Bushfire Summer - ABC Australia 2007 | Full Documentary

[@roslynweidemann9487]

The death penalty should definitely be the sentence for a arsonists who start bushfire's. Let's, as Australian's think about the human loss, property losse's, the C.F.A, S.E.S, DSE, people defending their livestock, pet's, wildlife losse's & ask yourself honestly if those arsonists deserve the right to live. Many people would say NO and that includes me. I nearly lost my brother and his family in 2009, they were living in kinglake and the only reason they're still alive is because our father built a 10 acre lake on the property my brother and family were living there on Black Saturday. It's heartbreaking 💔 waiting to hear if you still have family 👪 surviving bushfires 😢😢

[@thezurban7209]

Brendan Sukoluk (The Black Saturday arsonist who lit the Churchill fire that killed Eleven people) is eligible for parole in June this year and is due for release 3 years from now. Lets hope nothing bad happens to him. Edit: Not to mention he was also charged with possession of child porn when police searched his home and PC.

[@wiretamer5710]

What utter crap. There is ZERO excuse for the death penalty. It is barbaric, drags the entire society down to the level of a murder, AND it INCREASES violent crime. Dealing with serious crime is no excuse to drag the rest of us back to the horrendous era of the death penalty. If you want to live like that, go an live in a failed state: take you pick, natural disaster, civil war or military dictatorship! PUNISHING criminals is irrelevant to building strong communities: that give a shit about every citizen BEFORE they commit serious crimes. It's easy to hate criminals. It is MUCH HARDER to catch and convict criminals beyond reasonable doubt. The US executed over 60 people who were later found to have not committed the crimes they had died for. The death penalty does NOTHING to make a society free from serious crime, because sociopaths do not care about the consequences of their actions.

[@bennuballbags2]

There was a guy who cut down a heap of cypress trees around his house and the local council fined him $100,000...turned out the only house in the street left was this guys house....That kind of bureaucracy is part of the problem.

[@Smokeater342]

100%, all about defensible space, he knew the deal.

[@debbiebeeman5917]

I would go back and well what now

[@Dave-id6sj]

...........and then there was the 2009 fire season for Victoria!

[@mattyk82]

we are going to have longer and hotter summers, that didn't age well

[@absolutetruthgirl]

I highly recommend an excellent documentary about a small town near where I live called "the test". This progressive fire smarted community faced the beast and won. Great viewing.

[@amydavis4945]

The guy said something about leaving your home means you become part of the landscape, and the landscape is on fire. Okay, I accept that. But if you stay in your home and IT catches fire, guess what... you are part of THAT "landscape" too - with no where to go. So what DO you do? If you live out in a rural area, be responsible for your area.... before fire season, plow up a fire break around your perimeter. Clear brush and trim back trees that will become fuel (obviously you wouldn't want to just remove trees because they can be important WIND breaks). Personally, I would build an underground fire shelter (I live in Oklahoma and have an underground tornado shelter). If you do this, and hell comes burning down your door at least you have somewhere to escape the smoke/heat/fire well underground - obviously because you are trying to escape the smoke, you'd have to have some kind of smoke filtration on your shelter's air supply. You could still attempt to save your house, but if you can't at least you'd have somewhere to shelter (and maybe a few neighbors too). I would think cities in the danger zones could also build air-purified underground shelters as well that would hold a large number of people (like our tornado shelters in some places).

[@rithikuja7299]

These shelters you mention would need to be airtight to the exterior and have internally supplied air as I understand in the last big fires some people died from asphyxiation and not burnt. These firestorms suck up all the available oxygen.

[@dicostigan1449]

Northern American winter is our summer and as far back as early 1980s proposals to use aerial water bombers from Canada and USA were blocked by the little Tsars of the CFA.

[@marksherry6589]

They had good reason for the long and comprehensive plans for us.But do you know who won't be climate controlled? Yep Mother Nature and right now,with time hindsight,she's cooling us all down and raining in far greater global expansion. Geez I won't get any Government funding will I.

