Comments by "" (@dingokidneys) on "The Enforcer" channel.

  1. I must agree with Lukashenko's dog's comment upon the Belarussian elections.
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  2. I wouldn't be too quick to jump on the fire authorities "unpreparedness". This is the off season for them, a time when people can take vacations, when training can be done, and plans developed. Yes they are prepared to respond to fires but historically they have not had to respond to huge fires at this time of the year. Budget constraints make sure that the resources available will always be minimal, because who's going to fund more than absolutely, unequivocally demonstrated to be essential. That said, these fires took off in canyons with steep sides which acts like a chimney and causes the fire to develop much more quickly than usual. Once you get that much heat over such a significant area, as you observed yourself, the fire creates it's own weather which helps it to develop in unexpected ways. The embers that blow ahead of the fire cause spot overs that demand attention and spread any fire fighting effort out thinly. And this all probably started out from some person doing a foolish thing. One of the worst fires I attended, as crew, was started by two kids with a poorly managed barbeque who managed to knock it over. The fire took off and they fled. This was on an island and yet we had spot overs to the mainland about a mile away. You don't fight fires like this. You try to manage them by slowing their progress down, by diverting their weakest flanks back into the burnt area, by cutting fire breaks and hoping for a change in the wind and weather that works in your favour. You also get all the people and livestock that you can out of the path.
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  3.  @JankyRepairs  Agree 100% that lots more needs to be done to manage the potential fuel load. Controlled burns are great for this but as you say local residents push back against them because of the smoke. Here in Australia, another issue has been getting weather conditions, even out of the fire season, where it is safe to conduct controlled burns. We've had several that got away. One of the worst fires I've been crew on was a "controlled burn" by a rural resident that was poorly planned, incorrectly executed, badly managed and it just roared away from him and went on to threaten other residents and destroy a significant portion of forest production land. As for eucalypt trees, depending on the species if the fire gets into the crown of the forest it can really become terrifying. We have several species known as paper-bark (melaleucas) and because of their papery trunks fire gets into and up them very easily. They cause spot overs at an amazing rate. I've seen dinner plate sized pieces of burning bark flying with the wind ahead of the fire lighting up areas hundreds of metres ahead. We had a fire in a paperbark area spot over across a 1 km wide channel. The upshot of all this is that sh!t can hit the fan hard and fast and the only real defence against fire is managing the fuel load beforehand to minimise the effects and try to keep them manageable.
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  4. Four Seasons - comment for the algorithm.
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  5. cherkasy - comment for algorithm.
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