Kangaroo Island Bushfire Emergency Sees Tourist Lodges Ravaged as Firefighters Battle 'Unstoppable' Blaze'https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-03/cfs-battles-kangaroo-island-fire-amid-extreme-heat/11838600The Kangaroo Island fire has been described as "virtually unstoppable" and the Country Fire Service (CFS) has issued bushfire warnings for the entire 4,400-square-kilometre island.The CFS says the Ravine fire is burning towards the town of Parndana, but also has the potential to burn towards Kingscote, Kingscote Airport, American River and the eastern end of the island.
The distance from Flinders Chase National Park, where the fire is burning on the western end of the island, to the main town of Kingscote in the east, is about 85 kilometres.
Designated last-resort refuges have been set-up at Kingscote Oval, Penneshaw Oval and the American River Wharf Area if the situation escalates overnight.
... Some international context: In terms of area, Kangaroo Island is three times the size of London - (over 1000km
2), bigger than Rhode Island, and just over three times the size of Phoenix, Arizona. It’s not just some tiny island off SA’s mainland.
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Immense scale of Victorian bushfires revealed with thermal camera – video---------------------------
Fire tornado with thermal camera – video... These systems begin to dominate the large scale fire dynamics. They lead to extreme hazard and control problems. In size, they average 100 to 1,000 feet in diameter and have rotational velocities up to 90 MPH.
In addition, they can last for an hour or more and have been known to move across the terrain for miles. You do not want to be anywhere near a fire tornado. They can be deadly.
A large fire tornado was one of the primary causes of the entrapment and death of FPI1 on July 26, 2018. The fire tornado was a large rotating fire plume that was roughly 1000 feet in diameter at its base. tornado Fujita scaleWinds at the base of the fire tornado reached speeds in the range of 136-165 mph (EF-3 tornado strength), as indicated by wind damage to large oak trees, scouring of the ground surface, damage to roofs of houses, and lofting of large steel power line support towers, vehicles, and a steel marine shipping container within ½ mile of the entrapment site. The strong winds caused the fire to burn all live vegetation less than 1 inch in diameter and fully consume any dead biomass. Peak gas temperatures likely exceeded 2,700 °F.
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We Are Seeing the Very Worst of Our Scientific Predictions Come to Pass in These Bushfireshttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/03/we-are-seeing-the-very-worst-of-our-scientific-predictions-come-to-pass-in-these-bushfires --------------------------------
Wildlife Ravaged by Australia Fires Could Take Decades to Recoverhttps://phys.org/news/2020-01-wildlife-ravaged-australia-decades-recover.htmlA University of Sydney study estimates that 480 million animals have been killed in just the state of New South Wales (NSW) since September 2019, and according to a statement released Friday the authors said the "highly conservative" mortality calculations could mean the toll could be "substantially higher".
In order to reach the figure, the researchers cross-referenced estimates of mammal population density in NSW with areas of vegetation known to have been scorched to work out the death toll, which includes mammals, birds and reptiles, but not insects, bats or frogs.
"The true loss of animal life is likely to be much higher than 480 million," the statement said.
Professor Andrew Beattie from Macquarie University near Sydney told AFP he believes the death toll of animals nationwide could be in the billions, "if you think of mammals, and birds, and reptiles, amphibians and say the larger insects such as butterflies".
... "We can be pretty sure that in large parts of these very expansive fires, most of the wildlife will be dead," the emeritus professor from the department of biological sciences said.
"The flora and fauna will be gone, and that includes the smaller animals which form the food chain for the bigger ones, which people often don't think about."
... "You've got federal politicians with very little knowledge of the environment, which is, as we are now discovering 'the real world', and hence have not perceived the oncoming catastrophes."
