NSW fires

Funding for Fire resources, equipment and general fire fighting is a State Level funding.
QLD and Vic are Labor, NSW is Liberal.
So, both political sides are guilty of poor management, lack of reduction burns, lack of fire access trail maintenance etc.
The blame is constantly being laid at ScoMo's feet in the media, but it is not actually his fault at all.
The rest of the blame falls on humans who deliberately or accidentally light the fires, and the occasional lightning strike - which humans have zero control over.

How CFA is Funded - Country Fire Authority

 

This article says a bit different:

"Police arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the past few months. ... In Tasmania, where fires have sprung up in the north of the state and outside Hobart, five were caught setting fire to vegetation. Victoria reported 43 charged for 2019.4 hours ago"
Bushfires: Firebugs fuelling crisis as arson arrest toll hits 183

https://www.theaustralian.com.au › nation › news-story

 

Nobody's really blaming him directly, it's his pathetic leadership and lack of action that he's rightfully being criticised for.

 

There is no evidence to suggest any difference in length and heat of future summers.
It is merely prediction and opinion.
In fact, if you look at this chart of all previous years of rainfall in Australia since 1900, you will see that there is no pattern at all for rainfall or drought.

 

Back then social media was non existent and you did not have this 24/7 news cycle .
According to the worlds media "Australia is on Fire" and our government are getting slammed for inaction .
Craig Kelly certainly did not make any friends today with his comments on UK tv , and many just shake their head at how stupid some of our politicians are.
Pictures of serious smoke pollution in our major cities also adds to the problem.
People migrate here for the clean outdoor lifestyle , not to be slowly poisoned by heavy levels of pollution.
The other really big issue is the speed at which Sydney water supplies are diminishing.
They know that we have always suffered from droughts yet continued to overpopulate with not enough thought to water supply.

 

Maybe this from the CSIRO will change your mind. Was shared by @George Smiley on a different thread.

Australia's changing climate - CSIRO

 

Smoke is a temporary pollution, and bushfirwes have been occuring all over the Planet for billions of years, all year long.
California have bushfires every other year, yet both illegal immigrants and legal immigrants are still queuing up to move there.
I think if you study our immigration numbers since 1983 (Ash Wednesday), and 2009 (Black Saturday), the population has steadily grown due to immigration.
https://www.google.com/search?q=aut...me.0.69i59.17978j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
"Mortality rates were also falling, although at an insufficient pace to offset the fall in fertility, leading to a fall in growth due to natural increase from 1.2% in 1970 to 0.8% in 1980. Australia's population increased from 15.1 million at the end of 1981 to 18.1 million in June 1995.Mar 15, 2006"
Australia's population growth - Australian Bureau of Statistics

https://www.abs.gov.au › AUSSTATS

This chart shows a fairly consistent yearly increase in population since 2004 - between 1.33% and 2.11% increase each year - see the last column:
1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2012

 

Oh please there's plenty of evidence so producing it is like shooting fish in a barrel. As for equating the weight of science with prediction and opinion, that's just laughable in the extreme. And yes, do read the link above and good luck trying to contradict the CSIRO on the fact that we are becoming a drier, hotter nation in the areas where these bushfires are.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Have a good night.

 

I actually heard from a friend of a friend that scomo was caught light some fires aswell

 

The NSW liberal government was specifically who I was referring to. They cut the capital expenditure budget of fire and rescue nsw from $80 million to $50 million.

Please provide stats showing labor has cut the professional fire services budgets in other states.

