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A Bushfire is a fire that occurs in the bush (collective term for scrub, woodland or grassland of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia). Ladysmith is a village approximately 19km east of Wagga Wagga in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS is a volunteer-based firefighting agency and statutory body of the NSW Government Fire is the heat and light energy released during a Chemical reaction, in particular a combustion reaction. The bush is a term used for rural possibly lawless undeveloped land or country areas in many places such as Australia, New Zealand, Sub-Saharan Africa Scrubland is a Plant community characterized by scrub Vegetation. Ecologically a woodland is an area covered in trees differentiated from a Forest. Grasslands (also called greenswards) are areas where the Vegetation is dominated by Grasses ( Poaceae) and other Herbaceous (non-woody For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island For the former North American fur-trading district see New Caledonia (Canada, and for the Scottish colony in Panama see Darien scheme. In south east Australia, bushfires tend to be most common and most severe during summer and autumn, in drought years, and particularly severe in El Niño years. A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply El Niño-Southern Oscillation ( ENSO; commonly referred to as simply El Niño) is a global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon Subsequently south east Australia is considered one of the most fire prone areas of the world. In the north of Australia, bushfires usually occur during winter (the dry season)[1], and fire severity tends to be more associated with seasonal weather patterns. In the southwest, similarly, bushfires occur in the summer dry season and severity is usually related to seasonal growth. Fire frequency in the north is difficult to assess, as the vast majority of fires are caused by human activity, however lightning strikes can cause bush fires too. Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of Electricity, which typically occurs during Thunderstorms and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or
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History
The natural fire regime was altered by the arrival of humans in Australia. Fires became more frequent, and fire-loving species — notably eucalypts — greatly expanded their range. It is assumed that a good deal of this change came about as the result of deliberate action by early humans, setting fires to clear undergrowth or drive game. Fire-stick farming is a term coined by Australian archaeologist Rhys Jones in 1969 to describe the practice of Indigenous Australians where fire
Plants have evolved a variety of strategies to survive (or even require) fires, (possessing reserve shoots that sprout after a fire, or developing fire-resistant or fire-triggered seeds) or even encourage fire (eucalypts contain flammable oils in the leaves) as a way to eliminate competition from less fire-tolerant species. A seed (in some plants referred to as a kernel) is a small embryonic Plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat usually with some stored Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora. Many native animals are also adept at surviving bushfires. Many animals become extinct from bushfires destroying their habitat.
Bushfire control
Key Factors affecting bushfires
• Fuel: Anything that burns is fuel for the fire: litter on the ground (leaves, twigs, rubbish), undergrowth (shrubs, grass, seedlings), trees and other vegetation, structures (such as your house) and any miscellaneous stuff laying about; gas bottles, piles of firewood, tyres, etc. Ladder fuels are low growing (30 cm to 2 meters) vegetation that offers a ladder for the fire to rise to the canopies of trees.
• Weather: Weather is a major contributor to bushfires. The hotter and dryer, the more likely it is for a bushfire to start and spread uncontrollably. High winds will reduce humidity, and cause an already started bushfire to spread more rapidly. Most bushfires start in the afternoon, when it is driest and hottest.
• Topography/slope: The topography of the terrain is a major factor in bushfire behaviour. Generally the fire spreads faster uphill. Conversely, fire going downhill advances more slowly. The superheated air is pushed in front of the fire drying and pre-warming the fuel for ignition. When a fire progressing downhill hits the flat at the bottom of the hill, the height of the flame can quadruple, when the fire hits the undulating slope opposite, the height may quadruple again. In other words, 1 metre flames going downhill can turn into 4 metre flames at the bottom of the hill, and to 16 metre flames starting to climb the next hill. While the height of the flame depends mainly on the height of the fuel, the former stands as a reminder that an innocent looking small bushfire can rapidly change into a life threatening fire.
Firefighting Methods
In National Parks and reserves, bushfire fighting is carried out by professional staff, such as Rangers, Park Workers, Field and Technical Officers, with help from volunteers from rural areas. A national park is a reserve of land usually declared and owned by a national Government, protected from most Human development and pollution This article is about people called professionals For the Movie, see The Professional or Leon. A volunteer is someone who works for a community or for the benefit of environment primarily because they choose to do so The rural areas have bush fire services, E. Distinguish from a Firefight, which means a battle with firearms g the CFA, largely staffed by volunteers, to help control bushfires. History CFA operates under the Country Fire Authority Act of 1958 its amendments and Regulations As with large fires on public land it is common for Parks staff and Rural or Country volunteers to work together on large rural fires. In all modern States some land is held by central or local Governments This is called public land. On some occasions urban firefighting professionals are also called in to assist. As well as the water-spraying trucks commonly used in urban firefighting, bushfire services often own or lease aircraft, particularly fire helicopters, that can douse areas inaccessible to ground crews. Helitack refers to "helicopter-delivered fire resources" and is the system of managing and using Helicopters and their crews to perform Aerial firefighting However, large fires are often of such a size that no conceivable firefighting service could attempt to douse the whole fire directly, and so alternative techniques are used.