[@wiretamer5710]

This is a VERY interesting historical document because it’s production values are still seamless with new material. What stands out is that Victoria’s attitude to bushfire in 2007 was little changed from the lessons of Ash Wednesday and and 1985 Avoca fire where fire fighter deaths forced a major change i. Fire fighting tactics. There are the standard lessons about home defence. The message about how terrifying a successful hone defence can be IS THERE. But nothing about the fact that power is critical to water pressure. Nor is the issue of petrol engine failure due to ambient heat and oxygen depletion. A home defence plan is only as good as the weakest link in the defence plan…. As we found out on Black Saturday. And above all that, some fires are so big that home defence is impossible. This was a fact not well understood by rural communities in 2007: sometimes you have to get out the day before BECAUSE the expected fire will be unstoppable. Many people assumed that active home defence would prevail providing you stuck at it and refused to give ground. That is the message I took away from Ash Wednesday. Other notable saw points are the mention of the now infamous Fiskvile fire training facility, where so many volunteers and adjacent landowners were poisoned by the irresponsible use and disposal of fluorinated fire suppression foams.

[@lbrazier]

I remember the sight coming back to Stawell from a day yabbying and an evening of 'light refreshments' in Ararat on a new year's eve. Dark so very dark and a sea of Orange dotted with red and blue flashing lights. Only to get home to realise the fire missed our property by mere meters. Then to have it happen again only a couple of weeks later. In places you could stand at the edge of the first fire and feel the heat from the second fire. Scary days.

[@carrollbridges9341]

Problem is states and Countries let people build in areas they shouldn't because of Money

[@watchthe1369]

Fire Smart is a good search to see what California and the American SW is pushing for education about what to do for homeowners to have a chance of keeping their house, and maybe their life.

[@EipsteinClyde]

Perez Lisa Walker Donald Smith Christopher

[@elizabethpinkerton9866]

My small town has pretty well run on volunteers, but most of the next generations isnt interested. Especially now my parents generation have passed. They are the ones that worked so hard to keep towns together.. The few generations after arnt interested in working for free. Its always retired people, younger people, would be really helpfull.

[@chicagogyrl4846]

Why didn’t his wife go to the shelter??!

[@Kaethena]

You see towns and villages literally intermingled with trees, in Australia. And then people wonder why houses get burned down. In a country so big, with so few people relatively living there... how hard is it to have huge firebreaks of tens of miles around places with people living in them? Literally have no flammable materials around. Then fires would have nowhere to go. I mean it's not hard. Fires are one of the things people can actively do something about. It's not like a tornado that drops down on your house out of the blue. People know what causes and what feeds fire. So it's something that people can choose to remove from their area as a threat.

[@thezurban7209]

Nobody wonders why, who is gonna pay the tens if not hundreds of millions to make these land cuts capable of stopping fires with flames that can reach 80 meters high? Do you realise how insanely large of a land cut you need to stop a fire that is burning that hot? Once a fire crowns and is burning that intensely it can literally pull fuel from the soil and create it's own firestorm that can send hail storms of embers kilometers away. The only way to stop these fires growing to this intensity is rigorous and consistent back burning year round which the RFS doesn't receive the funding to do. Your idea could work but there is other things that can be done that are more efficient and doesn't permanently destroy thousands of hectares of our beautiful land. Small bush and scrub fires have long been a natural part of Australia's ecosystem to the point where some flora can't reproduce without fire, we have made a massive mistake over the last few decades of putting out these naturally occurring bush fires when they start and not back burning enough to keep up with the lands ebb and flow. Consequently large areas of wilderness go years without any fire or back burning thus more and more fuel accumulates and when a fire finally comes through it becomes a crowning fire of insane proportions and annihilates everything. Australian's are extremely good at fighting bush fires, crowning fires on the other hand are a different ball game.

[@Erney76]

You can also choose not to live in the cyclone belt across America....

