Friday 30 March 2012

BUSHFIRE SKIES IN MELBOURNE

Bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year due to Australia's mostly hot, dry climate. Large areas of land are ravaged every year by bushfires, which also cause property damage and loss of life.

Certain native flora in Australia have evolved to rely on bushfires as a means of reproduction and fire events are an interwoven and an essential part of the ecology of the continent. In some eucalypt and banksia species, for example, fire causes seed pods to open, which allows them to germinate. Fire also encourages the growth of new grassland plants. Other species have adapted to recover quickly from fire.

For many thousands of years, Indigenous Australians people have used fire for a variety of purposes. These included the encouragement of grasslands for hunting purposes and the clearing of tracks through dense vegetation.

Major firestorms that result in severe loss of life are often named based on the day on which they occur, such as Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday. Some of the most intense, extensive and deadly bushfires commonly occur during droughts and heat waves, such as the 2009 Southern Australia heat wave, which precipitated the conditions during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in which 173 people lost their lives.

We have been lucky in the past few years in that we have had cooler, wetter summers and thankfully no major bushfires. These photos are from the summer of 2003 when we were experiencing a severe drought in Victoria and here were numerous bushfires around Melbourne, often swathig our skies in smoke and producing some otherworldly sunsets.

This post is part of Sylvia's Skywatch Friday.








16 comments:

  1. Nature is truly marvelous! Adaptability at so many levels...fascinating history and photos, as usual. Thanks!

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  2. Wow!Looks so dry and the mud is already cracking.

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  3. Great shots. Have a great Friday.

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  4. Great shots, - lovely colours in the sky!
    Happy SkyWatch to you!

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  5. Haunting fire-laden skies! Something quite fearful and yet beautiful!

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  6. What an interesting post...the pictures are great!

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  7. I love the sky pics with the wires in them; has such an urban feel.

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  8. This could be here! Fortunatelly it rained a little today but some fires are still active. We need much more rain. Half of the country is under a severe drought and the other half under an extreme drought!

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  9. A very informative and fascinating post. «Louis» had no idea that the bush fires have a positive impact on the pollination of some eucalypt and banksia species.

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  10. I knew what this was from the thumbnail.Looks the same in So Cal when there are fires. I hope this is a quiet season for your area,we have been lucky for a few years here too. The smokey sky does make for great photos.

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  11. Yes, as above... we get these skies in S CA. They can make for beautiful skies, but I've come to dislike them because of the destruction that they sometimes cause.

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  12. So beautiful!

    Visiting late from Sky Watch , hope you could still visit my Sky Shot.

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  13. Let's hope we avoid major bush fires in the years to come.

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  14. Wow! Those skies are really beautiful!

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  15. Hi there - although the colours are great - I hope I don’t see too many similar skies! I suppose the worse has past this year - but you never can tell.

    Stewart M - Melbourne

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  16. Wow, how impressive pictures, Nick. And thank you for your interesting information.

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