Explainer: What Really Causes Australian Bushfires?

5 responses to “Explainer: What Really Causes Australian Bushfires?”

1. 

   sawyerh

   January 9, 2020

   But the root cause is lack of trees. No trees = no rain.

   Who removed the trees from every piece of flat land there is ? A few current Australian billionairs made their money clearing the land to feed foreign countries.

   These same billiaonairs should pay for every house, and every animal lost. Some have started to just that; see SMH today under WA billionaires Andrew and Nicola Forrest have announced a $70 million donation.

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   1. 

      fabiana

      January 9, 2020

      I find your theory quite bizarre considering that our forest very thick and full of very flammable eucalyptus trees, are the ones that are on fire and creating the inferno that we are experiencing. We have thousands and thousands of hectares of bushland that is protected not just in public land but in private property. We have laws that even ban landowners from clearing land.

      Are you sure that you are not getting mixed up with what was happening in Brazil, where the president is encouraging the clearings and lighting of fires?

      The root cause is the warming of the planet plus mismanagement of the available fuel during the “safe months” like the very wise Aboriginal communities used to do and done for hundreds, probably thousands of years. That should be given back to them, they are the ones that know how to do and what to look for to do it.

      Australia’s temperatures have risen faster and higher than anywhere else in the world. It was always a very dry continent with a fringe of thick forest/bush on the coastal regions, mainly on the East of the continent and, although true that when the white people invaded the first thing they did (apart from massacres) was to mas clear many areas for agriculture and there was and still is a stand of with the logging industry (and yes, I have witness the impact of logging) there is and has been in place many laws that prevent private land clearing and they are working on a sustainable logging that is being introduced and enforced, albeit a fair bit too slow for many of us.

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      1. 

         sawyerh

         January 10, 2020

         We can all marvel at our remaining 2% lush forests, we can all think a lousy 2% is plenty, but it is nothing like the 20% odd before Europeans came. Take a drive along the Stuart Highway, once out of the parks; 100% cattle and zero trees.

         Or maybe ask the indigenous elders of N QLD, they will tell you of the rains before the land was cleared. However, if readers think trees have nothing to do with rain, then so be it.

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         1. 

            fabiana

            January 10, 2020

            I am pretty sure that I did address what you say in your reply. But that was a very long time ago. I have been, as I said, to may places 3 decades ago that had been “murdered” and then I went to those same places within the last 5 years and the reforestation, mainly by volunteer groups and by enforced plantation by very disgruntled loggers that thought they could get away with not doing it, was nothing short of miraculous.

            The warming of the planet and the disruption on the climates (rain where there was hardly any to the point of constant severe flooding) and drought in others that used to get a good amount of rain amongst many other changes is actually born much higher in the gases of the atmosphere and is made worse by the deforestation of the whole world.

            The biggest “jobs” of trees are 2;

            1) produce oxygen and absorb the carbon dioxide in the air and store it in their tissue. If you chop down trees then there are less to absorb and store one of the biggest gasses that are causing global warming. Those stored gases are released again into the atmosphere when the tree trunks and branches are burnt as well. All plants with leaves can and do photosynthesis through them, but trees are the best at it and at absorbing and storing carbon dioxide.

            2) They help to stabilize the soil and absorb excess water and that stops torrential rain from forming torrents that wash the topsoil away and also minimises and even stop mudslides, as the roots form a complex structure that holds the soil, especially deep down, in place.

            Trees don’t produce rain or water. If they did that, our bushland in all those places where is so thick that firefighters can’t access the original fires to extinguish them before they take hold and become infernos wouldn’t have such an explosive and dire fire ability.

            There is severe mismanagement of bushland. That should’ve been left to the local Aboriginal tribes in each area to keep on looking after like they have done so knowledgeably, wisely and efficiently for thousands of years.

