2019-2020 Australian Bushfire Assistance

[Vyssion]

A message to all F1Technical members,

The Californian Bushfires
Total Size: 1,900,000 acres

The Amazon Fires
Total Size: 2,250,000 acres

The CURRENT Australian Bushfires
12,000,000 acres... and rising every day




I do not think that people understand what is happening right now.

These are not normal Australian bushfires. The entire country is on fire. Most people have no conceptual understanding about just how big Australia is... and therefore, just how bad these fires are. They also just cannot fathom how terrifying and unstoppable a real bushfire is... Have you ever heard of, let alone seen, a fire tornado rip through nature?

Being an Aerodynamicist, and therefore having a knowledge of how air (oxygen for the fire) moves and how heat causes it to, means that I have some understanding of how these fires flare up fast enough, that you cannot our-drive them, let alone out-run them, simply when the wind blows... which they generate for themselves by the extreme temperatures they scorch the ground and air with (see the video I linked below to see what I mean).

The fact that only 15 people are dead is astonishingly low, but the half a billion (yes, with a "b") animals are dead, should give you some perspective. We have the worst air quality in the world now. Our Prime Minister has left the country, its wildlife, and nature to burn. He ignored the warnings of potential catastrophic fires, and his response to societies call to action, was to cut funding to the fire services by 70%, crippling the fire services across the nation. Fire-fighters have flown in from around the globe, to help us in this time of crisis.

So, not only are our incredibly brave fire-fighters under resourced, but they are also fighting fires that the world has never seen before, dwarfing even the great Californian and Amazonian fires of the past.

I live in Europe now, and so my ability to help my fellow Australians is limitted, however, I do have a reasonable amount of reach within this site, and in my friendship circles.

I have linked the NSW Rural Fire Service website, who are trying to fight this on the front lines of the hardest hit areas, and need all the support they can get.
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/about-us/fundraising

Secondly, to the Australian Red Cross. They are supporting people at evacuation centres by providing psychological support, first aid, emergency assistance (cash grants to people who have lost homes), supporting volunteers, and more.
https://www.redcross.org.au/

And finally, to the World Wilflife Fund. They are housing and supporting injured animals from the bushfires aswell as rescuing others that are still in harms way. They will also be making an effort to rebuild the habitats and re-populate the species killed in these fires.
https://www.wwf.org.au/get-involved/bushfire-emergency

Any support that you may be willing to offer, is not only very much appreciated, but desperately needed.

My sunburnt country...
my... home...
is burning to the ground, in an inferno...
and we are absolutely powerless to stop it...

[izzy]

Well said, it seems off the scale terrible.

And let's face it, the cause IS climate change, yay Greta, and the cause of that ultimately is too many babies. But it's taboo to say so apparently.

[J.No]

Nice one Vyssion.

I live in Melbourne. We are well away from the fires but have had smoke haze around at times over the last week or so. I've had friends caught up in the fires and spent the last week monitoring news and emergency services trying to keep track of them - thankfully they are all OK.

We have been experiencing 40C+ temps and 50 - 100km/h winds. Some of these fires have been burning for weeks or even months and it is estimated they are expected to burn for weeks or months more. Some of our VOLUNTEER firefighters have been fighting these fires for up to 100 days and counting. Some of them have lost their own homes while they were busy saving somebody else's. Normally our fire season down south here would only be starting about now but as you say Vyssion, there isn't anything normal about this. It is only likely to get worse.

This interactive overlays the areas burnt by the fires over different cities around the world. You can type in the name of a city you are familiar with. May help you put things into perspective.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... active-map

[LM10]

It's horrendous what's going on down there at the moment. Half a billion animals, 30% of Koala population already killed since September. That hurts, it really hurts to watch.

Though, it's not even close to what Australia has seen in 1974-1975 when about 7 times the area of what has burned this season had burned - the thing is that already about 16 mio acres have burned this season and that's without the peak of bushfire season having been reached.