We are all already prepared and we get out at the first hint of a fire, because we know that if the wind changes, we won't have time to get out - regardless of how the fire starts.
     
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  3. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    As I went on to say, there is more of every kind of madness. More people, more stress, more road-rage, more fights, more domestic violence, more gun violence, more mass shootings, more craziness of every kind. We're all going looney-toons.
     
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  5. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Well stated. A very important point. IMO.
    Early evac is essential to keeping safe....
     
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  7. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Yes at the moment.
    However my main place is in a semi rain forrest in Northern NSW which was nearly lost four weeks ago.
    I have been thru many fires up there. Lost everything in 2002 except the house.
    More than twenty years ago it was so dry the Clarence River had stopped flowing except for a "stream" only two feet wide...you could step over the river.
    Yes indeed but the numbers(see pie chart above) certainly tell us that irrespective of claim mate change humans start the fires..sure like lightning can do it but the chart suggests humans are the problem ease look at the chart.

    The fire on the Hawkesberry River in 1994 is the worst that I have been involved in...the fire was in the crowns of trees..I witnessed a fire ball three hundred feet in diameter above the trees ..I had land marks and was on my boat with hand held compass so I know the size was not overestimated..to this day I can believe fire could behave that way.

    Fortunately the fires around me up North have not gone into the tree tops.
    Absolutely agree however I sense a disconnect when you mention that fires are started by humans.

    Look at the responses to my postings...it would be so simple to look at the graph and read the analysis and conclude humans are the problem but it seems that is interpreted as not being on the climate change side and is pushed to one side.

    I am not saying conditions are not bad at the moment, but I certainly have seen worse, ...but the thing that is really annoying me now ..is...I point out the problem and I present the numbers but clearly folk want to use the fires to show climate change is upon us...er I know that, you know that, but rather than address the numbers all I encounter is firstly I don't understand fires, which is wrong, that there isn't a human problem that's it's all climate change.

    It is about humans.

    Even you say we won't know how these fires start as if you don't care...look at the Pie chart.. there is no argument against the problem I point to and if folk were not so determined to point to the fires as their evidence of climate change I feel that the problem could be treated seriously.

    Why not..started by humans, for example...why select an ignition that is less than 6%???? Why not select an ignition that is over fifty percent... I suggest your choice of fire cause here shows your determination to look to climate change rather than for one single moment take on board what I am saying.

    Think about it..the fight I have run into here is unbelievable...I don't have to argue that the data shows what I point to is the very first issue to address.


    Heck the last I thought when I started this thread was that I was to field observations that fires start this way or that...I even provided the numbers..but the drift has been..let's ignore Alex's observation and point out that all the fires are probably not started by humans that it is just confirmation that climate change is with us..climate change does not start the fire..what is so difficult about accepting that proposition?????.

    I am done. My points is clear the numbers are clear and folk would do well to realise their desire to offer evidence for climate change entirely ignores the thrust of my op and subsequent addition of data and observation by the Government authority who gather the data.
    As I said I am done and extremely disappointed no one has suggested one single thing that could be done in the short term and to me seem incapable of taking on board anything that may diminish their determination that it is only climate change that is the problem.

    I have nothing more to say.
    Alex
     
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    Great. So ---
    Once you're safe, you have some time to contemplate what you've lost and wonder wtf you're supposed to do now.
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    A problem.

    You are focusing solely on one aspect, while ignoring everything else. Accidental rates is nearly equal to suspicious and is higher than a deliberate act by people.

    Don't forget, suspicious means they suspect human involvement, but there is not enough evidence to confirm it.

    From the link where where that graph appears:

    Difficulties exist in determining how the numbers of deliberate (incendiary and suspicious) fires have changed over time, due to changes in database collection methods, difficulties in integrating databases, the considerable uncertainty in the causes of many fires and complexities in delineating the specific cause of particular temporal variations. For example, although the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation reports only minor variation in the number of fires from 1999-2000 to 2002-03, this belies the fact that severe weather conditions during 2002-03 trebled the number of natural fires. This alone would have been sufficient to reduce the proportion of deliberate fires, but 2002-03 was also marked by lower numbers of deliberate fires. The latter may reflect the impact of the recent introduction of targeted arson reduction strategies across Western Australia, increased closures of parks due to adverse fire conditions, or increased public awareness and vigilance.

    Yes, humans are responsible for the greater majority of the bushfires in Australia, either deliberate or accidental, but the change in climate, longer and stronger droughts, and the conditions have made the likelihood of these fires starting even greater.

