Old News Is Today's News

Occasionally, a digital glitch means old stories reappear on the front pages of news sites. Sometimes this can be funny, most times just plain confusing.

But today's fuckup of multiple republished stories on the Sydney Morning Herald website is shocking, jarring, particularly if you hadn't seen or heard the news for a day or so, and smh.com.au was the first website you visited. No-one would blame you if you thought for a few sickening moments you'd missed another horrifying bushfire holocaust :



Oops.

But when the mistake was corrected, this graphic on the alleged nuclear weapons threat from Iran appeared instead :



It, too, is old news. In this case, long discredited news, but the casual reader would assume that Iran already has nuclear weapons (it doesn't) and that it has threatened other countries with nuclear annihilation (it hasn't).

Just remember when Fairfax columnists start complaining about Murdoch journos campaigning for War On Iran that the Sydney Morning Herald was there creating a reality for war from Day One.

This Is Australia, We Burn

ABC News, 5am :

Firefighters will be given no reprieve with weather conditions expected to deteriorate today with winds and high temperatures forecast.

Overnight 70 fires were burning across the State, mostly in remote and inaccessible terrain in the Blue Mountains the Hawkesbury region and northern areas.

Much of New South Wales is expected to get above 40 degrees, with winds gusting at up to 60 kilometres an hour forecast.

The RFS says under these conditions, firefighting will be extremely difficult and there may be significant threats to property.

It says people on rural properties to the west of Kandos and Rylstone should follow the advice of firefighters.

"If you do not have a Bush Fire Survival Plan, or you have doubts about your ability to protect your property, leave early," a spokesman said.

"Under these conditions fires will be uncontrollable, unpredictable and fast moving.

"Embers will be blown ahead of the fire, creating spot fires in many different directions.

"Spot fires will start up to six kilometres ahead of the main fire and they will move quickly.

"These spot fires may threaten your home earlier than the predicted main fire front."

From The Orstrahyun, February 23 :

In the outskirts of Sydney, up into the Blue Mountains, there are some 1.5 million people living in what could be described as "bushland settings." If conditions in the future were ever to mimic Victoria's on February 7, where would all those people go? And who would do all the evacuating?

In Australia, it's impossible to evacuate 500,000 to 1.5 million people from an area under threat. China evacuates millions, some years more than 20 million, from flood zones every time the super-rains come and rivers rise dangerously so. But it takes days to do it safely, and it's a fantasy to think that we have anywhere near the resources to stage such mass evacuations. In Victoria or New South Wales, unlike China, most of those evacuated would have nowhere to go, and state governments would have nowhere to even tent all those people while a bushfire threat passes.

If climate change has in reality given us an horrific preview this year of what's to come, perhaps the now impossible problems of massive evacuation in Australia will be overcome, eventually. Maybe.

This is Australia. We Burn.

UPDATE from ABC News :

The Rural Fire Service says about 1,000 firefighters are battling more than 100 blazes across the state as temperatures head towards the 40-degree mark.

But the Rylstone and Kandos blazes remain the biggest concern, after a fire threatening rural properties at Gunnedah in the state's north was brought under control.

The Twitter feed of updates from the NSW Fire Service is here :

twitter.com/nswrfs

Up to the minute 'Watch & Act' and 'Emergency Warnings' are also available from here :

The New South Wales Royal Fire Service

ABC News has a dedicated 'Bushfire Emergency' page here, the most comprehensive of all media in Australia.

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"Catastrophic" Fire Conditions Expected In South Australia Today

The still-fresh horror of February's Victorian bushfire holocaust puts an extremely grim perspective on all such warnings now from the Bureau Of Meteorology :

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 is forecast to be very hot and dry for most of South Australia. Fresh northwesterly winds over the pastorals and parts of the northern agricultural districts will shift fresh southwesterly during the day.

Catastrophic Fire Danger [100+] is forecast for the Northwest Pastoral and Flinders

Extreme Fire Danger [75-99] is forecast for the Northeast Pastoral, Eastern Eyre Peninsula and Mid North

Severe Fire Danger [50-74] is forecast for the Riverland Total Fire Ban district.

The Country Fire Service advises that fires burning under these conditions are likely to be fast moving, unpredictable and uncontrollable

The BoM alert was issued at 4.25pm Tuesday afternoon.

