FIRES IN AUSTRALIA

During the past few months there have been several fires that brought Australia to its knees. Up until now milions of hectares have been burned, dozens of people have died, thousands of them have evacuated, and there have been more than a billion dead animals and incalculable environmental and ecological damage.

WHY DOES AUSTRALIA KEEP BURNING?

Australia continues to burn because most of forests are made of eucalyptos and “bush”, a semi-arid savannah with low and dense trees made of grasses and shrubs. This type of vegetation was born to burn, so the climate of Australia is very arid and in the last 100 million years the plants have become accustomed to the fires, caused by lightning, and to get over them they allow themselves to burn.

WHAT CAUSED THE FIRES?

In Australia half of the fires are caused by lightning and half by human. The biggest fires are caused by lightning because they affect the most remote and uninhabited areas where there are no human activities.

WHY THE FIRES CAN’T BE PUT OUT?

To extinguish a fire it is necessary to eliminate the fuel. The water launched by the air vehicles can only slow down the combustion, but to eliminate the fuel, the ground crews are needed. Intense canopy fires such as those that developed in Australia can generate tens of flames high, proceed at a speed of ten kilometers per hour and develop a power of one hundred thousand kW per linear meter in front. Ground crews cannot operate safely with an intensity of 4000 kW per meter (25 times less than that of fires in Australia).

WHAT DOES CLIMATE CHANGE HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

It has been shown that the global warming can influence the frequency of extreme events. To this, it was superimposed an event of sudden heating of the atmosphere in the Antartic area.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

We can reduce our emissions with collective and high impact behaviors. Strive to see the importance of climate change and our production and consumption in what’s going on. The biggest problem we have is that Koalas are hit hard, but tomorrow it will be up to other animals, other ecosystem… other men. And maybe to us too.

EDOARDO