    Umm.. Yes it has.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-08/nsw-fires-in-pictures/11688244

    And these fires are burning in sub-tropical rainforests because everything is so dry and the humidity is nonexistent.. Fires in Northern QLD are in warm climate rainforests.. again, bone dry. No one has seen anything like this in living memory.

    It's not a disconnect.

    It's more along the lines of 'okay.. and?'.. And I don't mean to sound heartless here. But people will always start fires, be it accidental or deliberate. And it is becoming much easier to start such fires that go out of control like this now, because the climate has changed and altered the environment so drastically. Frankly, I find your dismissal of climate change to be astonishing. Yes, people will start fires. We have always started fires, be it deliberately, accidentally, and through leaving things like broken bottles by the side of the road in forests and bushland, or flicking lit cigarettes outside the car window, etc. There is nothing anyone can do about it.

    You seem to discount the affect the changing climate has had on the environment, so that it burns as it is currently burning.. Do you get what I'm saying?

    There is a reason why fire chiefs have been trying to warn the Government to be prepared (we need more water bombing planes, etc) for the last few years, because the changing climate has altered what was once lush forest into arid forest and the fuel load is dangerously high. The Government ignored those warnings because the LNP does not believe in climate change.

    I'll be blunt.

    These fires would not be as bad as they are currently and burning for over a month in some instances, were it not for climate change.

    Sure, we can ignore science and scientists, fire chiefs, etc, because apparently the biggest problem is people starting fires.. And certainly, people starting fires is a massive issue.. We should not ignore the fact that it is such a massive issue because of climate change. What should have been controlled fairly quickly can no longer be controlled because everything is so dry, that rainforests are now arid forests so the fires can burn so easily and so dangerously.

    Because I used it as an example..

    And in my home state, we currently have major bushfires burning that started with lightning. So I used it as an example.

    You want to focus on people? Okay. My response would still be the same.

    These fires would not be as extreme or severe if the climate had not altered the environment so drastically over the last few years.

    Human's biggest and best technological advancement came from learning to start a fire. Our biggest downfall is our failure to recognise the impact we now have on the planet and how our choices and actions affect the environment.

    Humans will always start fires. That is agiven. Be it deliberately or accidentally or by creating conditions that allow fires to start in the future. But we are also responsible for ensuring that when a fire does start, it will burn hotter, longer and go much further than it has ever gone before. And yes, the reason for that is because the climate has changed so much that dense rainforest is now arid enough to burn.

    These are some of are the areas that burnt in the Gold Coast Hinterland and those fires have been ongoing since September, after we endured dry heatwaves and temperatures of over 40 in the middle of winter:

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    Most of these areas are now gone. Burnt to a crisp.

    Before they burnt, it had become dry and arid.

    So you want to tell me we should not be focusing on climate change because the biggest issue is humans deliberately starting fires?

    10 years ago, if you started a fire there, it would not get very far, because it's a rainforest. It's damp.. everything is green and hard to burn.

    I kind of find your response to be somewhat unbelievable, to be honest.

    And what's your solution to people starting fires?

    "Culling" them? Marshal law as you suggested earlier if this was a terrorist attack?

    People will start fires. You should read the link you provided earlier and see what observations they have made in regards to people starting fires.
     
  10. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,502
    Only because of the responses. It was no big deal. I would have thought , particularly knowing the general views here, that climate change would be a given.
    The response was almost laughable in my view.