[@군주-b9v]

Hall Brian Harris Ruth Perez Jason

[@ArslanOtcular]

White Linda Williams Lisa Lopez Donna

[@absolutetruthgirl]

The point this doc is trying to make is ludicrous. Sheltering in place is not an option. Evacuation to a designated community shelter or a nearby town is preferred. Australia's death toll speaks volumes. Over 30,000 people were evacuated from a British Columbian town in 2018 to my hometown of Kamloops. Only fire personnel and essential services remained in the evacuated town. Lives were saved. I know zip about bush fires, but is every square inch of Australia on fire when one occurs? No. Evacuated to a safer location.

[@Dancinglol892]

Well, we do not have the resources in Australia to actively support an evacuation of maybe 80,000-150,000 people, because that is what you are talking about when you say to evacuate like that particularly when bushfires impact urban-rural interfaces of cities. Also, you do not understand the nature of bushfires, it seems, some times within 5 minutes of ignition, they are already 500 hectares. On the other hand, North american bushfires are significantly more predictable. Which means, evacuating in an Australian bushfire is often deadly, you also don't get 75% of deaths are evacuating at the last minute. So the 180ish deaths of black saturday were almost entirely fleeing on the road. So please for the love of God don't go around spurting nonsense about stuff you admitted you knew Jack shit about.

[@my12spoonswithrose43]

Also most houses in Australia are built of brick instead of wood because of fire, it's only the silly & city slickers who use wood or other materials that burn. With the good old fashioned brick the house will not burn very easily & it also stays cool. You also have to remember some of these fires move up quicker than they think or happen suddenly so they have no chance to go so they are safer there than on the road or a building that is more likely to burn.

[@danielelise7348]

You see Victoria is the ONLY state in Australia,that has serious bushfires.🙄

[@elizabethpinkerton9866]

No it isnt NSW has had some terrible fires as had QLD and SA, but all states have had fire problems.

[@fewfriesshort5593]

Either you are being sarcastic, or this is the most uneducated comment on the internet.

[@samrobinson6396]

Ffs.. can people not see sarcasm these days??!! Of course he’s being sarcastic! Look at every other state in Australia, they’ve all had massive fires..

[@chieffirefigherplays]

Is it just me or does Western Australia have the least serious bushfires than other states?

[@rodneyclark1990]

Do yall not have air support?

[@jamesbaconstaken]

We do, yeah!

[@jnthepassenger347]

Yes… but try flying a damn helicopter through the thickest fog you’ve ever seen, multiply that times 100 and you’ve got one of our bushfires.

[@rocnoir4233]

Grossly inadequate air support yes.

[@my12spoonswithrose43]

Yes & pilots have died trying to put out fires.

[@NudePostingConspiracyTheories]

Well, (I’m not making this up) - was thinking seriously of moving permanently to Stawell…… Was.

[@Dancinglol892]

That was a once in a generation event, Stawell is also not threatened by bushfire due to a lot of work done to make it more safe (I lived in Stawell for a few years)

[@my12spoonswithrose43]

You know it can happen anywhere....right?

[@susanmcdonald-timms3202]

@@Dancinglol892Thanks heaps for replying mate. Maybe its not that likely eh? Well, I’ve moved to Warracknabeal as it turns. Surrounded by kilometres of wheat etc surrounding it. Very safe. But-i still like the idea of being at Stawell, so i have kept it in my mind. I travel through it regularly in the bus from Warracknabeal to Melbourne. And i like it. And im much mire likely to make use of the Grampians if I’m real close. Thanks again

[@susanmcdonald-timms3202]

@@my12spoonswithrose43Hi mate. Yes Victoria is like that. But there are less prone places. I’ve ended up buying a place in Warracknabeal. The town is surrounded by kilometres of wheat, and other crop fields. If we get a fire in those, there isn’t the tall tree fuel to create z monster fire. Im pretty pleased with myself on that level. Never been a fire there. Nothing much to burn. However, in the town, there is a beautiful deep creek with big trees, lots of birds, so you aren’t living in a barren place. The towns up here in the Wimmera wheat belt, are like islands in a sea of short wheat. Its a good formula. Still think i might like Stawell if I get more courageous, and another person replied to me mentioning the work they’ve done and the unlikelihood of again. Thanks for replying mate