            Australia was 1.52 C higher than the 110 years average last year. Here is the recent article from BoM that shows it and THEY KNOW AS IT IS THEIR JOB TO KEEP THOSE RECORDS:

            https://www.9news.com.au/national/100-years-of-temperatures-bushfires-normal–bom/6fade093-124e-4c08-b8e4-91c36c416e17

            Deforestation all around the world is criminal, to say the least, but trees ARE NOT responsible for the creation/production of rain. They are, however, a very intrinsic and extremely important cog in the engine of keeping the planet (and all us, plants and animals) healthy and balanced. When that is achieved and all the pieces of the puzzle are in the right place, then the extremes of dryness/wetness/crazy extreme (and becoming more and more common) weather events will also stabilize.

            Rain is created by the number of bodies of water, humidity in the air and in the soil evaporating and rising to encounter colder upper layers in the atmosphere which condenses that vapour and eventually falls back to Earth as rain. As the air layers warm-up, the vapour has to travel higher and higher and the strong wind currents in the upper layers have more time to disperse/take somewhere else where it is colder to turn it back into water droplets.

            That causes the original places where the vapour started to dry up more and more as it loses humidity, including the trees on those areas, and the bodies of water to diminish and eventually dry up altogether, causing the droughts that we have been experiencing and, thus, creating the perfect conditions for these fires to, not only start and take hold, but to turn into the infernos that we are experiencing more and more often.

            And then you also get the idiots who believe that the law, like fire bans and the such, do not apply to them that greatly contributed to this as well as natural causes like so many of the dry thunderstorms that we had been experiencing and, again, the problem with bad land management and badly kept electricity lines and many very volatile chemical products not stored correctly.

            Deforestation IS a problem, A HUGE PROBLEM, and we are shooting ourselves on the foot by doing it, but, right now, what is burning and spreading the firest and making them so bad that they are creating their own infernal localized weather ARE DENSELY PACKED TREES. Which we are losing so many of and we can’t afford to lose any of!!!!

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         2. 

            fabiana

            January 24, 2020

            I am pretty sure that I did address what you say in your reply. But that was a very long time ago. I have been, as I said, to may places 3 decades ago that had been “murdered” and then I went to those same places within the last 5 years and the reforestation, mainly by volunteer groups and by enforced plantation by very disgruntled loggers that thought they could get away with not doing it, was nothing short of miraculous.

            The warming of the planet and the disruption on the climates (rain where there was hardly any to the point of constant severe flooding) and drought in others that used to get a good amount of rain amongst many other changes is actually born much higher in the gases of the atmosphere and is made worse by the deforestation of the whole world.

            The biggest “jobs” of trees are 2;

            1) produce oxygen and absorb the carbon dioxide in the air and store it in their tissue. If you chop down trees then there are less to absorb and store one of the biggest gasses that are causing global warming. Those stored gases are released again into the atmosphere when the tree trunks and branches are burnt as well. All plants with leaves can and do photosynthesis through them, but trees are the best at it and at absorbing and storing carbon dioxide.

            2) They help to stabilize the soil and absorb excess water and that stops torrential rain from forming torrents that wash the topsoil away and also minimises and even stop mudslides, as the roots form a complex structure that holds the soil, especially deep down, in place.

            Trees don’t produce rain or water. If they did that, our bushland in all those places where is so thick that firefighters can’t access the original fires to extinguish them before they take hold and become infernos wouldn’t have such an explosive and dire fire ability.

            There is severe mismanagement of bushland. That should’ve been left to the local Aboriginal tribes in each area to keep on looking after like they have done so knowledgeably, wisely and efficiently for thousands of years.

            Australia was 1.52 C higher than the 110 years average last year. Here is the recent article from BoM that shows it and THEY KNOW AS IT IS THEIR JOB TO KEEP THOSE RECORDS:

            https://www.9news.com.au/national/100-years-of-temperatures-bushfires-normal–bom/6fade093-124e-4c08-b8e4-91c36c416e17

            Deforestation all around the world is criminal, to say the least, but trees ARE NOT responsible for the creation/production of rain. They are, however, a very intrinsic and extremely important cog in the engine of keeping the planet (and all us, plants and animals) healthy and balanced. When that is achieved and all the pieces of the puzzle are in the right place, then the extremes of dryness/wetness/crazy extreme (and becoming more and more common) weather events will also stabilize.