    Its like the wife saying to the husband you may be hansome but you are a lieing mongrel dog who is steeling air from good folk and his reply is..so you think I am handsome...the most important thing I opened the thread to talk about was not heard and things are moved to climate change blah blah…
    That's the truth.
    Of course it does. So do they suspect a human or a 6% natural cause.
    Why do you think they use the word suspicious for goodness sake...they don't suspect raptors.
    Was that so hard? So simple. Thank you. That is the issue I sort to raise in my op...
    Yes we all know that..but while so focused upon that important observation we still face the problem hinted at in my op.
    And as climate change is so important it is easy to forget that there are more fires than reasonable..I have been thru bad drought which were as bad but probably worse than this current one..I could find figures but that is my belief based on experience...as I said I can recall the Clarence River almost stopping..I would need to look but I am pretty sure the current level is no where near that low..And I will go and look when I get back there...anyways as dry as it was back then there were not as many fires as now...
    Slow down I am talking of personal experience. I said what I have seen.
    Yes that is for sure..Funny thing. when the fires were raging our way four weeks ago I go out to the car one morning and there was a heavy dew?????...How could that be? I finally concluded it must have been water from the water bombers...but it sure was confusing.
    Well there is the problem...That is your fundamentally incorrect assumption...100%..I probably care more than most..I grow trees I could sell them but no..I don't get tempted because I feel that someone has to actually be personally responsible and act in their life to do what they personally can..something that really pisses me off is all the folk running around wringing their hands and crying climate change yet leave all the lights on and change clothes driven by fashion not need, I use solar panels and battery banks,and even a wind generator, I drive the smallest car I can use...I don't throw out clothes to keep up with fashion, I watch my consumption and think of everything in terms of what is the carbon footprint.
    Not with that attitude.
    Your solution clearly is..fix climate change and it will all go away..dont worry about education, policing, prevention etc etc...sure. Things can be done and I have no doubt about that..OK no smoking in public places..including your car...make it hard to own a lighter,,you know like a gun..how many killed by fires and guns...what can be done is for folk to change such a defeatist attitude and be content that all they said about climate change is coming true..childish in my view as there is no ability to think what is the immediate problem and what can be done.

    Yes I can see that is how you see it..why ? maybe its me … I live in the bush mainly , before I got into the travel back and forth thing, I lived full time in the bush..dry rainforest... middle of a state forrest.
    I know the bush and how dry is dry... better than most I will bet.
    You assume too much. As I said I see the dry I see the human problem.
    I have had it so dry the fire was crossing a green watered lawn..the clippings under would dry out that fast.
    Maybe but I bet LNP..at least the country side of the equation are pretty interested in fire fighting gear so even if they absolutely reject climate change believe me everyone in the bush want more fire fighting gear...its not even a political thing.
    Sure but I can assure you I have seen worse...the one in 2002 was worse..it did in one afternoon what this last one took over a week or more to do...that is a fact.

    Well not me. I have been aware of the waste etc and it pisses me off...and you may note when I raise the fact that we should address waste to save energy...what do you think I get..I have given up arguing...but strangely if everyone cut consumption by 25% we may have started effecting change..All I see is..lets go Nuclear Power or alternate so we can keep on wasting energy.
    WHy do we have w16, v12 and v8 cars, racing etc...think of the carbon footprint...well no we don't need to actually do something like be more efficient do we?...who needs a car that does near 300 klm per hour..think of the energy wasted in building un necessary cars, planes boats...and now it will be what do I have against rich people..well nothing just the waste ...but folk don't want to face the obvious..
    And you get folk who support a carbon tax..what is the deal..making folk think twice about waste..the polluter's will pass on the cost and the increase in cost will see folk being less wasteful..but when I raise waste here..you don't believe climate change...well no that is not what I said...
    Are you sure?
    Those trees wont burn.My bush is not as lush as that and it wont burn to a crisp..Have you seen a bush fire close up,, fought one, come back to see what it has burnt.
    What do you think...can you fix the climate to morrow? how long will it be before it is turned around if ever..All believe it will get worse and you don't want to stop folk starting fires because you think nothing can be done or most fires are just well you know fires.
    I want recognition for a current problem...today...you are so focused on climate change you can not hear me no matter how loud I shout.
    That is simply incorrect. I lost most of my stuff in 2002 with a fire coming from the wet rain forrest 10 lkms away...it took about 30 homes in our area.The way you present things one would think fires are something we have only now experienced..heck 1994..that was a fire. When I was a kid you should have seen the fire West of where I lived out West...talk about end of the world.
    I will continue.
    later
    alex

    .
     
  11. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    8,502
    No. It is just that I am so far ahead on doing something about climate change in my personal application to consumption and tree preservation that I am past the climate change problem, I don't need conversion, and I am seeking to address something that needs attention and frankly suggest that no one should be using climate change to simple say nothting can be done..that is slack. Something needs to be done right away...so what do uou suggest to turn climate change around now...what do you do in your world to reduce your carbon foot print?

    Well what do you do with climate change...you get folk to research the problem, identify where things can be done,... look at smoking...once folk would have thought it impossible to do a thing but you form a group research so you can input credible data and do something.

    Make cigarette lighters as hard to get as a hand gun for example...research is the first thing..no the public like you need to realise there is more here than just banging on about climate change.