Typically, this involves controlling the area that the fire can spread to, clearing control lines which are areas which contain no combustible material. Control line (also called U-Control in some countries is a simple and light way of controlling a flying Model aircraft. These control lines can be produced by bulldozing, or by backburning — setting a small, low-intensity fire to burn the flammable material in a controlled way. ----A bulldozer is a crawler ( Caterpillar tracked Tractor) equipped with a substantial metal plate (known as a blade) used to push large quantities Flammability is the ease with which a substance will ignite causing Fire or Combustion. These may then be extinguished by firefighters, or, ideally, directed in such away so that they meet the main fire front, at which point both fires will run out of flammable material and be extinguished.
Unfortunately, such methods can fail in the face of wind shifts causing fires to miss control lines, or because fires jump straight over them (for instance, because a burning tree falls across a line, or burning embers are carried by the wind over the line).
The actual goals of firefighters vary. Protection of life (both the firefighters and civilians) is given top priority, then private property according to economic and social value. An economy is the realized social system of production exchange distribution and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area Definition In the absence of agreement about its meaning the term "social" is used in many different senses referring among other things to attitudes In very severe fires, this is sometimes the only possible action. Protecting houses is regarded as more important than, say, machinery sheds, though firefighters, if possible, will try to keep fires off farmland to protect stock and fences (steel fences are destroyed by the passage of fire, as the wire is irreversibly stretched and weakened by it). House generally refers to a Shelter or Building that is a Dwelling or place for Habitation by Human beings. Software for Fixed assets management and Stock control developed in 2004. Preventing the burning of publicly owned forested areas is generally of least priority, and, indeed, it is quite common (in Australia, at least) for firefighters to simply observe a fire burn towards control lines through forest rather than attempt to put it out more quickly — it is, after all, a natural process. A forest is an area with a high density of Trees There are many definitions of a forest based on various criteria
The risk of major bushfires can be reduced by reducing the amount of fuel present. Fuel is any material that is burned or altered in order to obtain energy In forests, this is usually accomplished by conducting controlled burns — deliberately setting areas ablaze during favourable weather conditions in spring or autumn. Controlled burns can be controversial, both because they can be regarded as tampering with the forest ecosystem, and because serious fires can be started if a control burn gets out of hand. An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants animals and micro-organisms( Biotic factors in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical ( The Australian Aborigines used controlled burning to encourage new growth of plants. Indigenous Australians are descendants of the first known human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands.
Contrary to urban understanding of bushfire, rural farming communities are comparatively rarely threatened directly by them. They are usually located in the middle of large areas of cleared, usually grazed, land, and in the drought conditions present in bushfire years there is often very little grass left. However, urban fringes often spread into forested areas, and communities have literally built themselves in the middle of highly flammable forests. The rural-urban fringe also known as the outskirts or the urban hinterland, can be described as the "landscape interface between town and country" or alternatively
On occasions, bushfires have caused wide-scale damage to private property, particularly when they have reached such urban-fringe communities, destroying many homes and causing deaths. Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual
In fire-prone areas, people living in them typically take a variety of precautions. These include building their home out of flame-resistant materials, reducing the amount of fuel near to the home or property, constructing firebreaks, and investing in firefighting equipment. Flame retardants are materials that inhibit or resist the spread of Fire. A firebreak (also called a fireroad, fire line or fuel break) is a gap in Vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to
Significant bushfires
Notable bushfire events
- Black Thursday (1851)
- Red Tuesday bushfires (1898)
- Black Friday bushfires (1939)
- Black Sunday bushfires, South Australia (2 January 1955)
- Dwellingup fires (20 to 24 January, 1961)
- Southern Highlands bushfires (1965)
- Tasmanian "Black Tuesday" bushfires (1967)
- Northern Sydney bushfires (1979)
- Ash Wednesday bushfires (1983)
- 1994 Eastern seaboard fires (1994)
- Linton bushfire (1998)
- Black Christmas (bushfires) (2001-02)
- 2003 Canberra bushfires (2003)
- 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires (2003)
- Eyre Peninsula bushfire (South Australia 2005)
- Central Coast bushfires (NSW) (New Years Day, 2006)