            Rain is created by the number of bodies of water, humidity in the air and in the soil evaporating and rising to encounter colder upper layers in the atmosphere which condenses that vapour and eventually falls back to Earth as rain. As the air layers warm-up, the vapour has to travel higher and higher and the strong wind currents in the upper layers have more time to disperse/take somewhere else where it is colder to turn it back into water droplets.

            That causes the original places where the vapour started to dry up more and more as it loses humidity, including the trees on those areas, and the bodies of water to diminish and eventually dry up altogether, causing the droughts that we have been experiencing and, thus, creating the perfect conditions for these fires to, not only start and take hold, but to turn into the infernos that we are experiencing more and more often.

            And then you also get the idiots who believe that the law, like fire bans and the such, do not apply to them that greatly contributed to this as well as natural causes like so many of the dry thunderstorms that we had been experiencing and, again, the problem with bad land management and badly kept electricity lines and many very volatile chemical products not stored correctly.

            Deforestation IS a problem, A HUGE PROBLEM, and we are shooting ourselves on the foot by doing it, but, right now, what is burning and spreading the firest and making them so bad that they are creating their own infernal localized weather ARE DENSELY PACKED TREES. Which we are losing so many of and we can’t afford to lose any of!!!!

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2. 

   mcored

   January 9, 2020

   Funny you said because, no trees = no fire too.
   Lack of fire breaks, several kilometres of them to accommodate for eucalyptus is needed.

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   1. 

      sawyerh

      January 10, 2020

      If there were no trees there would be no fires – absolutely correct. However, the world is bigger than that.

      Perhaps trees 1000’s klms away were the trees creating rain clouds to rain on our nearby dry forests ?

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      1. 

         fabiana

         January 24, 2020

         Once again. TREES DON’T CREATE RAIN. TO SAY SO DEMONSTRATES A VERY POOR, EVEN INEXCISTENT UNDERSTANDING OF HOW RAIN COMES TO BE.

         Rain is created by moisture in the grown/bodies of water, warmed by the sun and being evaporated. The vapour rises from the ground/body of water and travels upward until it meets up with colder gases that condensate the moisture and form clouds. As the clouds find colder and colder temperature, they become heavy and fall to Earth as rain. As the planet heats up because of climate change, the clouds have to go higher and higher to find colder air to condense it, they also are more exposed to stronger current on those higher altitudes and they will travel further and further before they are condensed and heavy enough to fall as rain. Thus creating more and more areas of bad drought and high temperatures for longer and in wider areas.

         The reason why these bushfires are so bad is the very dryness of the areas, INCLUDING THE TREES AND BUSHLAND. There is no moisture to slow them down. everything is too dry INCLUDING THE TREES AND THEIR BRANCHES. Add that to the fact that Eucalyptuses and Malelaucas (our most common native trees) are very volatile as they are rich in flammable oils and that higher regions and many commercial plantations are rich in pines, also a very volatile species, and you have a recipe for disaster.

         No tree will “create” water out of nowhere. No tree will “create” rain. Trees have only as much moisture/water as the amount present in the environment where they live. In a drought, that is extremely little and thus why we have the present bushfire crisis.

         Of course, if they wouldn’t be murdering so many trees and deforesting large surfaces of the land, then the trees would be able to keep more moisture in the ground, as one of their purposes is to stabilize and protect the soil from the heat of the sun…….

         BUT DEFINITELY THEY DON’T “CREATE WATER OF RAIN” OUT OF THIN AIR!!!!!

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3. 

   Project Leader

   January 9, 2020

   No boycott beef and dairy? Australia is a major producer and exporter of this commodity for centuries, and livestocks emit disastrous amount of GHG and methane — the greenhouse effect that makes our planet hot and dry

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