    The are areas that one could generalise upon..education, adds on TV, heavier policing, maybe special forces, like the drug squad whose deal is to find fire starters...heck how hard could it be...if we just did not roll over and go..oh well its climate change nothing you can do until the coal mines shut down...

    But what is the point...clearly the response here has been climate change is real as if there is nothing else on the table..the obsession is tiresome.

    You do not even know what I am saying cause all you can think is climate change climate change climate change...and making out my response is unbelievable shows clearly you are not listening at all...so what is my response???

    Because I don't fall in line and wring my hands about climate change you find that a poor response...and all the while ignoring that I am probably more focused on climate change and actually do act in my day to day existence to respond personally..as I said solar panels, batteries, small car, keep trees etc etc etc etc..I know you only need one.. but it is extremely disappointing to encounter such a closed view to the point where you don't really listen to anything I have said.

    That is almost insulting Bells..do you really think I did not read my link??????? and if everyone took that link to heart I would be very happy as it would be miles ahead of this pedantic argument against what is a reasonable approach.

    Anyways Bells I thank you for your posts in my thread but please think about what I have said not what you think I have said. You seem so wound up about climate change you are unable to think of anything else and sure its a big problem that is not news....anymore.

    I suppose my thread on 11000 fake scientists may play a roll here..all I can say is lies don't help the cause.

    alex
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2019
  12. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    You are the one who moved it to climate change first.. You are the one who introduced climate change as an issue first.

    I think discussing bushfires and ignoring climate change kind of makes no sense. And even if you wish to focus on the people who start fires deliberately, you still cannot escape the role climate change plays in how severe these fires can become as a result.

    Again, you've stated the obvious in regards to how the majority of fires have started in the recent spate in Australia..

    Now what?

    What do you think should be done?

    Since a state of emergency was declared in Queensland on November 9, police said they had taken action against 18 people for deliberately lighting fires.

    Of that, police said, 10 are juveniles who are being dealt with under the Youth Justice Act.

    In the two years to the end of 2018, 136 children were charged with endangering property in Queensland by lighting fires — just 18 were convicted.

    Several teens were charged over recent fires including a 16-year-old boy who allegedly started a fire west of Yeppoon that destroyed 30 structures and two other teens over a September blaze at Peregian on the Sunshine Coast.

    Police chose not to charge two teenagers who were believed to have accidentally started a fire from a cigarette which gutted Binna Burra Lodge in the Gold Coast Hinterland in September
    .​

    So what do you want to do to these kids?

    That's great.

    But that's just you. We have governments who do not believe in climate change, who approve more and more coal mines and who do not provide any incentives for renewable energy.

    People running around and are concerned about climate change are the very same people who have been warning about what we are now experiencing for years and they have been ignored. Fire chiefs around the country begged for more resources this year (such as water bombing planes, etc) to deal with what they knew would be a horror fire season because of climate change and they were ignored.

    Did I actually say any of that? No.

    I am saying that focusing on just human action when it comes to lighting fire is not enough.. Because despite the increase in penalties for starting fires, people still start them. You want to ban lighters? Ermm so matches? Glass objects and bottles, magnifying glass, bbq lighters, torches (butane and propane torches), fine people for cutting the grass because even a blade of a lawnmower hitting a rock can spark a fire, etc..?

    That's if we want to be realistic about it.

    How about smoking in one's backyard? BBQ? Kiln's? Power tools (such as angle grinders that give off sparks?) .. All of which can and have started fires in the last few years..

    I'm pretty sure.

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    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10...ge-in-gold-coast-rainforest-revealed/11567574

    Those are the rainforest trees that you say don't burn. Burnt. Gone.

    Once again, you stated the obvious in regards to how fires start.

    Now what?

    We currently have the toughest penalties that we have ever had for starting fires.

    People know the dangers. Media campaigns, education, etc, we all know the dangers.

    What now? Should we look at possibly other things to reduce the impact for when these fires do start?

    Should we consider even tougher penalties? Kids are some of the biggest culprits... Should we imprison them? Rehabilitate them? Provide more funding for education programs for bushfire prevention?

    We are experiencing something we have never experienced before simply because the conditions are unlike what we have ever seen before:

    https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/not-normal-climate-change-bushfire-web/

    Not enough.

    To tackle bushfires in Australia, we need a multi-pronged approach. We need to have a better education campaign in regards to fires, how they start, how they can start and what the warnings actually entail and what they mean to the day to day Australian. We also need to tackle prevention by way of addressing climate change. And we need to ensure we are better prepared sooner - in other words, fire seasons are starting in winter and autumn now, we need to have more water bombing aircraft, better funding for the RFS, addressing the water shortages in areas that are prone to bushfires. That's just for starters.

