Fire watch

[kenneal - lagger]

That sort of fire spread shouldn't be a problem in the UK as the building regs prohibit that sort of construction within a unsafe distance of another property. Like wise in semi detached and terraced properties there should be fire breaks between the properties to prevent a fire in one spreading to the other. While not entirely effective, there have been a few fires recently where the fire has spread, it has allowed the fire brigade time to get to the properties and stop a large scale spread of the fire. The roof seems to have been the weak point where the spread has occurred which is logical really as heat rises into the roof and felt and battens are continuous across the roofs of all the dwellings in the row.

This propagation could be stopped by the insistence on the wall between the properties extending through the roof which you used to see on Victorian properties and some more recent ones built in the Victorian style, but this has problems of its own regarding weather proofing and additional cost. The extra weather proofing is necessary for the more constant problem of rain in this country so to insist on a fire prevention measure against a problem which rarely occurs, and is not usually fatal when it does occur, seems more than a bit over the top.

[BritDownUnder]

Some house owners in Australia have fitted sprinkler systems for their houses to continually douse down the exterior of the house as a means of protecting houses. How they are constructed and what effect they have I don't know.

On some of the new footage uploaded to YouTube quite a lot of fences were also alight.

I will have to look at some drone footage of recent Australian fires to see what happens here. I could not imagine large scale destruction of UK housing by 'wildfires' even under the most extreme future warming scenarios.

[kenneal - lagger]

Part of the problem with many wildfires we have seen is the resinous nature of the trees which makes them more flammable. We have a few areas where houses have been built within areas of pine forest, mainly around heathland areas, where this could be a problem. The Dorset Heaths around Bournemouth for instance and the heathland to the west of Wokingham and south of Reading are two areas that I know of which would be vulnerable to such fires after a drought. Most of our deciduous woodland, while it would burn if it became dry enough, is not quite as flammable as evergreen woodland and doesn't build up quite as much flammable litter. Many of the wildfires that we see in the UK are heathland fires where highly flammable gorse and also heather are the problem.

Having put that in writing we can now expect the mother of all droughts and extensive wildfires in the UK.

[kenneal - lagger]

According to this American, rather long, article the cause of the spread of fire around boulder in the US was the 80+ mph wind which caused an ember storm which found its way into buildings through air vents and any nook or cranny combined with a very wet spring leading to excess grass growth and then a very hot and dry summer and autumn which left a large amount of dry grass ready to burn.

The radiation which I spoke of in an earlier post wouldn't have been such a problem with 80+ mph winds blowing flames and embers between houses although it would have helped.

It shows the importance of establishing an airtight barrier around the outside perimeter of the house which is an importance part of Passivhaus design.

[adam2]

Severe wildfire in New Mexico.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-61367797

Expected to worsen due to high temperatures, dry vegetation, and winds.

[adam2]

"Unprecedented" wild fires sweep Hawaii.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66461158
Dozens of lives lost and a fair sized city substantially destroyed.

[clv101]

Fires burning forests are one thing, but fires taking our towns must be pretty psychologically hard for those involved.

[BritDownUnder]

Large parts of towns have been burnt in Australia before but probably less than 100 houses in total.
Could be a case of a small firestorm effect that took out the town of Lahaina. You get all kinds of fire propagation in Australia including ember attack. You don't associate Hawaii of being that dry but one island has a desert climate due to a rain shadow effect from the neighbouring island and one side of the Big Island is supposedly quite dry too. Whether global warming has anything to do with this fire I have no idea.

[adam2]

The death toll in the Hawaii fire disaster is now reported to be 67, making it the worst disaster in the history of the state.
With many still missing and with search and recovery operations at an early stage it is likely that the death toll will increase.

[northernmonkey]

So, I'm guessing its all down to anthropogenic climate change... right?

It might be worth mentioning, at this juncture, that if you were to start your global atmospheric temperature measurements from, say, 1850, then the global temperature does indeed appear to have risen by 0.7 degrees centigrade.

However, if you were to start your measurements at, say, the medieval period, then it reveals there has been been a global cooling of around 4 degrees centigrade

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronz ... mate-4.jpg

So, the first answer to the question "is the planet warming?" is another question which is "when do you wish to start your measurement from?"

We humans are certainly trashing the planet's living systems, that's for sure, and we are certainly running short on industrial resources. Again, that's for sure. But, "anthropogenic climate change" is just another pile of bullshit deployed by a Western ruling class that knows the party is over for industrial civilization and that the West just happens to be the first domino to fall for a host of historical reasons.

So, Western populations need keeping under control as rationing inevitably sets in.

[Ralphw2]

I don’t know where you get the data that global Temperatures were 4c higher in the medieval period. Or even what chronological date constitutes the medieval period. Or what proxy physical evidence for temperature the data is actually measuring. (No one knew how to measure temperature more than 500 years ago). Please enlighten us.

Edit.

You must have tried hard to find an image like that. It comes from the web pages of a professor of entomology which, judging by the layout and terminology used, has not been updated for at least 25 years. It is clearly an image taken from a printed paper of at least that vintage. I cannot find any reference to that image in the web pages, or from which original publication it came.

[northernmonkey]

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/climate.htm

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronz ... mate-4.jpg

I understand facts can be a bit of a problem if they don't agree with your ideological leanings. But, they nonetheless remain facts irrespective of those leanings.

The facts of measurements showing the medieval period was 4 degree centigrade warmer than it is now are extensively recorded and well known in academia

I also note the little switcheroos that usually takes place in these types of discussions. Wildly speculative "models" of future catastrophic climate change are treated as gospel whilst, simultaneously, carefully and scientifically extrapolated empirical data that indirectly measures the temperature of previous periods in history are dismissed with hysterical hand waving.

It's entertaining I must confess, which is why I occasionally visit places like this.

[Ralphw2]

Ok the website is not so old, in spite of its antiquated styling, but I still cannot identify which paper he took that image from in his list of citations. Without that, it tells us nothing. Where is the original paper?

I don’t normally bother with climate denial trolls, but I’m a bit bored.

Edit

I notice of course that that image does not even have a vertical scale, so where does your figure of 4c come from?

[northernmonkey]

So, why do you suppose they are lying?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arjKzv2oojI

"Recent reports of skyrocketing record temperatures across Europe were terrifying but guess what — they were also inaccurate. News programs reported on surface temperatures rather than air temperatures — the latter are what we’re used to hearing but surfact temperatures can be significantly higher, and more frightening."

[Ralphw2]

So an youtube channel comedian knows more about global heating statistics and is more honest than 99% of the worlds atmosphere scientists who have spent decades studying and researching the data, usually earning far less than they could in industry or most other professions that they would be qualified for.

Excuse me if I am not impressed.