ABC News reported last night that residents in Catastrophic Fire Danger regions of South Australia had only until this morning to get out :

CFS strategic services manager Mick Ayre says residents of the North West Pastoral and Flinders districts must decide whether they will stay or go as soon as possible.

"The best advice we can give you is to think very carefully about whether you can withstand or fight a fire on a day of catastrophic fire ratings," he said.

Mr Ayre says if people decide to leave, they must be gone by early tomorrow morning at the latest.

"In a catastrophic fire danger situation, no houses are definitely guaranteed to survive," he said.

"If you decide to stay you could die in the attempt to save your property... "

A volunteer fire fighter told the ABC two-thirds of the people who lived in areas under 'Catastrophic Fire Danger" were still not aware, by yesterday evening, that they might have to make a potentially live saving decision by this morning.



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Not Again : The Victorian Fires Part Two

Five Million Australians Get "Emergency Warning" Text Messages

In just a few hours from when this story has been posted, huge, hot winds will begins blasting across Victoria, where at least four major fire fronts are still burning. Some towns have, reportedly, already been all but emptied, and during the night, hundreds more families fled what may, or may not, turn out to be another horrific day of death and tragedy.

From ABC News :

Victorians are being urged to secure their homes ahead of strong northerly winds expected around dawn.

Around 5,000 firefighters are on high alert with the winds due to hit western Victoria, before extending across the state and reaching Melbourne.

The weather bureau's Terry Ryan says wind gusts could top 100 kilometres per hour

"Those stronger winds will pick up in the Melbourne area about 6:00 am or 7:00 am, winds 60 to 80 kilometres per hour developing quite quickly, gusts possible to 100 [kph]," he said.

"The alpine area a little bit later, gusts to about 120 [kph] in the alpine area, those winds will turn west with a change entering the west of the state around midday to 1:00pm."

Hundreds of schools, 30 national parks and and Melbourne's Botanic Gardens will be closed.

It is feared the gusty conditions will result in four major fires jumping containment lines and spreading rapidly.

One of the most effective fire-fighting methods used so far in battling the weeks of fires across Victoria that have claimed more than 210 lives and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property, homes and businesses, has been waterbombing planes and helicopters.

But if wind conditions get too intense today, these aircraft will be grounded. Then it will be all up to the thousands of firefighters to do what they can to stop the flames.

Little rain has fallen anywhere in Victoria since February 7, and some of the biggest fires are now burning in what has been described, soberly, as "difficult terrain."

And once again, the fear looms of some pyromaniac setting fires in the path of the huge winds that could lead to further, and only recently unimaginable, carnage.

"If other fires start, if they are unable to be quickly pounced upon, those fires will rapidly spread and obviously wind is the great enemy in that case...."

Some three to five million mobile phones in Victoria (and some in Tasmania) have received messages warning of the terrible dangers that today could bring. A number of news reports have claimed that every mobile phone (registered and unregistered) in Victoria received a warning message.

Here's how it was done :

The state's major telecommunications networks — Telstra, Optus and Hutchison — sent warnings from Victoria Police to their mobile customers yesterday afternoon, warning of high wind and fire risk, and advising they listen to ABC radio for emergency updates.

The networks sent the messages to more than 3 million phones, using technology that isolated Victorian numbers, and sent the texts in bulk through a dispatch centre.

Premier John Brumby said the technology trial was a first for the state and a supplement to warnings made through the media.

However, he said the system was not suitable for an immediate threat, such as a terrorist attack or tsunami, because it could only deliver texts at a rate of up to 600,000 an hour.

"We can't provide an instantaneous warning," he said. "We're not in a position to do that yet, we don't have the capacity or the technology.

Maybe Victorians will get a weather miracle before the fires get out of control. A much-needed dose of unexpected, near miraculous, heavy rain, or a sudden shift in the predicted winds that will turn the fires back on themselves, back towards land already burned.

It's like firefighters are battling a war against an almost unstoppable enemy, huge fires have been burning constantly across Victoria for almost a solid month. How the fiirefighters maintain their sanity going in again and again to take on such a force of often unstoppable destruction is incomprehensible to those who have never had to do it.

No wonder so many firefighters talk about the flames as though they are living, killing, unstoppable beasts, monstrous things taller than buildings, longer than freeways, that burn your skin to a crisp long before you even see the flames.

Fire lives and breathes, and it eats and kills voraciously, without mercy.

