Bushfire season 2019-2020

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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Warin » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 9:35 am

duplicated post (? why, how?) .. deleted
Last edited by Warin on Sat 11 Jan, 2020 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Moondog55 » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 9:42 am

Yes That is why my post above says "Deluge systems" but sprinklers systems are very good at combating ember attack wen combined with blocked gutters that are overflowing along with good house design [ expensive] and proper landscaping [ also not exactly cheap]
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby rcaffin » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 1:00 pm

40 kW per square metre is one thing; 1 MegaWatt radiant energy per metre of firefront is widely reported for bad fires. Those home toy fire fighting pumps people buy at hardware stores are futile, but the shops make a profit. The pumps on tankers are MUCH bigger, and they are quite often inadequate.

Landscape planning and house design are really all you have.

You have to think in terms of being able to survive a small nuclear bomb for an extended period of time.
Well, that summarises it nicely - while noting that you can NOT survive a nuclear weapon.

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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Moondog55 » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 1:28 pm

People did survive the Hiroshima bomb and died shortly afterward from radiation poisoning, [ you have to remember that housing was paper and timber, not masonry and steel] at least with a bushfire there is no nuclear radiation or fallout. It's partly because the flame front is so tall. 40kW * 50 m height is probably a minimum and sometimes it could be 150m tall and greater; so 40*150 = 6MW but divide by the cube rule and have at least that 100m distance. I guess what I am saying is that small bush blocks become unworkable/unrealistic to defend and evacuation is the only safe measure, just insure everything for replacement cost assuming you can afford the premiums. I have sort of changed my mind about staying to defend based on overwhelming evidence that some properties are not defendable no matter what
Last edited by Moondog55 on Sat 11 Jan, 2020 2:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Nuts » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 1:39 pm

I hear one of the jobs tasked to defence/army is the mass burial of native animal carcasses. The effect of these fires is so far ranging. Yes! to Any infrastructure measures, so we can bump the priority protection of habitat and individual native animals..
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Warin » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 2:01 pm

rcaffin wrote:Well, that summarises it nicely - while noting that you can NOT survive a nuclear weapon.


I resided in a nuclear bunker once. Impressive. Example, the mens shower (no privacy) is the size of my house.
If you'd survive a blast I don't know but I'd think that would be high on the design criteria. I think that place would be truly fire safe.

The 40 kW is the specification at the house, some distance from the fuel. The distance varies with the type of vegetation, height of vegetation and probably other things .. there are assessors that do it, and it is required in bush fire risk areas.

Moondog55
Oh being pedantic, mW is milli Watts, what you want is MW .. Mega Watts. I hesitate about a cube rule... think that may be a square rule. Related to the area of a sphere.
Last edited by Warin on Sat 11 Jan, 2020 3:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Moondog55 » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 2:13 pm

Yes you are correct I will go back and edit if I can
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Lophophaps » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 3:22 pm

Consider farm sprinklers positioned perhaps 2-3 metres above the ground so that every part of the area around a house or building has water from two or more sprinklers. Have farm sprinklers on the roof. If the house or building had a good design, would the sprinklers make a difference? Could the sprinklers run on town water? Is town water likely to cease during a fire?
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby neilmny » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 3:29 pm

Lophophaps wrote:Consider farm sprinklers positioned perhaps 2-3 metres above the ground so that every part of the area around a house or building has water from two or more sprinklers. Have farm sprinklers on the roof. If the house or building had a good design, would the sprinklers make a difference? Could the sprinklers run on town water? Is town water likely to cease during a fire?


Probably not cease but the load on the mains from fire trucks would greatly reduce the pressure in an Urban fringe type situation.
Water main supply pipes to farms in rural locations can be quite "small" or low volume and low pressure. If you were lucky enough to have good pressure................????
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Warin » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 5:01 pm

Lophophaps wrote: Could the sprinklers run on town water?