 

Yes, I have seen this report before.
I am surprised that a supposedly scientific body would make reports written this way.
There are several interesting claims;
'Australia’s weather and climate continues to change in response to a warming global climate. Australia has warmed by just over 1 °C since 1910, with most warming since 1950.'
Since record keeping began over 150 years ago, the World Temp has only risen a total of 0.8 of ONE degree. The CSIRO has cherry picked a small window since 1950. We know for scientific fact that the World Temps dropped between 1942 and 1976 approx. This would make it easy to say the temp has gone up by one degree, but the starting point is from 1950 and not 1850 where it should have.
And this;
"There has been a long-term increase in extreme fire weather and in the length of the fire season across large parts of Australia since the 1950s."
Earlier I posted a B.O.M map of rainfall across Australia since 1900. I have reposted it here for further reference and comaprison to the CSIRO rhetoric.
If you look closely at each year, you will see severe droughts in several years - all random and all scattered across the entire 118 years.
Severe drought years - (Rainfall well below average) occurred in: 1900,01,02,12,15,19,28,29,35,37,38,40,70,94,2002,13,18
Above average rainfall occurred in:
1910,17,21,47,49,50,55,56,68,73,74,75,78,98,99,2000,10,11,16
So, as you can see; no pattern or consistent drop or rise in rain activity or droughts.
What this chart doesnt show us is that during the 1800's there were actually more drought years than we have had in this last century.
There is also this interactive drought chart since 1900 from the ABC:
Interactive: 100 years of drought in Australia
And this:
"The drying in recent decades across southern Australia is the most sustained large-scale change in rainfall since national records began in 1900. The drying trend has been most evident in the southwestern and southeastern corners of the country."
This statement does not match up with the data on the B.O.M Maps.

 

Have you got any NSW Govt reports showing this?
I wasnt referring to any budget cuts - you were.
I was referring to the Forestry Management and fire-fighting management systems and procedures and policies relating to reduction burns, access trails and so on, which is controlled by the various States.
Given that the fires covered 3 States - QLD, NSW and Vic; it is fair to say that both Political Parties have done a poor job.
Mind you; they had very little chance of doing a good job given the volume of fires were caused by arsonists and accidentally lit fires.
I was also using that to compare to the widespread blaming of all the fires on ScoMo by the media - when it is the States who administer the maintenance Programs, policies and so on - nothing to do with individual funding.
This article is interesting:
Fact Check: Is the NSW firefighting budget is facing a $40 million cut?

 

I read something today listing all the previous fires dating back a few hundred years as well, a lot had 10x the amount of deaths, and were a few that were double & triple the size in hectares destroyed. I don’t have data at hand to back it up but I’m agreeable with your statements.

 

The effected areas where the bushfires have been burning, are located on the Eastern side of Australia, in 3 States - Qld, NSW and Vic.
On the B.O.M Maps covering the last 118 years, a total of 63 years saw average to above average rainfalls in those regions.
31 of those years occurred in the first half of the studied period - from 1900-1959
32 of those years occurred in the second half of the studied period - from 1960-2018
In the last 30 years of the studied period - from 1988-2018, there were 14 years of average to above average rainfalls for those 3 States and regions where the bushfires have been burning.
The CSIRO have made the claim as you say, but the data on the B.O.M Maps does not show that the regions you mention are showing any significant evidence of becoming drier, or hotter - given the rainfalls.
Of course; rain maps dont record the temperature, but the becoming drier claim is inaccurate.

 

The human deaths stat is misleading too.
Many previous fires were in eras of lower populations, and/or not necessarily near populated areas.
You can't calculate the devastation of a fire based on people deaths, or property and infrastructure damage or destruction - but many people do.
The size of areas the fires burn could be more accurate, but then you have different terrains, topography, density of fauna and so on.
The Black Thursday bushfires of 1851 burn out 5 million hectares of area, but we dont know what the state of the fauna was then, the ground litter levels, the wind strength etc.
We do know it was very hot and windy - like many days over summer are now - especially in Feb.
Black Thursday bushfires - Wikipedia

 

Detailed map of Australia's rainfall. Take a look at the Federation drought

 

Yes.
And then have a look at 02 - even worse.
But we had no record major bushfires in those years.
The years 28 and 29 were also drought - and no major fires.
But, then there was another 2 year drought in 1938-39, which is when Black Friday bushfires occurred (Jan 13, 1939).
Note in this report, the description of the conditions back then, and the cause of the starting of those fires:
https://www.ffm.vic.gov.au/history-and-incidents/black-friday-1939

 

Who do you think is to blame?