They cannot stop it, they can only turn it back, calm it down, contain it, until it runs of breath, out of fuel, out of energy. Until it returns again later in the year. But not late enough for the many in Victoria who have been psychologically shattered by the horrors and loss of the past few weeks, and who must now dread next summer, like the arrival of hell itself.

UPDATE : Damn, maybe I should go into the miracle-predicting business (is there one?).

Rains doused Melbourne this morning, and winds have not been as strong, or as widespread, as expected. Threats to lives and property posed by fire fronts remain strong, but the rest of today is not expected to unfold as ultra-dangerously as predicted by weather forecasters and fire fighting officials :

While Melbourne, Geelong and surrounding suburbs are getting damp, fire authorities said the drizzle would be nowhere near the amount needed to douse fires.

However, a weather spokesman told 3AW radio that the drizzle has prevented winds reaching expecting highs, and should prevent temperatures rising to a forecast 32.

This Is Australia, We Burn

By Darryl Mason

It must be incredibly unnerving to be living in thick bushland within 100kms of the three major firefronts in Victoria this morning, as mid-to-high 30s heat and strong winds are expected to intensify the fires already burning, and new outbreaks are expected.

Hundreds of families have reportedly already decided to leave their homes in bushland outside of Melbourne, but fire authorities are trying to cut through the anticipatory fear-mongering of the morning news shows on TV as I write this to remind people that February 7 was a day of record-breaking extreme heat, and today is not expected to come close. Plus, at least 400,000 hectares of the state has already been burned out.

Conditions are grim, fire authorities are saying this morning, there will be plenty of heat and wind, but they are not expecting similar extremes of temperature and wind as February 7.

Fire authorities are still telling Victorians that if they have prepared their properties, if they are confident of protecting their homes, it is not necessary to leave. They are still pushing the 'Stay' choice of 'Stay or Go.' For those who don't think their homes or families are safe, then the time to leave is well before midday.

They've made it clear that evacuations are not underway, and they're working hard to stop the more excitable morning TV and radio hosts from whipping up useless, and dangerous, fear.

It would seem that emergency services in Victoria are as concerned about the possibility of widespread panic breaking out - causing untold chaos on roads and appalling accidents if tens of thousands of people smell the smoke and run for their cars - as they are about fires wiping out more communities. Kilometres of traffic building up in areas where fires may sweep through is something they are now trying to avoid.

The threat of more fires, more ember attacks, and more decimated towns and villages, is still jarring, terrifying, and now all too real. For those who have forgotten what carnage bushfires can unleash in this country, we need no more reminding. The images of destruction, death and misery are seared into the nation's mind now.

And it's hard to shake out of your head those images of fireys battling ten, fifteen, twenty metre high walls of fire, and funnels of flame. So many Australians are simply at the mercy of the bush around them burning. That fireys manage to control as much bushland and keep in check as many fires as they do is downright remarkable, but bushland dried by more than a decade of drought is so widespread, and so dry, they'd need tens of thousands more fireys and dozens of helicopters to even come close to guaranteeing that Victorians will be mostly safe from fires for the rest of this summer, and the summers to come.

Not being safe from fires, however, is an old Australian reality that most of us have only recently learned about again. As has often been said in the past, and in the past two weeks in particular, "This is Australia, we burn", and the land will continue to burn when the heat is intense, when the bush is paper dry and the winds are blowing hard.

If you live in the bush, when the heat boils up into the mid-to-high 30s, and strong winds pick up, you can no longer look at that billow of the smoke in the distance and shrug and say to yourself, 'Well, those fires are 40 or 50 ks away. We'll be right."

There's probably at least a few dozen people who lost their lives in Marysville and Kinglake who thought the exact same thing, never imagining that fire could sweep in faster than they could get the kids into the car and drive to escape it.

But as the Victorian premier, John Brumby, has repeatedly pointed out since February 7, even if mandatory evacuations were announced, as some believe they should have been two weeks ago, and if you were to evacuate everyone potentially threatened by fire on days like this, where exactly do you evacuate 500,000, or more, people to? Where do they go?

In the outskirts of Sydney, up into the Blue Mountains, there are some 1.5 million people living in what could be described as "bushland settings." If conditions in the future were ever to mimic Victoria's on February 7, where would all those people go? And who would do all the evacuating?