    I'll address the rest later.
     
  13. sculptor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,466
    Long ago (grade school days) and far away I had read that one could start a fire with a magnifying glass.
    Aha------research
    so
    I took a magnifying lense out to a tuft of grass at the edge of the mile square swamp across the road from my mother's house
    and
    sure enough, it worked
    perhaps too well
    The tuft of grass did indeed catch fire, and then burst into flame with amazing alacrity.
    It then spread quickly---it was a dry spring-early summer---
    somewhat alarmed(panicked, terrified), I called the fire department
    A few minutes later, the large red truck with lights and siren pulled up in front of the house.
    By this time, the fire had spread to well over 50 acres of dry swampgrass(cattails, etc)
    There was nothing the firemen could do but watch it burn
    So, I went into the house and came back out with a pitcher of water and some glasses, and we sat in the shade of the front yard and watched the fire burn
    In answer to their leader's query, I produced the magnifying lense from my pocket and explained what I had read and the resulting experiment.
    He laughed, said something about "kids" and then said "I guess you ain't going to do that again".
    "No" quoth I.
    As we sat there, watching the fire, as he and the other firemen chatted, he taught me a lot about starting, stoping, and controlling fires, and when to just sit back and watch them burn.(case in point). He opined that every once in a while, it was good to burn off the dead tops of swamp grasses. Quite the learning experience---I could do without the panic part---but the rest of it was pretty good. After that, when I went camping with the boy scouts, I always took the lense along.
    A month later with all the new growth, I had never seen the swamp so green.

    A brief history of that swamp.
    Long ago, the lower fox river used to feed several dozens of square miles of shallow grass lakes wherein the pre white man population used to collect wild rice.
    Then, in the 1920's an east west highway was created south of our swamp and north of what came to be called grass lake. Then the east bank of the fox was diked stopping the free flow of water feeding the swamp and several miles of low land between it and the fox which a farmer tiled and drained with 2 pump houses, one east and one west. It seems that wild rice likes flowing fresh water, as none grew in our somewhat stagnant spring fed swamp, but could still be found in grass lake.
     
  14. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Firstly, no one has said there is nothing else on the table.

    Secondly, you want to make lighters hard to get? Okay. What do you think that will accomplish? Because in doing so, you are ignoring the dozens of other ways people can start a fire, be it deliberately or accidentally.

    Thirdly, ignoring how much the environment where these fires are burning has changed and banging on only about people lighting fires and providing nothing to stop them from starting fires with the exception of making cigarette lighters as hard to get as a firearm in Australia (seriously?), is hardly conducive to reducing the risk of bushfires.

    Finally, heavier policing? How? Police cannot be everywhere all the time. And how hard do you think it could be, given most of the evidence (if not all) would burn in the subsequent blaze?

    You don't think it's going to be hard to determine who starts these fires? Without witnesses dobbing them in or they turning themselves in, etc, it is damn near impossible to know who started what fire.
    Oh no, I heard you the first few times you have opined about what can be done about bushfires because people are starting them.

    My response remains the same..

    And?

    What's your suggestion? Make lighters as hard to get as guns.. Umm okay?

    Alternatively, you can look at multiple approaches at the same time (you know, multitasking), to not only reduce the amounts of fires being set, but also reducing the impact they have and decreasing the risk that they become a raging inferno.

    Looking at, yes, climate change, does not mean we stop looking at everything else.
     
  15. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,502
    I agree.
    Alex
     
  16. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,263
    can I interject a moment? A firebug, especially one who is or may well be intentionally homicidal, isn't going to let the lack of lighters impede them. This is even more true of pyromaniacs (which are an entirely different thing than a firebug).

    harder than you think, and harder than most people can comprehend (for most this is due to The CSI Effect). Even with the incredible advancements in forensics, getting to the source of the fire is easy, but actually being able to charge and convict a person is not as easy as most think, especially considering most places legal defence tactics and the shadow of a doubt. This is just one reason I swapped to homicide and war crimes.

    well, to be honest, not people know much about you. or at least, they don't know about what you've been through. compound that with the fact that the average person on the street really doesn't understand the climate change issue and just parrot their "parent belief" or some authority that they've invested time in and then add in the fact that in places like the US, arguments against climate change get equal time in the media despite the irrational and often blatantly false information they're promoting, and you get a lot of misinformation and people who don't see how [x] applies to their own lives.



    erm... whut?
     
