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[quote]Overlander wrote:
Ttinkerbell how is your status. Just looking at the CFA fire maps, seems the blazes to the north of Warburton are now listed as controlled. A fair few blazes just north of Healsville according to the sentinel website.
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It was all calming down for the last few days.
Healesville, not far as the crow flies, is on alert again. Areas where I grew up are on ember alert this morning.
There’s a lot of control burns going on around us.
Weather patterns are getting a little less stable, but there’s not big heatwave or strong northerlies due. It’s still not great but at least the danger of a firestorm is pretty low. The fires are still all around us, but their burning slowly.
Good to hear. It sounds like you are over the worst of it. Fingers crossed it dosn’t flare up again with the warmer weather.
Reports have come in of 1800 homes razed and 7000 people are new homeless.
It’s not all bad news though.[quote]
…‘In less than four days, more than $50 million has been given by the Australian public. Government contributions and a huge number of additional corporate donations will swell that figure even higher.’…
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http://www.redcross.org.au/vic/news_mediareleases_victorian-bushfires-assistance-120209.htm
Looks like they caught the bastard suspected of setting the fires.
Unaccountably, the news story felt compelled to mention that he also had a stash of child pornography.
How the two facts are correlative is open to speculation, but oh, well.
If there was any justice, they’d just turn him over to the angry mob of evacuees who lost everything, including family members, to this creature’s arsonist antics. I imagine they would burn him at the stake.
As it is, the new story said he’d get up to 40 years total for the two counts of arson, if convicted, which seems a bit soft. Wonder what the sentence would be for 181 counts of second-degree murder.
Just reading the police media release he is only charged with lighting the Churchill fire. He wouldn’t have been responsible for all 181 but might as well have been. The kiddie porn was just one of the listed charges they brought him in on.
As it stands Australia has the toughest penalties against lighting bushfires in the world, although there was talk of arsonists being tried on murder charges by politicians. I don’t know how much of it was serious conviction or if it was just a dance for the cameras.
Plenty of other arsonists are still on the loose, the Victoria police have set up a special taskforce to hunt them down.
Lots of backburns going on around us.
Fires on both sides still not quite in control, but there’s fire teams from the US and New Zealand fighting one of them.
Conditions will be good for a few more days, till the wind swings around to the north again.
Apparently sex offences and arson are often related, something about power issues but I can’t remember much else about it. Dunno if I want to.
Everyone here is exhausted.
We’ve all been watching and waiting 24 for hours a day for over a week. Watching for wind changes or rain.
As for the arsonists, our bush would burn, with or without them, it’s the poor forests management and ridiculous council restrictions on tree management on your own properties that made the fires this deadly.
One fella from Kinglake was recently fined $30,000 for clearing trees from his property, and his house was the only one in the street to survive.
I’d be demanding my money back, at threat of broken noses.
On top of this, the Healesville fire brigade had a couple of greenies try to follow them into the bush to check they weren’t unduely harming any trees with the bulldozers and backburning.
Can you believe that shit? The fires that causes these deaths isn’t out yet and these tree huggers have allready started.
Those fire fighters were a little too frazzled to deal with that and ‘sent them on thier way’.
I’m gonna sit back now and watch the backlash against the greens and the tree nazi’s we call our local councils.
Death toll now stands at 200 confirmed dead.
Included in the toll is a Canberra fire-fighter crushed by a falling tree near Warburton.
I also saw the news report of the 80 strong US contingent of trained crews arriving to fight the fires. Indonesia has also sent forensic teams to help identify the bodies of the deceased. I would like to show my appreciation and say thanks for the hand and I’m certain it won’t be forgotten.
[quote]Overlander wrote:
Death toll now stands at 200 confirmed dead.
Included in the toll is a Canberra fire-fighter crushed by a falling tree near Warburton.
I also saw the news report of the 80 strong US contingent of trained crews arriving to fight the fires. Indonesia has also sent forensic teams to help identify the bodies of the deceased. I would like to show my appreciation and say thanks for the hand and I’m certain it won’t be forgotten.
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The Canberra fire fighter was due to go home today as well, he was hit by a falling Mountain Ash, we call them the widow makers as they tend to fall without a sound.
Still really dry throughout Vic at this stage, hopefully we have had the worst but it is still tinder dry and would not need much to take off again.
I saw that one too. It’s a bloody outrage to think you can’t cut a firebreak around your home. Once upon a time it was considered common sense. Sure it looks great to have a house among the bush but it’s just asking for trouble. When summer hits and the moisture is sucked out of it all it’s like sitting on an incendiary bomb.
Forget was town it was but the local publican is being threatened with charges for ‘borrowing’ (in his words) an idle government bulldozer to cut firebreaks as the fire approached. His efforts where credited with saving multiple homes and businesses from destruction. Fucking ridiculous.
The number is now 208 confirmed.
Still a few missing, dunno how many.
Fire’s still all around us. We’re still nervous the wind is gonna move to the North.
The whole town is tired. It’s hard to relax when you drive home and you can still see smoke clouds a few hundred metres high over the mountain range from where you live, and the smoke haze just won’t quite clear.
OK, the wind is movng to the North and we’re outta here.
We’ve been told to get out and be prepared to stay out for a few days to a week or more.
Let it rain or let it burn, but just let it fucking happen. We’re all sick ir waiting.