> Americans don't have any idea of what real bush fires are about. Lose
> a few thousand acres and a state of emergency is declared. Go to Oz
> and find out about real firestorms. E,g., Ash Wednesday (yes, really)
> in 1976, 3 fires burnt 6 million acres in a single 24 hour period.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think you're mistaken.
The name "Ash Wednesday" was coined in 1983, when almost 150 separate fires
broke out in Oz. The fire threatening Herman & Helena's home has already burned
half again the area of the largest of the Ash Wednesday fires, 160,000 acres vs
105,000.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WILDFIRES
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ash+wednesday%22+australia
The largest estimate I found for all the land burned in Oz that entire summer
was only 1.3 million acres.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_bushfires
Which is still a lot, but comparable to 2003 here in CA (approx 900,000 acres
burned). And less than the 1.5 million acres burned in Yellowstone in 1988.
Not to mention Alaska 2004 when a single fire destroyed 1.3 million acres.
(Total wildfire damage in Alaska that season was over 6 million acres.)
> fighting the Administration's deceit about Global Warming
I guess we must have global warming under control, since the largest wildfires
in the US were over 100 years ago ... 3 million acres burned in Maine in 1825;
another 3 million in S. Carolina in 1898; 3.8 million in Wisconsin & Michigan
1871; 2.5 million Michigan 1881; etc.
http://www.nifc.gov/stats/historicalstats.html
Randall
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