  17. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Throwing it out there as a mere conversation starter to perhaps stimulate radical input.
    That sounds reasonable.
    Alex
     
  18. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    This is a very difficult topic to address, to be honest. We can see in hindsight using certain methods (the Mcdonald triad comes to mind here) but there is no real predictive method to determine potential arsonist in the future. The only thing we can honestly predict and treat in any person's youth (wrt to fire-starting), and only then if we diagnose it, is pyromania. (Pyromania is a subset of fire-starters and particularly investigated in Australia here)
    "Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert"; Burton, McNiel, Binder PDF here

    One of the bigger problems with fire-starters is intent. (see "Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert; Burton, McNiel, Binder" linked above)

    I just thought you would be interested.
     
  19. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Banning bongs won't stop a dope smoker but it's another thing to charge him with.


    And the idea was a conversation starter for a brain storm session in effect.

    Thank for contributing.

    Alex
     
  20. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    but doesn't that eventually lead to an oppressive and unjust legal system?
    in some places, sodomy is illegal*, and even in some US States this legal statute is used for persecution as well as additional charges in, say, rape or other sexual crimes. If we present a law banning [x] without further consideration for the effects in society we enter into a potential state of confusion as well as the prejudicial application of the law, or deceitful practice or willful device, resorted to with intent to deprive another of his right, which is fraudulent (by definition).

    and it's a good one, IMHO.

    Everyone has their own perspective. You and I both live a lifestyle that most would not even consider, and are relatively self-sufficient. How much does this affect our opinions on, say, urban development and sprawl or ignorance or rural living?



    * to be clear, especially for the sake of those unfamiliar with the definition, illegal means: Not authorized by law; Illicit; unlawful; contrary to law. Sometimes this term means merely that which lacks authority of or support from law; but more frequently it imports a violation - https://thelawdictionary.org/illegal/
     
  21. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    That is a good question that needs to be asked however we need rules and as any rule is introduced care must be taken...and we have court systems that oversee even the most hard or unfair rules.

    Laws are perhaps best left to areas where there are victims but intrusions into what one can consider private occur. Say with an issue such as banning lighters there are victims so that type of rule making would seem ok ...such a law may simply make it illegal to carry a lighter in public or even to restricted areas...no lighters in National Parks would seem reasonable for example during total fire bans.
    Will it help? A little maybe...but if you have some drunken campers how good would it be to know you could arrest them if they had a lighter...
    But there must be other ideas just as radical as banning lighters in National Parks during total fire bans.

    As with all things any idea or approach needs thought and consideration as to who will be effected and how that new law must fit the current law.

    I have had a great deal of experience with fires, enough to know they are not a recent invention, and that what is needed first up is a better back burn system.
    The one in 1994 was the worst...unbelievable ... Burnt everything...We had to live on my boat while it was threating the houses and what looked like bare rock cliffs were on fire..at least every little clump of grass or tree...and one would fall and the fire would follow until everything was burnt to the water line. We were lucky as the fire reached our community at night with no wind and we saved the place with a cleared path one meter wide running the length of where the houses were.. if it came during the day everything would be gone.
    And witnessed a three hundred foot diameter fire ball rotating such that it looked to be alive ... And funny twelve months later everything had regrown.
    Much of Australian bush does not mind a fire.


    Each year in winter I would burn stuff ,that would have been a big fire in summer, when it was hard to get the fire going so by the time I was ready to do the big burn all the dangerous stuff was gone.

    I would, during the initial burns, end up with circular regions burnt off...then I would link the circles with burns to form a burnt barrier to contain a burn off either side of that region.

    Anyways so far with the current fires I have only lost a cement mixer...

    I think city folk don't understand how you must constantly reduce fuel. They worry about the animals and that is nice but burning fuel must be done. You can't reduce fuel in a 200 acre Forrest with a garden rake.


    Alex
     
  22. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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  23. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    So, from the study:
    13% arson
    35% accidental
    36% suspicious

    Let's say that the percentage of arson in the suspicious fires tracks the known split between arson and accidental (i.e. 37% of suspicious fires are arson.) That means total of arson - both proven and statistically likely - is 26%.
    Right. But if we had ten times those deaths due to drunk driving, people would yawn and have another beer.
     
    Truck Captain Stumpy likes this.

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