In Australia, it's all but impossible to evacuate 500,000 to 1.5 million people from an area under threat. China evacuates millions, some years more than 20 million, from flood zones every time the super-rains come and rivers rise dangerously so. But it takes days to do it safely, and it's a fantasy to think that we have anywhere near the resources to stage such mass evacuations. In Victoria or New South Wales, unlike China, most of those evacuated would have nowhere to go, and state governments would have nowhere to even tent all those people while a bushfire threat passes.

If climate change has in reality given us an horrific preview this year of what's to come, perhaps the impossible problems of massive evacuation in Australia will be overcome, eventually. Maybe.

This is Australia. We Burn.

But tinder dry bush doesn't always just burst into flames either, even when the heat is so intense it sears the nose to breathe the air. Poorly maintained electricity lines can spark bushfires (as may well the case with the fires that swept into Kinglake two weeks ago), so can discarded cigarettes, and arsonists strike around the country every year, when fire-ready conditions are most perfect.

Is there somebody, right now, down in Victoria, thinking about going out and lighting more fires today? It absolute shatters fireys every time one of their own is busted for lighting fires in the bush, and it seems to happen nearly every year now. But how do you stop these people? In the future will potential arsonists be spotted, and dealt with, pre-emptively, as we now deal with supposed terrorists? Get them before they get the chance to do something destructive and deadly?

The most moving part of the 'National Day of Mourning' yesterday was to see the fire fighting men and women, who lost their homes and friends trying to protect the houses of complete strangers. They will be back out there today, and all this week, and again this time next year. They face dangers we can't comprehend, and it's a sign of just how professional many of them are that so few are injured or killed as they battle those flames.

The fire threat, unlike most other natural disasters, comes on so many fronts, sometimes all at the same time - arson, spot fires caused by loose embers from burn-offs, lighting strikes - and all are impossible to fully contain or control. It's worse than a war, fire is without mercy.

This is Australia. We Burn.

It's a reality few of us will forget anytime soon.

UPDATE : Stories hitting the online headlines right now, at 8.40am, are claiming the new Victorian fires threat is greater than mentioned earlier, but authorities are still trying to avoid a situation developing where roads become choked with traffic, blocking emergency response vehicles, and potentially trapping people in the path of fires :

"Of most concern is the giant East Kilmore-Murrindindi fire," Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Lee Miezis said.

"We're talking about temperatures to the mid-30s with a northwesterly wind and a late chance with southwesterly winds

CFA state duty officer Neil Bumpstead said residents would be most at risk after the wind change forecast for late this afternoon.

Mr Bumpstead warned that if fire did reach the Warburton Valley, people who had left should be prepared to stay away for several days.

"We cannot stress enough that with limited road access in the Warburton Valley, traffic may become congested," he said.

"Being on the roads is dangerous during a fire threat."

Crack A Joke, Break The Misery

I was wondering when we were going to see the return of the black-as Australian sense of humour amongst all the seriousness and tragedy of the Victorian fires. It sounds like it's back :

"The Catholic Church has burnt down, the United Church has burnt down, and I see the Buddhist temple is still standing," one survivor said.

"It sort of makes you realise who might have the real God. I think I'll change religion."

One woman says that when she took a TV crew to her house, they began walking over the rubble and she called out to them, "No, through here please," and proceeded to pick up what was left of the front door handle.

Great story.

Man Up, Fire Crybabies

Compassionate international YouTube commenters share some love with Australians devastated by the Victorian fires :

"Fucking Australians all think they're the hottest motherfuckers on the planet. Now you're literally hot! BURN FAGGOT CAVEMAN PEOPLE, BURN!"

"Seriously, who cares? Thanks for AC/DC, Mad Max, and INXS - but WTF has Australia been up to lately? You're like a cousin that had so much potential when he was younger, but now sniffs glue in a camaro out in the school parking lot listening to speed metal."

"...fuck you. Thousands of people die every day, thousands of babies are born every day. Its life. Build a bridge and grow a dick. Stupid Australians. They all think they're Crocodile Dundee."

But you don't have to go to YouTube to find hatred of bushfire victims. There's always religion.

Here's whatever the hell 'Al Qaeda' is supposed to be these days :

Senior analyst at SITE Intelligence Group Adam Raisman said they were posting pictures of burnt homes and devastated victims and "taking joy in the scenes".

One jihadist wrote: "It would be an act of revenge for Australian's participation in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Pretty calm stuff. For the really extreme hatred, you have to turn to American Baptists :

GOD HATES AUSTRALIA.
THANK GOD FOR KILLER FIRES & FLOODS, 100+ DEAD; PRAY FOR MANY MORE...
Yes. It is WBC's sincerely held religious belief that Australia is a land of False Prophets, many of whom are fags or fag-enablers.