I am a little way uphill. When a fire truck is sucking on the town water lower than me, my pressure drops to almost 0.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby wildwanderer » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 6:55 pm

Given the water pressure and power issues for sprinkler systems, I wonder if covering a home and surrounding lawn with fire retardant foam would be a workable alternative.. maybe via some sort of genie powered foam gun.

Sort of of a DIY aerial fire fighting bomber approach..
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Neo » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 8:00 pm

Concrete water tanks in the ground, house built on top. Thats how I would build (if unable to build either hobbit style or a tower!)

Stainless steel pipes and sprinkler fittings on the roof.

A bunker needs an clean air source.

And a toilet with a view. (the house not a bunker)
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby matagi » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 8:04 pm

House underground would be my preference
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby rcaffin » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 8:12 pm

Stainless steel pipes and sprinkler fittings on the roof.
You couldn't afford SS, and copper would be perfectly OK. If some of the plumbing is inside the house, blue line or PEX would suit for that.

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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Neo » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 8:13 pm

Kinda nice to see less hotspots in NSW other than the Vic border areas: https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/

Only because most of those darker green areas of the satellite image have already burnt :(
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Neo » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 8:16 pm

Just dreaming Roger. Assumed ss would weather better than copper externally. Piping from inside the roof space is a good idea!
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby rcaffin » Sat 11 Jan, 2020 8:28 pm

Not very different, give or take a few hundred years.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby GBW » Mon 13 Jan, 2020 8:19 am

A few photos of the Kiandra area post fire on Snowy Brumby Heritage Group Facebook page of all places. Just scroll past the horse pics :?

https://www.facebook.com/pg/snowybrumby ... 1293697804
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby stry » Mon 13 Jan, 2020 11:16 am

I see reference to power and town water.

Reliance on either of these will end in tears.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Lophophaps » Tue 14 Jan, 2020 5:10 pm

Is there a list of national and other parks that have had bushfires?
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby GBW » Tue 14 Jan, 2020 5:17 pm

Almost need a list of parks that haven't had fires...it's probably shorter.

This from the Parks Vic website Lops...

https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/get-into-n ... cted-parks

For NSW the list is extensive:

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/alerts/alerts-list

You can refine the list for closed parks.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Lophophaps » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 6:08 am

GBW, thanks. There's a huge number of places listed, especially NSW.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby GBW » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 7:11 am

GBW wrote:Maybe we should bypass one new attack submarine @ A$3 billion each and buy a dozen or more Erickson Air-Crane helitankers @ A$40 million each but that's too sensible.


Some common sense finally:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-14/ ... t/11867134

With the cost of this disaster in the billions we could have had a fleet of these helitankers, I mean 30 or more. I'm sure they have other uses while idle. We could even lease them out in the winter months. I don't think fires of this magnitude can be fought effectively on the ground with the remoteness and lack of access to fire fronts. I did deliveries to Kinglake in the rebuild after the fires and saw some houses saved by a direct hit from Elvis when the surrounding bush was totally scorched. The large jets are great but their turnaround time is huge. These things can suck up water from anywhere and land/refuel almost anywhere. I don't know if it's a solution but surely it would help.

We need to plan for the future.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-19/ ... -by/401846

Edit:Just looked at the Fires Near Me page and Witzes and Blue Waterholes look under threat. Hopefully Coolamine can be saved.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby peregrinator » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 10:18 am

In recent weeks, it’s frequently been reported that poor visibility due to bushfire smoke has meant that flights could not be made. I don’t know whether this was referencing fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, or both. Searching for information, I haven’t found anything so far. I did however read a tendentious article that makes some points which appear to be sound, even though I have to strongly disagree with others:

https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/water-bombing-and-magic-bullets

The section I quote here seems to put forward reasonable arguments, although the second point is surely a gross generalisation. I’m guessing the words “often cannot” might be better replaced with “possibly may not”. The same problem applies of course to the introductory statement with the use of the words "every" and "never".

