More flooding foreseen for the Canberra region

Grumpy Old Fart said :

andym said :

Grumpy Old Fart said :

but there is a longway to go to get back to the fuel loads and drought that culminated in the 2003 fires. .

GOF – your quite wrong there. Fuel loads in the mountains are higher now then they ever were in 2003. Its not the same fuel load granted, but fires are driven by the amount of fine fuels available. Anyone who has been out to TNR or up to Piccadilly Circus can see the hugh amount of scrubby fuels that have sprung up, you would be hard pushed to walk through it in many places.

I was out with my walking frame the other day strolling from Picadilly Circus to the Mt Coree fire tower and although there maybe a good ground coverage it is as green as it comes and there is more water up there than there has been in a long time. We would need a couple of years of drought to return to the conditions of 2003.

Yup, it is certainly too damp for a firestorm at the moment but the fuel levels are building. I was up on the link road to Bendora from Wombat Road a few months ago trying to get down to the waters edge & the amount of woody weeds was unbelievable. We had trouble making a clear path it was that thick.

Granted, where the fire that stared over near Flea Creek (the so called McIntyres Hut fire) ripped up & around Mt Coree the fuel load is lighter than prior to the fires (I went to Mt Coree 2 weeks before the fires & made comment at how dry & unstable it was).

Fire management seems to have been forgotten, obviously Mr Stanhope has forgotten how he had to save that bloke in the helicopter………..

As for the rain, please god let me get one camping trip in this summer!!!!

andym said :

Grumpy Old Fart said :

but there is a longway to go to get back to the fuel loads and drought that culminated in the 2003 fires. .

GOF – your quite wrong there. Fuel loads in the mountains are higher now then they ever were in 2003. Its not the same fuel load granted, but fires are driven by the amount of fine fuels available. Anyone who has been out to TNR or up to Piccadilly Circus can see the hugh amount of scrubby fuels that have sprung up, you would be hard pushed to walk through it in many places.

I was out with my walking frame the other day strolling from Picadilly Circus to the Mt Coree fire tower and although there maybe a good ground coverage it is as green as it comes and there is more water up there than there has been in a long time. We would need a couple of years of drought to return to the conditions of 2003.

2604 said :

Apart from anything else (and all water issues aside) a lawn is much easier to maintain than an equivalent-sized garden bed full of shrubs.

Agreed, and especially when you deliberately use a drought resistant type of grass.

Grumpy Old Fart said :

but there is a longway to go to get back to the fuel loads and drought that culminated in the 2003 fires. .

GOF – your quite wrong there. Fuel loads in the mountains are higher now then they ever were in 2003. Its not the same fuel load granted, but fires are driven by the amount of fine fuels available. Anyone who has been out to TNR or up to Piccadilly Circus can see the hugh amount of scrubby fuels that have sprung up, you would be hard pushed to walk through it in many places.

georgesgenitals said :

On a related topic, my front lawn is just awesome. I’m so glad I kept it when doom and gloomers were telling us the water cycle had failed permanently.

Ditto with our back lawn.

Apart from anything else (and all water issues aside) a lawn is much easier to maintain than an equivalent-sized garden bed full of shrubs.

Pork Hunt said :

Well no, because how would entire Queanbeyan get past the “closed” water ski area at Dairy Flat? 🙂

Ah yes, but if you can’t read the sign, it won’t pose a problem! 😉

Most of Queanbeyan is way above the flood level, it’ll be fine.

On a related topic, my front lawn is just awesome. I’m so glad I kept it when doom and gloomers were telling us the water cycle had failed permanently.

AussieRodney said :

What’s next then, pestilence?

No, we’ve had pestilence already, but Mully’s dead now.

johnboy said :

GrrArgh said :

If this is true, I hope the ACT Government is making preparations for this event, rather than waiting till it’s too late and the flood waters are upon us. We can learn from what happened in Queensland, but only if the people in charge pay attention, otherwise, we could be another Brisbane.

Well no.

Because we’re at the exact opposite end of the river system to Brisbane and have to date refrained from building on flood plains. (we put lakes there, clever no?)

Queanbeyan however could wash entirely into LBG instead of just its corpses and faeces.

Well no, because how would entire Queanbeyan get past the “closed” water ski area at Dairy Flat? 🙂

I wondered what was the significance of “fuel and soil moisture”. Does that mean that the trees & grasses have taken in as much water as they can & they will repel any more water? Or just another reporter typo because someone was thinking about fire & floods in the same sentence. What’s next then, pestilence?