[SEL] Fires in Vic (Oz) today...

[peter ogborne]

I t is going to be a bad summer Paul. We are thinking of you over there in 
Vic.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Pavlinovich" <pjp at steamengine.com.au>
To: <stationary-engine at oldengine.org>; "The SEL email discussion list" 
<sel at lists.stationary-engine.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 5:19 AM
Subject: [SEL] Fires in Vic (Oz) today...


> If you take a look at my outside webcam today
> http://cgi.steamengine.com.au/emeraldcam/index.html
> then you will see a haze in the background. For a change this isn't an 
> artefact of using a cheap webcam instead of a quality outdoor camera. This 
> is the smoke from the bushfires about 1 hour north east of us.
>
> The State Premier (equivalent of a State Governor in US terms) enacted the 
> first stage of the state emergency plan yesterday when he announced the 
> existing fires are expected to join into a single fire front in the 
> expected weather conditions today 37C (100F) with a strong dry Northerly 
> wind. Some of them already have overnight. Last time a fire of this 
> magnitude with these weather conditions occurred it burnt 1/3rd of the 
> land area of the state of Victoria (as well as South Australia and NSW). 
> This event is predicted to burn as much as 1/5th of the land area.
>
> For those who are interested, you can see the fire lists and fire maps at
> http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/dse/nrenfoe.nsf/Home+Page/DSE+Fire~Home+Page?open
> and
> http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/incidents/incident_summary.htm
> Don't go crazy updating these pages though - people depend on them to get 
> enough information to activate their fire plans and sometimes they do get 
> congested on big incident days.
>
> Our weather bureau have in their forecast "A Fire Weather warning is 
> current for the Central district which includes all of Melbourne for 
> Saturday.".
>
> The next few days won't be much better, with expected temperatures in 
> Melbourne of 35 with a late thunderstorm - and guess what lightning 
> strikes do in tinder dry bushland. In the NorthEast district where most of 
> the fires currently are, they're expecting the next few days of 40C 
> (104C), 41C (105F), 31C (88F), 28C (82F).
>
> For a bit of background info, Australia is generally fairly dry, but we 
> are in the 12th year of the worst drought on record. We are turning 
> towards desalination and recycling of waste water for our ongoing water 
> needs - something normally only experienced in highly over populated or 
> desert countries.
>
> Wish us luck people...
>
> Regards
> Paul
>
> -- 
>
> email: pjp at steamengine.com.au
> skype: steamenginepaul
> Emerald, Victoria, Australia
> www.steamengine.com.au
>
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