- Jail Break Inn Fire, Junee (New Years Day 2006)
- Victoria (December 2005 - January 2006)
- Victoria (January 2006)
- Pulletop bushfire, Wagga Wagga (6 February 2006)
- 2006-07 Australian bushfire season (September 2006 - January 2007)
- Black Sunday (4th October 2006)
- Kangaroo Island Bushfires (6 December 2007 - 14 December 2007)
Bushfire gallery
 A painting depicting the Red Tuesday bushfires at Gippsland. The Black Friday fires of January 13, 1939, in Victoria Australia, are considered one of the worst natural Bushfires (wildfires in the South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country The Chatsbury/Bungonia Bushfire of 1965 was a series of devastating Bushfires that raged from 5th through 14th March 1965 (1 and destroyed the Southern Highlands The 1967 Tasmanian fires were an Australian Natural disaster which occurred on 7 February 1967, an event which became known as the Black The Ash Wednesday fires were a Natural disaster that occurred in south-east Australia on 16 February 1983 The 1994 Eastern seaboard fires were Bushfires in New South Wales, Australia between 27 December 1993 and 16 January 1994 were widespread along the NSW The Linton bushfire was a wildfire that burned through private land and state forest near the township of Linton Victoria, Australia on 2 December The Black Christmas Bushfires were bushfires that burnt for almost three weeks from 25 December 2001 across New South Wales, Australia The Canberra bushfires of 2003 caused severe damage to the outskirts of Canberra, the Australian capital city The Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires started with eighty seven fires that were started by Lightning in the north east of Victoria on 8 January 2003. In January 2005 Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, was the scene of a devastating Bushfire in which nine people were killed and at least 113 injured The Jail Break Inn Fire was started by a Cigarette butt near the Jail Break Inn 8 km west of Junee New South Wales Australia on New Years Day Pulletop bushfire started on the 6 February 2006 in hot dry and windy weather conditions about 30 km southeast of Wagga Wagga New South Wales The 2006-07 Australian bushfire season had an early start with fires in spring time The Kangaroo Island Bushfires were a series of Bushfires caused by Lightning strikes on the 6 December 2007 on Kangaroo Island South Australia, resulting Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border |
 The Pulletop bushfire at Wagga Wagga. Pulletop bushfire started on the 6 February 2006 in hot dry and windy weather conditions about 30 km southeast of Wagga Wagga New South Wales Wagga Wagga |
 One of the blazes of the 2006 Central Coast bushfires on New Years Day, 2006. New Year's Day is the first day of the Year. On the modern Gregorian calendar, it is celebrated on January 1, as it was also in ancient Rome (though Photo taken at Umina Beach. Umina Beach is a suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, located south of Woy Woy on Broken Bay |
 Smoke from the bushfire near Holbrook on 2 February 2007. Holbrook Events 962 - Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. |
See also
- Country Fire Service (South Australia)
- Country Fire Authority (Victoria)
- New South Wales Rural Fire Service
- Tasmania Fire Service
- Dead Man Zone
- NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service
- Victorian Dept of Sustainability and Environment
- ACT Parks Brigade
Notes and references
- ^ Monsoonal Climate (html). About the CFS The Country Fire Service (CFS is the volunteer combatant authority for Firefighting, road crash and hazardous materials in the country History CFA operates under the Country Fire Authority Act of 1958 its amendments and Regulations The New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS is a volunteer-based firefighting agency and statutory body of the NSW Government See also Bushfire Firefighting Country Fire Service (South Australia Country Fire Authority The Dead Man Zone is defined as the area directly around a Bushfire that is likely to burn within five minutes given the current wind conditions or an anticipated change in wind Questacon. Retrieved on 2006-09-09. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1000 - Battle of Svolder, Viking Age. 1379 - Treaty of Neuberg, splitting the Austrian
External links
- Bushfire Watch Map Interactive Google map showing current fire hotspots in Australia and neighbouring countries
- Bushfire Compendium State requirements for building in bushfire-prone areas
- Fire & Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia General Information & Emergency Alerts
- New South Wales Rural Fire Service, The NSW Rural Fire Service is the largest fire department in the world which specialises in fighting bushfires. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS is a volunteer-based firefighting agency and statutory body of the NSW Government
- New Zealand National Rural Fire Authority Website
- SA Firefighters A website for South Australian Fire fighters
- South Australian Country Fire Service Official Website
- South Australian CFS Promotions Unit Website
- Country Fire Authority, Victoria, Australia
- Bushfire Summer - ABC TV Nature ABC TV case study of the 2005-2006 bushfire season
- The International Journal of Wildland Fire
- The International Association of Wildland Fire
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