Catastrophic danger is being forecast for Sydney - the capital of New South Wales.

With a current population of c5.5 million - this location has been inhabited for over 30,000 years.

Hopefully this site's poster and Sydney resident - Hedda - has avoided the worst trouble.

And is safely surviving the extreme devastation occurring in surrounding areas.

Temperatures are expected to reach 40°c soon around Sydney, with winds of 60kph - so things aren't getting any better.

150 homes burned to the ground, with three fatalities. Nearly 100 aircraft are assisting in the efforts to prevent more fires.

Worst ever bushfires, and maybe the most devastating affect of global warming.

Next 24 hours are critical - with livestock being urgently evacuated, as well as people.

It seems a very serious situation. I hope hedda is OK.

Still continuing with slightly lesser intensity - but with c45°c temperatures.

Worst Australian bushfires ever - who could argue against climate change now?

Glaciers melting fast in Greenland, and 80% of Venice under water.

Jo wrote:
It seems a very serious situation. I hope hedda is OK.

hedda (for it is she/he) lives at Bondi Beach and there are no fires there..it's almost in the centre of the city.

However..the sky yesterday was a horrible red colour and full of smoke and like quite Armageddon was upon us.

I went to a bar overlooking the beach.

Good to hear this.

Barney
You have been misled.

1) The bushfires this month in Australia are not the worst on record. The 2002-2003 season was worse in Sydney (I was there for that one too). The 2009 “Black Saturday” bushfire in Victoria killed over 170 people.

2) The cause of bushfires is not limited to lightning strikes and other natural causes. Arson plays a part, and the police in NSW have arrested at least a couple of people and charged them with arson, over the last week.

3) Sky News Australia (www.skynews.com.au/details/_6085215683001) reported that a recent NASA study found that in the last 18 years bush fires in terms of land burned have decreased not increased.

4) The increased INTENSITY of bushfires over the last 20 years is in no small part due to concerted action from Greens and other activists prevailing on local councils to prevent farmers and other landowners from carrying out preventive “burn-offs”. (In many parts of Australia, green policies forbid farmers and landowners from cutting down trees on their property because the trees on their land supposedly act as a ‘carbon sink’) This has increased the land’s “fuel load”, so when a bushfire comes through there is so much more of it to burn. As in the U.S. — what is really making these fires so destructive is poor management. Australian states that burn off the underbrush in rotation – such as Western Australia – experience far less wildfire damage.

In the Rural Fire Service graph at s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/graph/land/fires/fire-sw-wa-17.gif the prescribed burns in WA declined for forty years and wildfires increased for thirty. After the Dwellingup Fire in 1961 the state ramped up the preventative burns, and reduced wildfires.
As the BushFireFront team says: “We can’t control the weather but we can control the fuel loads”

5) The temperatures in Australia are not increasing. See joannenova.com.au/2019/11/raw-data-bombs...a-since-world-war-i/ I can send you other references if you need them.

Hedda - no, not the worst ever. Yet!

But the fires still continue and the authorities are saying 'the worst could be about to come'.

A constant orange haze over Sydney harbour, and medical and hospital centres working flat out.

With the long lasting flames gradually affecting everyone, without any prospect of an end to them.


Some say - New South Wales will never be the same again.

sorry OldCynic but I never take a blind bit of notice of Rupert Murdoch's Sky News which is riddled with Climate Deniers even though Rupert blatantly lied the other day and claimed there were none in any of his networks and he believed in Climate Change even though the old lying bastard said a few years ago at a function I attended that Climate Change was a myth and urged politicians to build more "cheap " (it's not) Nuclear Power Stations and forget about renewable Energy as I reckon he thinks that's a myth as well.

However the Chinese and Indians don't believe his bullshit and are investing $Billions in vast solar panel fields in the scorching Outback (so sensible..blazing hot Sun all day long).

I believe the fire chiefs and indeed..the farmers (who are now abandoning the conservative party they usually vote for and moving to The Greens)..

it's not the ferocity and intensity of the fires..it's the fact they are beginning earlier every year and raging all throughout Summer (over 900 homes now lost) and the patterns are changing.

The myth of The Greens opposing back burning is a myth and LOGIC should tell you this as The Greens have no power over this ..they are only in powerful in The Senate where they can pass or fail bills and there are no bills presented about back-burning.

People are not stupid..back burning etc is done at local areas by local councils with aid and advice of local fire chiefs.. Sky News blatantly lies..The Greens control no country area councils affected by fire..in fact most are controlled by the ruling conservative National Party who have not only ignored the problem but even worse..sold Australia's sparse water rights to foreign corporations at the expense of farmers and firefighters.

Sky News is a perversion on the word "News" (and fortunately like most of Murdoch's Australian entities now losing money hand over fist as the old bastard ($350M this year) finally gets his just deserts...as despite his attempt to deny citizens the NBN so they could access Netflix etc with a minimum of fuss and cost compared to his uttERLY useless cable TV network,..Foxtel whereby you have to but 40 frigging insanely boring channels (some fronted by nice people I know) with inane cooking and piss poor fashion shows and so on.