Indeed, the calls for investment in more and bigger aerial water bombers rather than in effective pre-emption of bushfire damage is the classic demonstration of misinformed people making foolish proposals. Every experienced fire fighter in Australia (and in the USA and Canada) knows that water bombers can never control an intense forest wildfire.

Consider these factors:

• Firstly, because of atmospheric turbulence and smoke, water bombing aircraft cannot get at the seat of a rampaging forest fire;  they must stand off from the head, and then the drop is evaporated by radiant heat well before the flames arrive;
• Secondly, in tall, dense forest, the water drop often cannot penetrate the canopy in sufficient volume to make a difference – it is intercepted by the tree crowns. This occurred over and again in the recent fire in ash forest in the Otway Ranges in Victoria. The delivered water simply did not get to the ground.
• Thirdly, water bombers cannot (or do not) operate at night and under high winds, the very conditions when the most damaging forest fires occur.  Three of the last four towns to burn in WA, and both towns that burned in Victoria in 2009, burned at night.
• Fourth, water bombing is extremely dangerous for aircrew, as the aircraft are operating at low altitude, in uncontrolled airspace with poor visibility.  It is only a matter of time before there is a shocking accident and an aircrew fatality.
• Water bombing can also be dangerous to people on the ground.  If the drop from a Very Large Air Tanker is made from only marginally too low, the huge tonnage of water is capable of smashing houses and vehicles and killing firefighters;
• Fifth, water bombers use vast quantities of fresh water, probably one of the most precious resources in Australia, especially in Western Australia where the current drought is over 30 years in duration and reservoirs and ground water aquifers are drying up. Sea water could be used, provided the tankers have access to it, but dropping salt water onto catchment areas or farms would only add to the problems caused by the fire.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby GBW » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 11:07 am

Sounds like a lot of excuses to me. Using too much water? They don't tend to hover during delivery, it's more a controlled release during a fly over. Some points are valid like wind/visiblity. I saw Elvis up close recently fighting a fire in Plenty Gorge Bundoora only 2k from home. He flew directly over our house at low altitude... that thing is huge. Sure it can't control an established large scale fire but jeez, it couldn't hurt, especially if you have a few buzzing around. There's some great clips on Youtube of helitankers fighting fires, some in Oz, they look really effective. We did have one end up in a dam at Jericho near Baw Baw recently during a refill but all on board got out safely.

Both towns that burned in Victoria in 2009. That fire started during the day in Kilmore East and work it's way to Kinglake. You need to get it early and nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby rcaffin » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 11:48 am

Air tankers are an appealing idea at first glance, but I too have some reservations about their effectiveness.
Bushfires2019D.jpg

Basically, they seem just a bit too small for anything other than dowsing the edge of a clearing in front of a house. The idea that one (or several) of these are going to do much against a significant fire line under a wind ...

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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Moondog55 » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 11:57 am

Perhaps we use them wrongly and they are best used at the very start of a fire. An earlier post suggested hitting fires very hard and very quickly and using many more that Australia currently has in service. They do seem to be good at protecting fixed and mobile assets tho when used in sufficient numbers
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby rcaffin » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 12:08 pm

When lightning is dancing over Wollemi NP, you would need an awful lot of them, located very closely. The costs would be politically difficult.

Volunteer bushfire fighters are much cheaper.

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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby GBW » Wed 15 Jan, 2020 12:20 pm

A large fire truck has a capacity 3000l compared to 9000l for the helitanker plus water cannon. It has delivered 162000 litres in one hour. This is quite a good read ...

https://www.ffm.vic.gov.au/__data/asset ... Season.pdf

Yes it would be expensive but in comparison to what.
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Re: Bushfire season 2019-2020

Postby Moondog55 » Thu 16 Jan, 2020 6:55 am

rcaffin wrote:When lightning is dancing over Wollemi NP, you would need an awful lot of them, located very closely. The costs would be politically difficult.

Volunteer bushfire fighters are much cheaper.

Cheers
Roger


Yeah well it's about time full-time "volunteer" firefighters got paid $80- an hour then.
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