Here in Central Texas we have juniper trees we all call cedars. Think of
them as large, allergy inducing weeds. Until man controlled the fires
much of our landscape was grassy with oak trees where ever there was
enough water. Lightning strikes started fires occasionally and there
were large grass fires. The cedar trees burned to the ground in the
grassy areas, but the oak trees survived and the ecology stayed in
balance. We came along and ever since we've had to chop cedars. They do
make nice fence posts.
Bob Kramer
Sales Manager
16415 North IH35
RDO Equipment Co.
Pflugerville, TX 78660
800-775-3838
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Bill Babcock
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 10:03 AM
To: Randall
Cc: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: [FOT] RE: No TR content [was Herman & Helena Van Den Akker]
For that matter, long before we started trying to control these things
there's no reason to think that continent-wide brush fires occurred
regularly, in fact there lots of indication that they did. You don't
need climate change to have drought, or even droughts to have fires.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Randall
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 7:35 AM
Cc: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: [FOT] RE: No TR content [was Herman & Helena Van Den Akker]
> 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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