Naturally with Hedda there comes an anecdote from my forthcoming tome Diary Of A Nobody- Redux..some time ago I attended a Sydney suburb at Mid-day where reputedly the millionth customer was being switched onto Foxtel with a ceremony performed by Sarah the Duchess of York.

As Fergie clambered into a foxhole in the pavement and much noise was being made, a nearby ear old pensioner opened her window and shouted out "what's all that bloody racket going on out there"..whereby a Murdoch minion rushed over to the ladies window and said..

"oh please there is a very special ceremony with the Duchess of York about to happen could you keep quiet" and she responded.." I don't care if the bloody Queen of England is out there why don't you all shut the fuck up?"

It made my day

The fires just continue unabated.

750 homes burned to the ground in New South Wales, together with numerous other buildings.

6 dead and temperatures hovering in the 40/50°c range.

It's beginning to look like nature has won - with mankind simply unable to defeat it.

Only to curtail the loss of lives.

Toxic air pollution is now 11x the 'hazardous level' for parts of Sydney and New South Wales!

With a 48% increase in hospital admissions for respiratory conditions - caused by weeks of smoke inhalation etc.

No end to the conditions can yet be identified - with no change anticipated until January, at the earliest.

yes I jumped the gun but sadly..it's now over 900 homes according to fire chiefs on TV tonight.

I live in gorgeous Bondi just one block from the beach.

For 2 weeks now the sky..normally the most beautiful blue you can imagine..has been grey from smoke and haze. They say it could go on all Summer. Oddly the beach is packed but I can't stand it. 1000S of tourists so it must be Hell for them..probably wishing they had gone to Bali instead..not as nice beaches though but riddled with drunken Aussie yobs.

Even stranger..there are always beautiful breezes in Bondi but the last few days it's been quite cold winds which is bizarre at this time of the year. And yet..the winds don;t seem to blow away the smoke.

Every day I go out to drive somewhere..my newish car (truck slammed into the last one) is covered in ash and dirt from the fires..100s of miles away.

Our Pentecostal PM ( handling snakes..talking in tongues) has sensibly fled to Hawaii for a holiday as farmers , country folk (many towns have run out of water) and fire chiefs keep demanding he return and do something. What, I don't know.

I'll just keep drinking Vodka.

Thanks for that Hedda. Updates would be appreciated.

Including contingency plans - if any, or even feasible.

Scott Morrison's absence from Sydney - at this time of national emergency - is baffling. The Prime Minister should be leading, 24/7.

With temperatures of 40+°c, and numerous uncontrolled bushfires - help has been drafted in from the US and Canada.

Central Sydney hit 39°c recently - and the bushfires have now been raging, and growing, for over two months. No end can be forecast.

This situation is desperate.
It's all over my news.

2000 fire fighters battling this and no sign of any real help from outside countries.
They certainly find out who their allies are in these times. Don't they?

If it was a war they were battling, they would be inundated with offers of help I expect.

We have a situation where there is too much water ( Australia is surrounded by it) and uncontrollable fires.
Hmmm.

Come on UK, set the standards and get out there.

this is what it has been like in the mornings although it clears up somewhat by the afternoon except the sky is still dark gray with a weird orange sun.

And you smell the fire..and there seems to be no air- I think the fires are sucking the oxygen out of the city.


# I really can't bare to think about those magical little Koalas who have died in the 1000s. Other animals seem to know to flee but the poor bears- they are constantly zonked on Eucalyptus leaves and sitting in the very trees that suddenly explode in flames as they are so full of oil.

Below the Opera House pic clouded in smoke is the PM's Sydney residence although he is currently in a 5 Star hotel in Honolulu and the middle shot is the usual view from his garden.

Sounds horrible, hedda. I hope they're able to get things under control soon. Are you tempted to take a trip away somewhere?

40 more homes now lost near Sydney

And 3 firefighters suffer serious burns


Whilst Nero remains in Hawaii

Watching the devastation on TV

This has been going on for months. Since the winter.
We will be going into a new year in less than two weeks time.

This is going to keep happening every year.
The solutions?
Do nothing.
Destroy all crops, trees etc... ( Not going to happen)
Australian is largely inhabited.

Even if countries pull together to put the fires out, it will happen again.

Find the areas at risk and build up infrastructure with water sources to combat the fires.
From what I'm hearing in reports, it's sometimes the same areas affected annually?

Technology exists which can convert water for drinking.
I know the employment prospects are very poor in some areas.
There are solutions for all of the above, but they have to plan and put the work in. Tell politicians to stop listening to 'yes men' and work for democracy.

People are losing everything they own.

If I didn't have responsibilities here, I'd be over there helping.

Australia largely inhabited?

7 people per square mile!