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+--- Thread: My take on the US fires - West Coast. Part 1. (/showthread.php?tid=2537)
My take on the US fires - West Coast. Part 1. - Bally002 - 01-09-2025
G'day Cobras (mates),
I'm following news on the intense fire over your way, during your winter, 'mind you'.
These are wild fires, not seen before, out of season, from what I read.
True love and I have survived several in our 12th year here, inclusive of 2019 where up to 85 dwellings burnt down in our little village not to mention the devastation across our continent.
After the 2019 fires I never thought our bushland would recover, (Black sticks and dust. Melted metal) but it did. Took a few years but now I'm surrounded by Australian bush again. Even thicker. That is the Aussie bush. Unique. Bushfire and termite resistant in the short/long term.
For context in this otherwise lengthy post my caveat will be I am expressing my own opinion from my self knowledge and experience. If I repeat some things it is important.
It's forever green growth here except for pasture during drought. Most tall trees here are a variety of Eucalypts. I've named them before so I won't go into detail. Others are huge native pines and a fair amount of wattles, paperbark melaleucas, bottlebrush and cycads. (pretty colourful flowers all good for bees).
If you don't maintain them and/or thin them they can in return reward you with a firestorm because, fire is how they survive or regenerate. Known fact. (Aussie pastures are the same, eg: Kangaroo grass or spear grasses.)
My reasoning:-
It's Australian Flora.
I have luckily been educated over many years by real down to earth aboriginals in the deserts and other parts inclusive of Northern and Southern regions, Hot to Cold. I could go on but I'll attempt to summarise because it will take me pages.
Simply put, Francis "Jabarula" Kelly and Tommy "Tjungala" Rice explained it to me in the Tanami as thus. (Aboriginal Elders)
"Tjungala (me being a Tjungala too) , what the old ones (ancestors) did to survive they moved with the seasons, reading the stars, sun and moon. (me, juvenile, looking and thinking 'yeah righto'). Pintubi and Warlpiri (tribes) went to their lands (Gibson and Tanami) moving around. When they arrived at a waterhole they immediately burnt the ground in their camp. This scattered the animals which they hunted. It also made it safe to camp from the spiders, snake and thorns. (Spinifex). They hunted, cleaned that area, drank from waterhole and moved on when that season started changing. Everything went in to the ground. (biodegradable). Then they burnt again where they had lived. They went to next waterhole with their fire and after that many walking time they did the same. Around and around. Sometimes many time in the year. When they returned to the original camp it was all ready again with fresh growth and those animals." (Yearly cycle depending on the tribe and lands).
A most important aspect here is the use of fire and it's subsequent effect over 60,000 years as far as we know. This coupled with the smallest continent's isolation during millennia, pre human history if you like brought to life Australia's unique Flora and Fauna. Isolation, is the key word. Nothing changed. A cycle of life if you will where the challenges, especially with regards to flora surviving, determined the species. Seasonal. The bush adapted to living so developed a method of seeding that led to regeneration through fire. So good in fact that introduced species have little hope of surviving. Inclusive of new arrivals of animals and humans who cannot comprehend the Aussie bush, rural, urban, suburban etc. They, the colonists, rodents and the like must adjust and adapt.
Which brings me to the part 2 of this explanation as to why LA and surrounds burnt like it did. If you grow Eucalypts and the like because they are hardy, attractive, strong and high strength you must tend to those plants. Good that they tend to thrive in harsh climates but they are used to thriving during a forest fire in an Australian summer which if you think about it, equates in hemispherical terms, to a dry winter in that northern portion of the Earth. In Part 2 I hope to explain why Eucalypts and the others explode, burn to the core, yet still survive. The is a point to all this. If you wish to propagate Aussie flora, then learn the lessons. In saying that, they still haven't here. These are my thoughts.
Kind regards and going to hit the farter, will update on the morrow.
Bally)
RE: My take on the US fires - West Coast. Part 1. - F2d5thCav - 01-12-2025
Hi Bally,
Also helps when brush and deadfall is managed.
The winds (Santa Ana winds) occur several times a year. Typical speed is around 80 kilometers an hour for those.
Sounds like a combo of weather, too much kindling laying around, and incompetence by the authorities regarding water supply for firefighting created the "perfect fire". Doesn't help that psychos start more fires in the area.
Cheers