Were Australian Bush Fires started intentionally?

[GreenJesus]

Politicians like to blame climate change whenever this happens so that they dont get blamed for cutting budgets of brush and tree management. Also the nutty environmentalists in colorado and california that want to stop loggers from clearing dead/infected trees because of "beetles and birds need the dead trees for the ecosystem". And then surprise pikachu face when there is a huge fire.

[Elegiac]

Politicians like to blame climate change whenever this happens so that they dont get blamed for cutting budgets of brush and tree management. Also the nutty environmentalists in colorado and california that want to stop loggers from clearing dead trees because of "beetles and birds need the dead trees for the ecosystem". And then surprise pikachu face when there is a fire.

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...stralias-fires

Are greenies stopping hazard reduction?

Hazard reduction is the management of fuel and can be carried out through prescribed burning, also known as controlled burning, and removing trees and vegetation, both dead and alive.

Hazard reduction is carried out by fire authorities, national park staff and individual property owners who can apply for permits to clear areas around their buildings. Coordination of activities happens through local bushfire management committees. There are 120 committees in NSW.

The claim of a conspiracy by environmentalists to block hazard reduction activities has been roundly rejected by bushfire experts, and experts say it is betrayed by hard data on actual hazard reduction activities in national parks.

Prof Ross Bradstock, the director of the centre for environmental risk management of bushfires at the University of Wollongong, has previously told Guardian Australia: “These are very tired and very old conspiracy theories that get a run after most major fires. They’ve been extensively dealt with in many inquiries.”

Is climate change affecting hazard reduction?

A former NSW fire and rescue commissioner, Greg Mullins, has written that the hotter and drier conditions, and the higher fire danger ratings, were preventing agencies from carrying out prescribed burning.

But as well as climate change narrowing the window to carry out prescribed burning, Mullins said some fires have become so intense they have burned through areas that had been subject to hazard reduction.

Mullins has been fighting fires in NSW for months. Speaking to the ABC on Friday, he said he witnessed a fire in Grafton in an area that had burned only two weeks previously, but “the burnt leaves were burning again”.

He said: “There has been lots of hazard reductions done over the years – more by national parks than previous years – but the fires have burned through those hazard reduction areas.”

Can y'all stop blatantly repeating misinformation?

[Rasulis]

It is, and people want answers as to why. It isn't just climate change, there are several factors into why this has been the worst in current Australian history, since as said before, they managed to control these bush fires before.

Climate change actually plays a big part in this. Australia fire season and California fire season are starting to overlap which strained fire fighting resources. I started the thread below about the Australia fires back in August, and now the fires in Australia are still going strong with no ends in sight.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...tern-Australia

Fighting bush fires in Australia depends more on fire fighting aircrafts than manpower. Currently nine fire bomber helicopters (modified skyhook) and seven fixed-wing aircrafts (including a DC-10 air tanker) from Cal Fire are in Australia now. These aircrafts were not available until November, at which point the fires in Australia have been burning for 3 months, because they were being used to fight the fires in California.

Australia does have their own fire fighting aircrafts. There are around 110 in operations right now. However, California has the monopoly in the world when it comes to state-of-the-art large heavy duty fire fighting aircrafts capable of carrying huge payloads of water and fire retardant. Being able to use them early in the fire fighting effort makes a big difference.

[Elegiac]

Climate change actually plays a big part in this. Australia fire season and California fire season are starting to overlap which strained fire fighting resources. I started the thread below about the Australia fires back in August, and now the fires in Australia are still going strong with no ends in sight.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...tern-Australia

Fighting bush fires in Australia depends more on fire fighting aircrafts than manpower. Currently nine fire bomber helicopters (modified skyhook) and seven fixed-wing aircrafts (including a DC-10 air tanker) from Cal Fire are in Australia now. These aircrafts were not available until November, at which point the fires in Australia have been burning for 3 months, because they were being used to fight the fires in California.

Australia does have their own fire fighting aircrafts. There are around 110 in operations right now. However, California has the monopoly in the world when it comes to state-of-the-art large heavy duty fire fighting aircrafts capable of carrying huge payloads of water and fire retardant. Being able to use them early in the fire fighting effort makes a big difference.

And the fun part is the Morrison government was warned repeatedly that Australia would need to start investing in a fleet of firefighting aircraft as climate change got worse but, being right wing and unable to imagine spending money a plane that isn't a private luxury jet or a bomber to kill brown people, opted not to take this advice.

[Trassk]

And the fun part is the Morrison government was warned repeatedly that Australia would need to start investing in a fleet of firefighting aircraft as climate change got worse but, being right wing and unable to imagine spending money a plane that isn't a private luxury jet or a bomber to kill brown people, opted not to take this advice.

What's that you say, there are other circumstances to why things might have gotten so bad?

[Elegiac]

What's that you say, there are other circumstances to why things might have gotten so bad?

Lol, this isn't the gotcha that you think it is.

Those warnings were being delivered as a result of predictions and observations bushfires being made worse by....climate change. And the failure of the Morrison government to heed those warnings because they don't believe in climate change has resulted in this disaster.

This is literally the result of the government trying to pin it on every other factor besides climate change. Like you're doing here.

[Trassk]

Lol, this isn't the gotcha that you think it is.

Those warnings were being delivered as a result of predictions and observations bushfires being made worse by....climate change. And the failure of the Morrison government to heed those warnings because they don't believe in climate change has resulted in this disaster.

This is literally the result of the government trying to pin it on every other factor besides climate change. Like you're doing here.

I'm guessing it's hard to think outside that bubble when you've made up your mind and don't want it challenged? So because one of your governments is in denial of climate change, you now think anyone even suggesting it's less then the absolute reasons for this that they must be a right winger themselves?