Grods has more

And Irfan Yusuf takes a closer look at the claims made by SITE and the Herald Sun, and warns of the threats posed by jihadic koalas.

Songs About "Fire" And "Burning" Banned From Australian Radio

Something very similar happened in the United States after September 11, 2001 - Australian radio stations are purging their playlists of any songs that might remind listeners of last weekend's holocaust in Victoria.

Gone from radio playlists, already, are the following songs :

Talking Heads - Burning Down The House

Bruce Springsteen - (I'm On) Fire

Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning

INXS - Burn For You

Jessica Mauboy - Burn

U2 - Fire


While radio stations are engaged in such rampant fucking stupidity, here's a few they might have missed :

The Doors - Light My Fire

Various - Great Balls Of Fire

Madonna - Burning Up

INXS - Girl On Fire

AC/DC - This House Is On Fire

Olivia Newton-John - Walk Through The Fire

Ben Harper - Burn One Down

Various - Burn Baby Burn (Disco Inferno)

Bob Marley - Burnin' & Lootin'

Cold Chisel - Baby's On Fire

Silverchair - Ana's Song (Open Fire)

Icehouse - Touch The Fire

John Farnham - Burn For You

Bryan Adams - Hearts On Fire

Hunters & Collectors - Everything's On Fire

Peter Gabriel - Walk Through The Fire

Elvis Presley - Burning Love

John Mellencamp - Paper In Fire

John Farnham - Hearts On Fire

Usher - Burn

Jesus & Mary Chain - Catch Fire

Metallica - Jump In The Fire

Nickleback - Burn It To The Ground

Bloodhound Gang - Burn Baby Burn

Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire

It's fascinating to note just how many great, timeless songs could make the 'You Can't Play That Now!' ban list.

If ridiculously over-sensitive radio stations decide to include all songs that include the words "fire" or "burn" in their lyrics, instead of just the choruses or song titles, they won't have much left to play at all.

Do you know how many U2 and Midnight Oil songs, for example, use words like "fire" and "burn" in their lyrics? I can't be arsed to check, but from the most vague of memory recalls, I know it's a hell of a lot.

If Australia was hit by a tsunami, would we ban all Beach Boys songs?

Definitely one of the most ridiculous fall-outs of the Victoria Fires 2009 (Part One) I've found so far. No doubt, it won't be the last.

"C'mere, Mate, You Alright, Buddy?"



Correction : apparently the above photo is by John Vickery and the below clip was vidded by CFA volunteer Braydon Groen





Sam The Koala, from the above clip is now recovering from mild to serious burns

10,000 Native Animals Dead, Injured In Fires

Sam became the most famous koala in the world when firefighter David Tree stopped to give him a drink amid the devastation of the Victoria fires.

The image provided a much-needed picture of hope in a week filled with news of despair. Yesterday Sam was recovering in Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter.

Carer Jenny Shaw said she suffered burns on her paws and was in a lot of pain, but was on the road to recovery.

She was put on an IV drip and is on antibiotics and pain relief treatment.

"She is lovely - very docile - and she has already got an admirer. A male koala keeps putting his arms around her," Ms Shaw said.

"She will need regular attention and it will be a long road to recovery, but she should be able to be released back into the wild in about five months."

Mr Tree said he was surprised by the reaction to the photograph, which was snapped by a fellow CFA volunteer on a mobile phone.

He said he was in the middle of backburning at Mirboo North when he saw the stricken koala.

"I could see she had sore feet and was in trouble, so I pulled over the fire truck. She just plonked herself down, as if to say 'I'm beat'," he said.

"I offered her a drink and she drank three bottles.

"The most amazing part was when she grabbed my hand. I will never forget that."

UPDATE : While the human toll of the Victorian bushfires is now likely to reach 300, with more than 80 remaining missing today, the animal toll has also been revised up. Way, way up :

More than a million native animals may have perished in Victoria's fire inferno, a wildlife expert says.

Ms Chappell is among those working to rescue the animals and says the extent of the devastation may never be known.

"It (the animal death toll) will be in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions," Ms Chappell said.

"We are not just talking the animals we are familiar with, there are gliders and all sorts of possums, antechinus (a mouse-like marsupial), bandicoots, birds - there is so much wildlife."

