It's Saturday in Melbourne

Siobhan · 08-12-06 23:07:55

It's Friday night in Asheville. I'm heading out to various holiday parites, but wanted to say that I heard about major fires in Victoria -- what bed news for you guys to wake up to.

I hope all our Aussie friends in that area are safe. One and a half million acres is a lot of ongoing lung trouble for thousands of miles, if nothing else.

Check in and let us know y'all are safe.

richard · 08-12-06 23:57:59

Siobhan wrote:

It's Friday night in Asheville. I'm heading out to various holiday parites, but wanted to say that I heard about major fires in Victoria -- what bed news for you guys to wake up to.
I hope all our Aussie friends in that area are safe. One and a half million acres is a lot of ongoing lung trouble for thousands of miles, if nothing else.
Check in and let us know y'all are safe.

It's just the annual bush barbeque really. There's a hell of a lot of empty space out there. As far as I know, one remote house has burned, the rest is just bush, and nobody has been injured. However it's making for interestinfg light. At this time of year we try and make good use of every clear afternoon to shoot in the yellow light just before sunset (last night we did a daring and gorgeous shoot on a railway bridge) but there's a pall of white smoke that's hung over the city for a couple of weeks. The sunlit aspects are yellow all day and quite subdued (low contrast with shade) but less yellow at sunset.

However they are predicting that strong winds on Sunday could whip up the fires and threaten some small rural communities. But it's too far away to be anything like the fires of 1983 which burnt a lot of populated areas up to the edges of the city and took a lot of homes and lives.

blissed · 09-12-06 00:28:26

I'm glad it''s less dramatic in reality than it is on the news (whats new :-))

I think its worrying tho if you have relatives in the areas under threat.
and if I lived on the Gippsland coast, I think I'd be on the boat to Melbourne right now.

.

Last edited by blissed (09-12-06 00:57:20)

Calenture · 09-12-06 02:08:15

Ooh it makes me all tingly when anyone talks about lighting conditions.

Terrence Malick allegedly shot 'Days of Heaven' entirely in the 'magic hour', which meant his crew worked frenetically for a couple of hours a day and spent the rest of the time just hanging around. No doubt it does wonders for the models' skin tones.

Note to non-nerds: the 'colour temperature' as well as the intensity of light varies significantly according to the weather conditions and time of day. The 'magic hour' is the period just before the sun sets, when the light is very warm (deep yellow, and in Australia often pinkish). When the sun finally drops below the horizon the colour of the light not only dims but moves to a deep blue at the opposite end of the chromatic scale (because the remaining light is now reflected skylight rather than sunlight).

But as to the fires It's one more scary part of being on the business end of global warming. Even here it's easy to be blase when it's not actually on your doorstep. Meanwhile there are firefighters working out there.

Last edited by Calenture (09-12-06 02:35:24)

polarchill · 09-12-06 02:23:03

blissed wrote:

I'm glad it''s less dramatic in reality than it is on the news (whats new :-))

What he said. It's kind of hard to relate to in the U.S., where the farthest from a paved road you can get anywhere in the country is 21 miles. The most consistently empty place in the whole shebang is the desert area, and, well, there's not much to burn there. When a big fire breaks out on either side of the country here, people start freaking, because SOMEONE is in imminent danger.

I say this, of course, as someone who originally came from the Midwest, an area that all the East and West Coast pundits CONSIDER to be miles and miles of nothingness. Personally, I don't mind not bumping elbows with my neighbors, but that's just me.

richard · 09-12-06 03:22:50

Calenture wrote:

Ooh it makes me all tingly when anyone talks about lighting conditions.
Terrence Malick allegedly shot 'Days of Heaven' entirely in the 'magic hour', which meant his crew worked frenetically for a couple of hours a day and spent the rest of the time just hanging around. No doubt it does wonders for the models' skin tones.
Note to non-nerds: the 'colour temperature' as well as the intensity of light varies significantly according to the weather conditions and time of day. The 'magic hour' is the period just before the sun sets, when the light is very warm (deep yellow, and in Australia often pinkish). When the sun finally drops below the horizon the colour of the light not only dims but moves to a deep blue at the opposite end of the chromatic scale (because the remaining light is now reflected skylight rather than sunlight).
But as to the fires It's one more scary part of being on the business end of global warming. Even here it's easy to be blase when it's not actually on your doorstep. Meanwhile there are firefighters working out there.

Yet I've heard 'magic hour' described as the time just sunset, and I never understood why.

richard · 09-12-06 03:25:01

blissed wrote:

I'm glad it''s less dramatic in reality than it is on the news (whats new :-))
http://images.chron.com/photos/2006/12/ … allery.jpg
I think its worrying tho if you have relatives in the areas under threat.
and if I lived on the Gippsland coast, I think I'd be on the boat to Melbourne right now.
.

Melbourne is at the top of the little horsehead shaped bay in the center left. Just after I wrote the post above I went outside and the air is thick with smoke haze. It's like fog and smells nice.

Calenture · 09-12-06 05:06:10

Apparent contradiction solved.

http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/magic/magic.htm

I wouldn't like shooting in the middle of a bush fire either way.

CosmoLuce · 09-12-06 06:02:02

Well, It's near 4.00PM here,
Two fires have joined into a large one - three in one - the wind is a nasty N/Wer, so look out Gippsland
They had nasty fire through there beginning of this year near Mt. Misery (appropriate name) so there isn't much left to burn there.
We're kinda used to fires in Australia, but with the drought they are much worse, far more damaging.

(edited for spelling - not my strongest forte )

Last edited by CosmoLuce (09-12-06 06:03:12)

bolero · 09-12-06 06:37:57

Hmmmmm, I hope nobody is trying to be frivolous about bush fires in this thread. We have mini ones in Kiwi land and even they are pretty frightening when they get a hold. Fires aren't like a flood (which are bad enough) you can't swim out of them!

