This is just a thank you to USA fire fighters

Absolutely! Firefighters risk their lives to save others and property.

I agree. They are to be applauded. Their work in ER is amazing! Every firefighter that came to our home after calling 911 treated my mother so well.

A huge thank you to the firefighters!

MargaretMcken, you may be sure many, many Californians like myself have been following news of the fires in Australia with a heavy heart and deep concern. I'm so glad some of our firefighters are there to help! Praying things start turning the corner immediately.

There have been dozens of Canadians in Australia for at least a month, no doubt there are contingents from other counties as well. What is going on in Australia seems to be unprecedented and has been getting a lot of press and offers of aid from around the globe.

I will echo the thanks to the firefighters, having been at close hand to a smaller though still major disaster when our whole city was evacuated in 2016 due to forest fires. The firefighters were amazing.

Yes, cwillie, the Canadian firefighters went out before Christmas and spent it there. I take my hat off to them. It is grueling and dangerous work,

Margaret, thank you for remembering our first responders now helping in Australia.   

I've been following the Australian fires while also shuddering at the disasters that are being created, as well as the unsettling trend of rapid and accelerating climate change.

I think it's a testament to first responders and countries that work together when disaster strikes.    And it's one reason I support benefits and privileges to law enforcement, first responders, and medical practitioners.   They put themselves in danger to help others. 

Are you and your family and friends in any of the affected areas?   From the maps, it appears as though the coastal areas, and some of the more southern inland areas, are challenged more than the central inland areas. 

I hope you, your family and friends are as safe as is possible.

The fires are doing what fires do, though it does show how "smart" they are to combine into one big fire.

Cwillie, I didn’t know that Canadians were here too. They are almost certainly on the east coast, as fires started in Queensland, then moved down through NSW and into Victoria. Our South Australia firies have been going to the east coast too, rather than them coming back here. Perth pretty much copes on its own. News coverage is much more like ‘get the widow on the set’ than the details like this. Thanks to all Canadians and people from USA, and to you for your thoughts.

Gardenartist, I am currently on the farm in the eastern Adelaide hills. We had a few bad days with the fire that has now burned for nearly 3 weeks, about 20kms away, and we are still not allowed into the area to see what has happened. Our casual worker has been there on 14 hour ‘voluntary’ shifts all last week, until he fell and strained something. A good friend, a widower, was alone about 5 kms from the last local fire, and my daughters parents in law are on the east end of Kangaroo Island, where everyone knows everyone else. Almost everyone in Australia lives in the areas of the fire – the Centre is a series of deserts. Alice Springs where we go in winter is so much safer – no fires near houses, no rising sea levels, no sheep to worry about. And thank you too for your concern.

My worst time was when my husband decided that he simply had to go to a funeral 100kms away on a day before Christmas with a Catastrophic fire rating. One person is not enough to defend a house adequately, even with sprinklers all round the house etc. Though I knew that I could survive the grass fire in our big old stone house, not surrounded by trees, I found the prospect daunting and dealing with the aftermath a bit overwhelming. Last winter here was very dry, the land is like tinder.

Grass fires don't get the coverage that bush fires do but any videos I've seen show they are equally terrifying. I'm glad you are coping okay Margaret, and relatively safe.

Yes, the 2014 fire that burned our second house down was a grass fire. The temperature got to 1000C degrees, brass melted in the burned house and we had pools of melted aluminum under all the burned out farm vehicles. Grass fires are quick, that’s the best bit – if you can shelter, you can get back to the burned ground and safety. The soles of our farm boots melted. I’m safe, we know how to cope, just stressed. Thanks.

It's very scary being close to a fire, Margaret. Many here still suffer PTSD from fire experiences. My heart goes out to you and others so affected. Your fires are so very extensive and causing much damage to homes and human life, as well as to wild life, so I read. ((((((((((hugs))))))))))

Margaret, hope you and your family were OK today. The farm boots... How horrible. Here in San Francisco Bay Area myself and my disabled dad weren't in danger during the CA fires this past fall, but it and the smoke was all around us and so traumatizing. Thinking of you and praying for Australia. Please keep us updated!