It is feared endangered populations of gliders, owls and lizards may be among the dead.

For those that have survived, the recovery process will be long and slow.

"They have lost their homes too and they are not going to be rebuilt in a year or two years, it is a much longer-term picture," Ms Chappell said.

"You can't reconstruct a forest."

UPDATE : Sam The Koala is reunited with her rescuer, fire fighter David Tree :

"Who knows if she recognised me or not but I would like to think so," Mr Tree said.

"I got a bit choked up because it has been such an emotional week. It was just good to see her doing well.

"This has been a really tough week for everyone so it is good to have one happy ending.

"She was pretty friendly, she gave me a bit of a sniff and we touched noses."

Of course the koala remembered her rescuer. Look at her face, total eye contact.

UPDATE : Sam The Koala is recovering well, and has made a special new friend, Bob :

Colleen Wood from the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter that is caring for Sam and Bob said both koalas were doing well while other animals like possums, kangaroos, and wallabies were also starting to emerge from the debris.

She said Sam had suffered second degree burns to her paws and would take seven to eight months to recover while Bob had three burned paws with third degree burns and should be well enough to return to the bush in about four months.

"They keep putting their arms around each other and giving each other hugs. They really have made friends and it is quite beautiful to see after all this. It's been horrific," said Wood.

"Sam is probably aged between two to four going by her teeth and Bob is about four so they have a muchness with each other."

Beautiful.



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A Holocaust Of Fire, Cyclones Of Flames, Burn Hundreds To Death


Photo submitted to a Herald Sun readers gallery by Chris Roche

By Darryl Mason

The scope of the destruction, the scale of human tragedy of the apocalyptic Sunday fires in country Victoria, Australia's worst bushfire disaster, is beyond comprehension.

More than 100 dead, almost 1000 homes, properties and business destroyed, entire towns and villages in country Victoria laid to waste, some 350,000 hectares burned.

Reading through dozens of stories, listening to the stories of remarkably calm and lucid survivors on radio, trying to take in all those images of horror on TV, of entire towns obliterated by fire and cyclonic winds, of lone firefighters taking on five and six story high walls of flames with a single hose, of frantic survivors trying to find missing friends and family members, it's impossible to summarize any of it, all of it.

Again and again survivors describe "firestorms" that barreled in from nowhere and swept through faster than a train killing almost everything they touched. Why didn't they leave sooner? Why wasn't everyone evacuated? How did this appalling horror become reality, here? In this age? With all our technology? How can more than 100 people burn to death like this?

It's like a tragedy from another century. But in some areas the office tower tall walls of cyclonic fire roared through 30 kilometres of bush and scrub in less than an hour. The glow on the horizon, that distant plume of smoke, came and laid waste to a house, a farm, an entire village, in the time it takes to make a cup of tea and a sandwich and watch a few overs of the cricket.

The visuals that haunt and linger now are of all those cars, reduced to grey and black metal husks, some all alone on charred roads, others rammed into each other in piles of six, seven, eight vehicles outside of towns with names that are literally scorched into our national consciousness, three cars almost melted into each other with a power pole slammed down amongst them, and what looks like black strips of melted rubber along some roads which may mean people were trying to outrun the flames when the tires of their cars caught fire and fell apart.



Right now it appears that at least 30 people were burned to death in their cars trying to get away from the flames that, for many, came on them with little warning, or no warning at all. Some were up at home, watching news of fires that must have seemed so far away, until the sky turned almost instantly black with smoke. Some had a few minutes to attempt their escapes, some would have had less than one.

Right now, Australian soldiers who thought they would never see anything worse than scores of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, are helping to recover the corpses from burned out cars, in some vehicles whole families, with their pets and photos and treasured possessions, and digging through the wreckage of hundreds of farms and homes looking for those still missing. What they are seeing is worse than anything insurgents and terrorists in foreign lands unleashed, this is home, Australia, countryside that some of these soldiers have known since their childhood, beautiful Australian country towns and villages once lined with ancient trees and postcard-beautiful old wooden homes that have stood strong for more than a century, all of them gone.

Late yesterday afternoon, the bodies of those who tried to run away from the flames and perhaps found another skin-melting wall of fire instead of escape, were still lying by the sides of black roads that once carried locals and tourists through some of the most picturesque countryside you could ever hope to see. Some of the bodies were covered with blankets pinned down by rocks, a makeshift effort at giving the dead some dignity.

