#vic fires

Here’s a few photos of conditions today in Nowra, Mallacoota, Merinbula, East Gippsland, Huskisson, and Batemans Bay. (shared by @ABCemergency’s Twitter)

Many residents in affected areas are evacuating to the beach/ocean after the fires have blocked off roads

Note that all of these photos were taken before sunset, there’s just a LOT of smoke

This photo is from Mallacoota- a town where 4000 are currently trapped on the beachfront by fires. This photo is an hour and a half old. The news article linked is two hours old.

Australia is currently fucked. Near every state is reporting record-breaking temperatures- one state alone has lost over 3,000,000 hectares- California’s fires was 1.3 million, for comparison. We don’t know how many homes are lost, because breaking through some of these fire fronts now is a work in progress; to get to the people still stuck inside them. We have several dead and several more missing, four of those who’ve died were volunteer firefighters. 

These fires aren’t just affecting smaller, regional towns; Sydney and Adelaide have been under threat for over a month. The fire that trapped people above? It started overnight. There was no threat in that area prior; people weren’t told to evacuate from there. 

Many of these fires are now creating their own weather systems, so conditions are not getting better.

My friends have told me internationally they’re hearing nothing on this, so please, talk about this with those around you. Australia is in trouble. This is barely the start of our summer period. We are already breaking 100-year-old maximum temperature records. So much of the country is still in drought, and so much more is stuck in dry conditions that essentially leave people living in a tinderbox.

Australia is not okay! The world should be talking about it!

VICTORIA (1220pm GMT+10 31/12/19)

SOUTH AUSTRALIA 

NEW SOUTH WALES

And you know what I'm fucking scared too.

There is a fire nearly every hour along the NSW coast. Most of those places rely on summer tourism to keep the economy going and you know what you dont get when theres fires, tourists, and if they're there then theyre being told to leave for their own safety.

The fire closest to me grew 30000 hectares in a fucking day and I'm half an hours drive from it. Its now 258000 hectares.

And if you're already sick of these posts then kindly [REDACTED] right off.

Get some fucking empathy.

I haven’t posted in months even tho I’m still posting fic over on AO3 but I’m back for one important post:

On December 20th I drove 500km from my home in the Australian Capital Territory [NSW] to my parents’ house in Victoria. The entire 6-hour trip, visibility was well below 500m (0.3mi) due to intense smoke haze and it was terrifying.

Bushfires are normal in Australia, everything about this year is not. Our fire season started months early. The area burnt has surpassed 4 million hectares already with months left in the fire season. In a normal year less than 500,000ha would be burnt total. Fires have been burning out of control for months and are joining together into massive complexes which have no hope of being contained until we get rain – and that won’t be until late January, at least (per long range forecasting). Smoke has caused weeks on end of hazardous air quality and corresponding increases in hospital admissions etc across large parts of the eastern states. Coastal tourist towns have lost business in their busiest period of the year and it will likely lead to many small, local businesses closing down. Millions of agricultural animals and wildlife have died, thousands of buildings have been destroyed including homes, businesses and sheds. You can find more info on the situation so far from The Guardian here.

So much of it is wildly out of human control, and it’s terrifying. I don’t know, personally, what it’s like to be actively threatened by a fire in any meaningful way. I also don’t know what to do to help.

But I did, while I was panicking for 6 hours driving through an apocalyptic smoke haze with a painters’ mask intermittently over my face when it got too bad for my car air con to keep it out, come up with a rough idea of how I could throw a “if you can help, if you’d like to, this is how” on the back of a fic.

So here goes: I wrote a fic. It’s heavy on trigger warnings: bushfire, property loss, death, PTSD. There are no major character deaths and chapter 2-3 will be generally fluffy because that’s what I needed to write. [click the text for link to fic]

And if you like the fic, love the fic, or even if you don’t really care for my writing or follow me for something other than pitch perfect, here’s how you can help out with the Australian bushfires:

The Red Cross assists with various disaster recovery and relief efforts in communities affected by fire

St Vincent De Paul Society also assists with bushfire recovery and supporting affected communtiies

The Salvation Army assists with recovery efforts and at evacuation and relief centres

BlazeAid is a charity which specifically helps rural communities with practical bushfire recovery such as rebuilding fences – fences are SO important to rural farming communities to allow livestock safety, etc!

GIVIT allows you to donate money to help specific projects for communities in need as a result of the Queensland and New South Wales bushfires

WIRES is a wildlife rescue group which supports the rescue and recovery of native wildlife in a variety of situations including the current bushfire emergency

You can donate directly to volunteer firefighting organisations in both NSW – the Rural Fire Service and Victoria – the Country Fire Authority. I was unable to find equivalent links for other state fire services. Direct donations may only be available to individuals in Australia.

Can’t donate? Don’t want to? That’s absolutely fine. There’s a lot of other ways you can help, too –

Share the message – this one, or any other!

Donate to a charity or relief effort local to you, even if that’s totally different to this – there’s a lot going on in the world, and a lot of people could use a helping hand.

Support movements raising awareness about the impact of climate change on the extent and duration of extreme weather/climatic conditions and related public health outcomes

Cut down on waste and trash, use water efficiently, and help other people do the same

taken 2-3 hours ago