GardenArtist - I am an Australian too, based only about 30 kms (less than 20 miles) from the big Gospers Mountain fire in central NSW. We are as safe as anyone in a regional area can be, but we know several people who have lost everything, and have a number of friends and even more relatives working the fires as volunteers. Even more are acting in a volunteer basis to support front line responders doing everything from catering, to billeting, to cleaning fire appliances and Rural Fire Service buildings, or just donating refreshments to the fire fighters as they pass through country towns and small cities as they move from fire to fire and back again. It is something we do, it is something Australians have always done.
Despite what you might read in the very left-leaning press (I think that would be US right-leaning, but progressives anyway) here and in your country, not to mention Twitter and Facebook, the majority of people here, especially those in the line of fire - no pun intended - put little credence in climate change being anything other than a minor contributor to this catastrophe. In fact our federal election last May was more or less a referendum of climate change, and it was well and truly rejected out of hand.
The eastern states in particular have been in the grip of drought for some years. This followed many years of bountiful rain and very good seasons during which time undergrowth in bush, forests, state and national parks, was allowed to build up. Traditional owners across tens of thousands of years managed this situation by a form of hazard reduction burning in suitable weather, whereby the undergrowth is burned back but trees are allowed to remain unscathed. This was adopted after white man settled the eastern seaboard for around 170 years, however, over about the last 30 years Greens/environmentalists have infiltrated our various levels of governments, both as politicians and public servants, and created inordinate red and green tape to prevent, or at least severely hamper, cold burns to reduce undergrowth. Farmers are no longer allowed to clear their own farms of undergrowth, cutting down of trees, even dead ones, invites stiff fines and other penalties from local councils. Bureaucracy has run amok.
The perfect fire storm has been brewing for years but Greens-inspired legislation, not to mention lack of more sensible political will to challenge that legislation, meant insufficient precautions were taken. And now we are in the middle of a catastrophe of hitherto unknown proportions in this country.
Dry conditions + very high temperatures + unpredictable wind and very strong wind gusts + undergrowth + locked and overgrown fire trails + arsonists + carelessness + dry lightning strikes have combined to create this frightening nightmare we are experiencing. 85% of fires have been caused by arsonists and carelessness (idiots hell bent on getting off on lighting a fire (includes at least one volunteer firefighter, possibly 3), cigarette butts out windows, sparking electrical tools being used inside sheds of hay, combine harvesters picking up a stone which flints and ignites the stubble left behind); more than 5% of fires have been caused by dry lightning strikes; that leaves around 10% unexplained, but speculated as climate change. Since climate change does not create fires per se, all it can be accused of doing is creating a dry environment.
Australia is the driest continent on earth, at least one region in one state will be experiencing drought conditions somewhere across the nation at any given time. As sure as night follows day, this will all be followed by flooding rains. Everyone has their eyes cast to the north of Australia where two cyclones are brewing. We pray they will deliver the drenching rains to extinguish these fires. Thus it has always been, thus it always will be. If climate change has anything to do with this situation, it is very little.

Shezza1, thanks for the detailed information into the Australian  fires.  You've provides some insight into fire history to help put the situation in perspective. 

I don't know enough about Australian  climatological history to debate or even discuss the many issues you've raised, but I do rely on scientific data for other climate change issues, particularly those occurring in the Arctic.  

However, so many issues have become highly politicized in the last several years, it is often like an exploratory adventure to seek out the reality, and that includes people on both the left and right political sides.

I really appreciate the time you spent sharing your perspective.   It's an insight into a life aspect about Australia with which I haven't been familiar.

Hi GardenActivist, to be fair to environmentalists, they thought they were doing the right thing by preventing hazard reduction burns so as to protect habitat of ground dwelling wildlife whose homes are in fallen timber and so forth. But they threw the baby out with the bathwater, hence we have lost untold millions of wildlife, destroyed ecological systems, and undoubtedly sent our already dwindling koala populations into freefall. It is not just the deaths and injuries of concern, it is the loss of eucalypt gums which are the primary diet of the koala and 2 other species. They have lost entire food sources in some areas and will more than likely starve to death unless they can be relocated. California has eucalypt gums too, so they know first hand how they explode in the right fire conditions. Hence the need to stop fire getting into tree tops and crowning, ie travelling along the tops of trees instead of burning up them. Keeping undergrowth low is the best management, not perfect but better than no burning.
The other good thing about cold burns ie burning in cooler months, is that the unique nature of a lot of our flora is that its branches needs to be burned in order to shed its seed to regenerate itself. It will be almost impossible to regenerate in many areas because the plants have been burned down to the roots.
However, mother nature has a way of healing herself. She has started sending rain both here and into the Gosper Mountain fire I wrote about, the thus far biggest of the lot. If this continues there will be green tinges within weeks. But mother nature might just be being a little perverse too. We are relying on those cyclones building in northern Australia where they are already experiencing flooding to help save us here. Nothing unusual about that. Thus it has always been, thus it will always be.