So, could something similar happen in major Australian cities – and how prepared are we? The answers are: yes, and not very.
We use the outer suburbs as a fire break. No trees left to burn there. Just roof and road.
You think modern houses — more glue and plastic than solid timber — aren’t going to explode into flames? Modern suburbs are tinderboxes.
I can see this being picked up by the right as an argument against walkable urbanism (“all that density is a deathtrap!”) and in favour of the car-dependent quarter-acre-block sprawl that is Our Sacred Way Of Life.
In reality, the thin boundary between forested country and built-up areas is the problem. A solution would be to have farmland as a buffer around the cities, as pastures and fields of crops don’t burn as well as either.
Sad but true.
It the people of officer could read they’d be very VERY upset right now.
Did everyone forget how Australia was entirely on fire a few years back?
The fires mostly missed the major cities. Although dealing with hazardous levels of smoke for much of that period is not nothing.
Canberra doesn’t count because there are only Politicians there.
Half of it burned in 2003 anyways. And unfortunatly parliamentary triangle doesnt have any water restrictions during droughts so its not dry.
If a suburb has older housing stock with older gardens, for instance, it’s absolutely ripe for a fire to spread quickly. If you have more modern housing stock (which is usually better at defending against ember attack), and the houses are more spaced apart and the gardens are clearer, then you might be OK.
ok but what if we have “more modern housing stock” clad in flammable material and clustered together up each others arses cheek to jowl and excuse me, 1666 London is calling…
we have pledged net zero fire by 2050, nothing to worry about.
I don’t hold a hose, mate.
Just tow the fire out of the environment.
Same way we cope every year our country burns…
Well yeah, it happened in 2019. Pretty sure the bushfires started in August
Every city makes a fire break around the whole city.
Just move away from the fire zones? It’s like building sand castles among the reefs at low tide.
LoL. Building in the tidal zone, eh?
Poorly. Very poorly.
