Megafires

[Robert Stewart]

Aside from hurricanes,tornadoes, earthquakes and the ever present threat of dormant volcanoes suddenly springing to life there is also another natural disaster that preppers both in USA and Australia need to worry about and thats megafires unlike wildfires or bushfires which we encounter every year a megafire is the equivilant of an atomic bomb and can wipe out whole townships in the blink of an eye as seen in 2009 with Black Saturday

I live in a part of rural South Australia which hasnt seen a damaging bushfire in over 30 years the last one was named Ash Wednesday II 1983 so its an ever looming threat each summer.... not sure if theres much you can do in regards to prepping for a megafire as it just happens and theres no time to prepare unlike with hurricanes or tornadoes

 

[jimLE]

good points there..we had to worry about wildfires here the last drought we had here.in which 3 or 4 were within a mile of us each time..i hope no one has to worry about any megafires..

 

[Robert Stewart]

Were expecting the El Nino drought that you guys in the states have atm to hit us in mid-late winter meaning a hot spring and scorching hot summer the last time we had a drought that resulted in an early fire season was in 1982/1983 again about 12-24 months before i was born but still resulted in a bad fire season

 

[jontte]

hope you guys don't have to deal with that,the odds to succed against something like that ain't good

 

[Robert Stewart]

At this point in time im hoping not either jontte but given the recent news of Forestry South Australia cutting 60 full time paid field positions it doesnt look good for us come 2014/2015 fire season as Forestry SA is just like the CDF (Californian Department Of Forestry) over there in the states they are a registered FIB which in Australian terms means Forestry Industry Brigade, the trucks us volunteer firies have whilst they are really effective in battling grass/scrub fires arent designed to withstand temperatures of up to 1000 degrees celcius associated with forest fires unlike the Fire Kings of which Forestry SA has

Adding here in Australia each state/territory has a major & minor fire cycle with the most serious ones happening every 10-50 years with minor ones occuring every 5-10 years and well SE South Australia is 31 years overdue for another major fire so whilst alot of people arent taking the threat seriously enough preppers like myself and others who are in SA are planning ahead in the event it will happen

 

[Maverick]

I know here in the midwest and in texas when we have a large out of control grassland fires we get help from Oz since you guys are best at fighting this type of fire, that's a plus you have there. I live in fire country here and we are starting our fire season, I have fire breaks around the property with above ground tracked arrogation lines piped into a well with generator backup, when a fire breaks out within 5 miles of my location I get nervous

 

[Graynomad]

We have cleared all the understory for about 5 acres around our "house", just installed another 16,000-gal tank with a 2" outlet, and will soon buy a "fire fighter" pump and canvas hoses. So I'm not very worried about low level fires. A full on canopy fire would be a different story but our local fire guys say that never happens in this area (central Queensland). I dunno if that can really be the case but I hope so.

The firies turned up the other day to see if I mind them burning off to reduce fuel, I said go for it but they have to get all the neighbours to agree and they said there's at least one greenie who isn't keen. I guess we'll see what happens.