This isn't just, or yet, another Australian bushfire tragedy. Between 20,000 and 30,000 bush fires break out in Australia in an average year, few claim any lives, or burn any homes. Nobody has ever seen anything like this, not here, not the oldest of locals or the most experienced of soldiers or rescue workers or the thousands of incredibly brave fire fighters or the busloads of specialists now streaming in to help recover and deal with all the dead.

And it's not over yet.

One absolutely shocking, jarring example of the holocaust that consumed a small country's worth of Australian bush land on Sunday: it appears more people were killed outright than seriously burned by these fires.

There are more dead than severely injured.


Photo submitted to Herald Sun by Simon Bourke


The fire came in like a 'beast' :

...flames more than 15 metres high leapt through treetops in a seemingly unstoppable advance. Houses burst into flames as gas cylinders ignited, sending fire into the blackened sky.

One Raywood CFA member who helped extinguish a shed and caravan fire off Maiden Gully Road described the fire with its intense heat as the worst he had seen.

"It was pitch black, the heat was enormous, with flames 15 to 20 metres high as it crossed the road," Ian Henley said.

Mr Hanley described the fire as selective in the way it burned towards the more densely populated suburban areas of West Bendigo.

"It was like it came up to something and said, 'No, I don't want you — I'll take you.'

"It had a mind of its own, like a beast," he said.

More survivors talk of the super deadly fires in Kinglake as though the flames were living, thinking entities :

It seemed the fire was hunting the residents of Kinglake, according to survivor Jason Webb.

The survivors, some carrying everything they now own, spoke of an afternoon summer sky blackened by smoke and a giant orange fireball that hung over their town as flames engulfed their homes and killed their neighbours.

"It didn't seem that bad and then the smoke just blacked out the sky and it had a real ominous feel about it," he said.

"Suddenly it just turned really nasty, almost like it was going to walk past us and went 'Hang on there's some houses over there' , and it just turned and came straight at us."

Gary Hughes :

They call it "ember attack".

Those words don't do it justice. It is a fiery hailstorm from hell driving relentlessly at you. The wind and driving embers explore, like claws of a predator, every tiny gap in the house.

Embers blow through the cracks around the closed doors and windows.

We frantically wipe at them with wet towels. We are fighting for all we own.

Patrick Carlyon :

....no one yet could know just how many gruesome revelations awaited.

Of six people dead in a car accident in Kinglake.

Of the badly burned Kinglake man kept alive for six hours by being submerged by friends in a pool.

Of the Marysville firefighter who lost his wife and daughter while fighting the blazes.

Of the motorcyclist burnt alive in St Andrews.

Of the woman who left fighting the fires to save her goats who was found dead by her son in a shed.

A badly burnt man and his daughter turned up at a property where Marie Jones was staying. He had skin hanging "off him everywhere".

The man told her: "Look, I've lost my wife, I've lost my other kid, I just need you to save (my daughter)."

As hard as it is may be to comprehend, there are worse ways to die in a bushfire than to be immediately consumed by flames. There are two terms that yesterday were unfamiliar, but are now part of the vocabulary of discussing these fires. One is "ember attack". The other is "radiant heat". And as fire fighter after fire fighter explained in interviews, radiant heat kills :

A University of Melbourne senior lecturer in fire ecology and management, Kevin Tolhurst, said the radiant heat - the heat given off by the fires - would itself have been enough to kill. "When it gets close, you have enormous radiation loads."

The "survivability" distance of Saturday's heat was about four times their height - a 35-metre high fire would directly imperil those within 140 metres.

The body would get over-stressed, the core temperature would get too high and the metabolism would break down in those conditions. He said bushfires produce their own volatile gases which in turn burn - and on a day as hot as Saturday, it does not take much for them to ignite.

Dr Tolhurst said people could be surrounded by a series of spot fires. Breathing would become difficult due to burning gases and the body would dehydrate quickly. Death from a form of asphyxiation was also possible.

And finally, another remarkable tale of survival, thanks to a horse :

Mr Sexton grabbed his horse, Jeune Mark, the offspring of 1995 Melbourne Cup winner Jeune, a cold beer from the fridge and walked out the gate. They started trotting, but just a few hundred metres from home they were confronted by flames.

"As we got up around the corner the flames just went absolutely sick, so I thought we'd turn around and try and race back. But the fire came up behind us, it came down from the hill, and we were just bloody engulfed, and I just thought to myself, 'That's it. This is where I'm going to die,' " he said.