I mean you realise your as bad as those you hate right? Rightwing government denies climate change, you deny anything else except climate change.

Yeah, climate change is one of the reasons this is happening. There are other reasons why it's become even worse this time round on top of that.

What don't you get about that?

[Rasulis]

And the fun part is the Morrison government was warned repeatedly that Australia would need to start investing in a fleet of firefighting aircraft as climate change got worse but, being right wing and unable to imagine spending money a plane that isn't a private luxury jet or a bomber to kill brown people, opted not to take this advice.

Yeah. It was cheaper to use Cal Fire large aircrafts in the past than buying/building new ones. I think Cal Fire has 7 C-130s (4,000 gallons), 22 S-2Ts (1,200 gallons), a couple of DC-10s (12,000 gallons), and a bunch of skyhook class helicopters. I would not blame the Australian government too hard. Cal Fire is the only fire department aviation fleet in the world with its own fleet of large air tankers.

[Elegiac]

There are other reasons why it's become even worse this time round on top of that.

All of which are related to climate change.

This "absolute reason" nonsense is a strawman designed to bog down the discussion in semantics. The data is abundantly clear on why this bushfire season grew to disastrous proportions, and it is a function of climate change and failures to respond to it. The "other factors" are literally shit that occurs every other year ranging from arson to complaints about hippies stopping backburning.

What don't you get about the fact that saying 'not acknowledging other factors' is a lie when the other factors have been repeatedly acknowledged, they just haven't been given the level of undue importance you ascribe to them in an effort to pin this on anything but environmentalists actually having a point.

[Rasulis]

Politicians like to blame climate change whenever this happens so that they dont get blamed for cutting budgets of brush and tree management. Also the nutty environmentalists in colorado and california that want to stop loggers from clearing dead/infected trees because of "beetles and birds need the dead trees for the ecosystem". And then surprise pikachu face when there is a huge fire.

Camp Fire in Butte County, which is the deadliest fire in the state's history, started in the national forest, and mostly burned federally managed land before spreading to private property to the west.

The largest blaze in California history, the 410,200-acre Ranch Fire, burned on large swaths of land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in Mendocino and nearby counties north of San Francisco.

The 229,650-acre Carr Fire in Shasta County started on National Park Service lands before spreading to private property and eventually into the city of Redding.

The Hirz and Delta fires also burned mostly Forest Service lands in Shasta County just after the Carr Fire died down. Between the two, they consumed 109,500 acres, according to Cal Fire.

We could go on.

[Daedius]

180+ arsonists have been arrested... seems fuckers are contributing to it intentional in the hundreds. Like, wtf??? Give those assholes life in prison.

[Crissi]

I don't necessarily get the OP. You can simultaneously have an arsonist problem that is made a LOT worse by climate change (due to increased fuel available for the fires to feed off of).

and given arsonists have always existed and will continue to happen, Im more on the side of climate change actually made the fire season worse, rather than arsonists suddenly became worse.

[Rasulis]

All of which are related to climate change.

This "absolute reason" nonsense is a strawman designed to bog down the discussion in semantics. The data is abundantly clear on why this bushfire season grew to disastrous proportions, and it is a function of climate change and failures to respond to it. The "other factors" are literally shit that occurs every other year ranging from arson to complaints about hippies stopping backburning.

What don't you get about the fact that saying 'not acknowledging other factors' is a lie when the other factors have been repeatedly acknowledged, they just haven't been given the level of undue importance you ascribe to them in an effort to pin this on anything but environmentalists actually having a point.

Climate change is definitely a contributing factor. A decade ago the fire season in Australia started around early January. Then the start dates started to creep earlier and earlier, and the seasons lasted longer and longer. The 2019-2020 season started way back in early August with months still to go.

[s_bushido]

I don't necessarily get the OP. You can simultaneously have an arsonist problem that is made a LOT worse by climate change (due to increased fuel available for the fires to feed off of).

He's going with the "environmentalists are claiming climate change is the ONLY cause" strawman.

[Temp name]

Considering just how many there are.. It's likely that some of them were. But as a whole? No.

[Crissi]

He's going with the "environmentalists are claiming climate change is the ONLY cause" strawman.

I could see maybe young teens arguing that, but any academic or scientist worth their salt will frame climate change issues with how it affects other factors, including the human factor.

[zenkai]

I don't necessarily get the OP. You can simultaneously have an arsonist problem that is made a LOT worse by climate change (due to increased fuel available for the fires to feed off of).

and given arsonists have always existed and will continue to happen, Im more on the side of climate change actually made the fire season worse, rather than arsonists suddenly became worse.

He's pointing out the problem about how it's multiple arson, why are you guys downplaying that also makes the problem worse? You think the fire was from one source and jumped all over the country on it's own?

I mean yeah climate change makes the problem worse but so does multiple people setting fires all over the place

[Elegiac]

He's pointing out the problem about how it's multiple arson, why are you guys downplaying that also makes the problem worse? You think the fire was from one source and jumped all over the country on it's own?

There are arsonists literally every year.

Also please note that the definition of 'arson' includes people flicking cigarette butts out of the window on the highway.

[Crissi]

He's pointing out the problem about how it's multiple arson, why are you guys downplaying that also makes the problem worse? You think the fire was from one source and jumped all over the country on it's own?

Again, because climate change can affect how badly an arsonist's fires end up being, as well as lengthening the fire season which would increase the potential for arson.

To my last point: Say thta the month of I dunno, October went from being out of season to fire season but you kept the same number of people flicking cigs out the window. Now you went from having little chance of fires to a larger chance of fires, but nothing changed other than climate.

[Yadryonych]

Wildfires happened naturally well before first men came to Australia, but hey, nice to see conspiracy theories are allowed now