Bolero

Calenture · 09-12-06 07:26:52

Not me I assure you. Sorry for being distracted by a frivolous side issue.

gala · 09-12-06 07:31:42

this happens ever year in southern california. the first time it happened when i was there, the ash blew over into orange, where i was living at the time. it covered your car windshield & looked like snow. it really changed the color and scent of the air and was quite apocalyptic, and pretty in a surreal sort of way.

CosmoLuce · 10-12-06 01:55:52

Sorry Bolero,

I wasn't trying to accuse anyone of being frivolous, and I hope I didn't give the impression I was.
I'll get an update soon.
I live 100's of K's north of the fire front, yet the smoke haze is about and we have a Northerly wind at the moment

Desertgirl44 · 10-12-06 02:07:24

I was watching the footage of the Victorian fires on the news last night. I guess we in Australia just come to accept bushfires as part of our summer. It's burning in some very remote mountain country, so thankfully there aren't too many greatly populated areas under threat. However it's always a shame to see so much forest and national park burning. I travel through this area usually twice a year. Last April I noted just how dry, tinder dry everything was up there. So I guess it was inevitable that the burn would come. I always think it's a relief to have the fires early in the summer. Still, be nice if we get a cool, wet change through the southern half of the country this week.

Where I am we've just had one very short break in the hot weather but the temp has hit 40 again today and expected to stay up there for another four days. And the hot, dry winds from across the desert will, unfortunately, be making their way over the borders into South Australia and Victoria...

The footage from Melbourne is both beautiful and amazing, showing the enormity of the fires.

aven frey · 10-12-06 03:02:10

We have some plants in Australia that don't seed unless a fire goes through them (my mum just told me that on the phone!). I remember there was a artist in residence at my uni one year and she went down and took these amazing photos of a forest regenerating after bushfires. It's was actually quite a stunning thing to see.
Hope you stay safe CosmoLuce.

bolero · 10-12-06 03:48:17

Yes, we have similar types in NZ. I don't know what they're called, but I'm told by one of our boarders here that only goats can eat them.

Bolero

CosmoLuce · 10-12-06 08:17:55

Latest update,

220000 Hectares of bush burnt with only 4 homes lost.
Anxious wait to see extent of the S/Werly change due tonight
Thanks for the kind thoughts Max,
But I'm in southern rural N.S.W. so we're safe, we feel for our Victorian cousins though

bolero · 11-12-06 08:43:35

CosmoLuce wrote:

Latest update,
220000 Hectares of bush burnt with only 4 homes lost.
Anxious wait to see extent of the S/Werly change due tonight
Thanks for the kind thoughts Max,
But I'm in southern rural N.S.W. so we're safe, we feel for our Victorian cousins though

There are 47 Kiwi fire fighters in Victoria and the Victoria government want up to 100 so it said on tonight's news. So I hope everyone is all right and we feel for our cuzzies in Victoria too. It's been a really wet season here so we have no bush fire threats at the moment. Here's hoping for some cool and wet weather in Victoria.

Bolero

eros62 · 11-12-06 08:48:06

Sending safe thoughts your way from the States as well. Take care!

CosmoLuce · 11-12-06 10:19:14

max wrote:

We have some plants in Australia that don't seed unless a fire goes through them (my mum just told me that on the phone!). I remember there was a artist in residence at my uni one year and she went down and took these amazing photos of a forest regenerating after bushfires. It's was actually quite a stunning thing to see.
Hope you stay safe CosmoLuce.

Two of those plants that need fire to regenerate are our GrassTree (settlers called them Black Boys) and the famous Banksia.

We do have a fire in the Tumut district, still in bushland, have to see how that one goes.

Last edited by CosmoLuce (11-12-06 10:24:33)

CosmoLuce · 11-12-06 10:22:38

bolero wrote:

CosmoLuce wrote:
Latest update,
220000 Hectares of bush burnt with only 4 homes lost.
Anxious wait to see extent of the S/Werly change due tonight
Thanks for the kind thoughts Max,
But I'm in southern rural N.S.W. so we're safe, we feel for our Victorian cousins though
There are 47 Kiwi fire fighters in Victoria and the Victoria government want up to 100 so it said on tonight's news. So I hope everyone is all right and we feel for our cuzzies in Victoria too. It's been a really wet season here so we have no bush fire threats at the moment. Here's hoping for some cool and wet weather in Victoria.
Bolero

Great to hear that acsent in interviews with the fire fighters.
Funny how Kiwi's and Aussies give one another Curry in sport etc, but when it comes to the crunch, we're on the same side

aven frey · 14-12-06 00:38:28

CosmoLuce wrote:

Thanks for the kind thoughts Max,
But I'm in southern rural N.S.W. so we're safe, we feel for our Victorian cousins though

Oh I'm a fool, I thought I'd read 10k's!

aven frey · 14-12-06 00:39:56

CosmoLuce wrote:

Two of those plants that need fire to regenerate are our GrassTree (settlers called them Black Boys) and the famous Banksia.

Yes just after I wrote that I saw the guy from the abc gardening show stick a banksia in the oven to get it's seeds out!

CosmoLuce · 15-12-06 05:15:59

Up-Date,

We've had our first fatality last nijght.
A 48yo firefighter was apparently run over during the chaos as the fire front raced toward houses in the N.E of Victoria.

richard · 15-12-06 12:12:00

Some houses in the town where my sister lives were burned last night. They evacuated and their house survived. I guess I was a little flippant - I've been around a while and I can't remember fires burning so long. It's fortunate they've been mostly in uninhabited areas, until now.

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It's Saturday in Melbourne

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