But then something remarkable happened, perhaps by accident, perhaps not. Jeune Mark pushed him over a guard rail, and after a short wrestle with the horse he stumbled and raced down to the Traralgon Creek, on his own, and lay in it.

"I was screwed. I was covered in flames," he said. But after lying there for two or more hours, and after noticing that the flames had past, Mr Sexton emerged from the water and followed the creek towards home.

Jeune Mark....was standing in the paddock, the worse for wear, with burns around his eyes and nose, but still alive.

Dozens of fires are still burning in Victoria and New South Wales. The days ahead will be cooler than the record breaking heat of the past week, but winds are still unpredictable. There could be more to come.

Australia's Worst Bushfire Disaster

The Dead Zone : Dozens Killed In Kinglake, 550 Homes Destroyed

"The Man Up The Road Is On Fire"

John Fergeson : From The Air, It's Like Armageddon

Dozens Die In Blistering Heat And Firestorms


Screen capture detail from an uncredited photo off the ABC News front page

UPDATED : The death toll of the country Victorian bushfires as of Sunday night are 100 dead, dozens injured, 1000 homes, properties, businesses destroyed. Full Report Is Here.

Previously....

The people of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia were warned the fires and the intense heat on Saturday were going to be deadly, and now terrible headlines hitting around the world confirm the worst.

At least 40 people in the country Victoria bushfires are believed to have burned to death, as of midnight Saturday, and there may be as many as 50 more dead from the effects of the 46-48 Celsius temps in parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. At least 100 homes have been lost in country Victoria, but fire crews and rescuers have still not reached a number of towns and villages hit by the fires.

Firecrews are taking on hundreds of blazes and firefronts across Victoria, fighting in what the Victorian premier, John Brumby has called "the worst fire conditions in history". Fires in New South Wales have yet proved to be as deadly, or as widespread, but Sunday is expected to produce record temperatures and high winds across areas already ablaze.

There aren't enough firefighters or fire trucks to deal with the firestorms in Victoria. A terrified man called in to the ABC to report that the Victorian town of Kingslake was "engulfed in flames." Calls for help went unanswered, fire fighters were busy elsewhere battling dozens of blazes.


Screen capture detail from a photo by AAP's Simon Mossman

This is just incredible :

Fires are becoming so big that they are creating their own weather.

Senior weather forecaster, Terry Ryan, says thunderstorms are forming over fire-affected parts of west Gippsland.

"We call it pyrocumulus, where all the ash coming out of the fire causes lifting and convection, and can cause a thunderstorm-looking top," he said.

"You can get thunderstorms and lightning coming out of the top of the fire basically, and that can add to the fire's effect, a bit of a nasty feedback effect that can occasionally happen."

And today - with temperatures in parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Adelaide to be even hotter than Saturday - may prove to be even more tragic, more destructive, more deadly.

* Live streams of emergency broadcasts for Melbourne and country Victoria on ABC Radio here.

* Dedicated ABC News page on the Victorian fires here

UPDATE : More on that ABC News phone in report that the Victorian town of Kinglake has been destroyed in the fires. Six people are now confirmed to have died in the Kinglake fires :

Resident Peter Mitchell told ABC Local Radio the town was at the mercy of fires which swept through it after a wind direction change.

Mr Mitchell said there was no-one to fight the fire because fire crews were already fighting other fires across the state.

He was forced to leave his home to shelter at the local fire station.

"The whole of Kinglake is ablaze, I live a couple of [kilometres] out of town, I heard explosions, by the time I got to the road there were fires everywhere," he said.

"[There is] flame everywhere, trees exploding, gas tanks exploding, buildings on fire, it's very, very, very serious.

"I can't quite see down into the main stretch of town, but there's a lot of flame coming up from there, so I presume most of the town is going up."

Denise was heading home from her mother-in-law's house just outside Kinglake when she was forced to turn back as fires bore down on the town.

She was spared, but others were not so lucky. "The whole town is gone," she said.

She said her mother-in-law's house was surrounded by flames. "Everything around us is burning.

"Trees are burning, things are blowing up, there are a lot of houses burnt to the ground. A lot of houses ... "

UPDATE : Melbourne just experienced it's hottest day on record, according to the Herald Sun : 46.4 degrees. When the heatwave broke, in the late afternoon, temperatures plunged 17 degrees, in one hour.