a few things

[epideme]

One thing that has been bothering me, since I first heard about the fatalities in the bushfires, is why so many seemed to leave it until the last minute to flee. Surely they should have started evacuating as soon as the radio broadcast 'residents of x implement your fire plans now

Comments

[epideme]

oh, I also used this satalitte image from the BBC to determine which fire went through Marysville. I cannot find what time Marysville was hit though.

[hnpcc]

There was basically no warning. I know it sounds bizarre, but the fire just moved so quickly. They interviewed Michael Leunig on the radio last night - he lives in the area and was listening to a scanner. He said the ABC and website updates were light years behind the radio traffic - with the best will available the fire just changed so quickly that it was difficult to get the information through as quickly

[hnpcc]

Oh yeah - the forecasts were dead on accurate. Part of my post the day before was hope, whistling in the face of fear.

[epideme]

Don't feel bad. So often Governments go over the top. However I hope the warning did actually save many more lives of people (like you would have done) who left in the morning.

[hnpcc]

The other part of my post was of course skepticism. That whole crying wolf thing... well, you know. And the forecasts were for much warmer on the Friday, and so there was a possibility they were wrong.

part of it was just me hoping like hell they were.

[hnpcc]

Looking at the numbers of fires that were going - I was just looking at the threat warnings page, which are where they list threat changes.

From the Australian article:

By contrast, the fire that had been raging since last week and was causing the most concern for the CFA ahead of Black Saturday - in the Bunyip state forest east of Melbourne - has yet to officially claim a life. The disaster raises, again, the sensitive question of when to abandon a town to the random hand of Mother Nature.

Well yeah. Do you require evacuation of all potentially indefensible towns on days of extreme weather?

[epideme]

Yeah, it's a real pain I can't find any cached versions of the threat warnings page. Even the rss link doesn't have much.

[hnpcc]

I know that Kilmore East was listed as a Large fire, but it seems like it did not affect Kilmore East much.

No, it started at Kilmore East and then headed away from it. We were concerned because Dean's grandmother lives near there, and it wasn't at all clear for a while which way the fire was going (and we couldn't get up there because the roads were closed). The Kinglake Complex appears to have started from embers from the Kilmore East fire, which did go through Wandong and Wallan, and was threatening Hidden Valley although I've no idea what happened there.

[epideme]

http://p4-8057.uk2net.com/ChampionSystems/swiftFF/leaderboardPrint.html

You may have to scroll down a bit. Gives some idea of the speed of it if you compare it to the other map linked to in the main post.

I assumed that the Kilmore fire just went through all the surrounding area to get to Kinglake. Given the sheer amount of green between the two when you look at the satellite view combined with the bbc link, I'm not sure I'm wrong. ofc embers would have contributed.

[hnpcc]

I assumed that the Kilmore fire just went through all the surrounding area to get to Kinglake.

Hm, not sure. It's probably the most likely scenario, but my impression from listening to the threat updates was that a secondary fire started around Mt Disappointment and that fire then developed into the Kinglake Complex.

Again, it's all kind of confusing and I want a nice explanatory CFA graph!

This article suggests that the Kilmore complex spotted to Kinglake - seriously, I don't think we're going to know for a while. There was a map in yesterday's age with fire ignition sites and burned out areas in it, but I can't seem to find it online just at the moment. The Kinglake/Kilmore complex had at least 4 ignition sites.