March 22, 2022 • 21 mins
When you’re on the frontline of a raging bushfire, every second counts.
Life-saving decisions have to be made in seconds, and anyone who’s lived through a bushfire can tell you the difference 5, 10 or 15 minutes can make.
Even if you haven’t lived it, most Australians remember the images of glowing red skies, smoke-blanketed cities and angry thunderstorms that, instead of rain, brought more fire.
The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 brought discussions about Australia’s changing climate to the forefront of the national consciousness, leaving many of us overwhelmed by the scale of the problem and how often we’ll be facing it in the future.
We'll take you to where that deadly fire season started in Queensland: a little holiday town on the coast where fire spread with alarming speed. You’ll also meet the UQ researchers using artificial intelligence to support firefighters, communities and families to make those 5, 10 or 15 minutes count.
Doomscroll Remedy takes you to the edge of the existential crises that keep us up at night and introduces you to the experts working to solve them.
+++
Doomscroll Remedy is a University of Queensland podcast, produced by Deadset Studios.
Hosted by Stephen Stockwell. Produced by Grace Pashley, Krissy Miltiadou and Rachel Fountain at Deadset Studios. The consulting producer is Zoe McDonald and commissioning editor at The University of Queensland is Greta Usasz.
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the land on which this show was made.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gabby (00:10):
In the afternoon, I went for a walk with the dog. And
that's when I could in thedistance see some smoke and was
curious but not alarmed at thetime. But whilst I was out
walking, I received a phone callfrom my dad, you know, asking me
(00:30):
if I could see the smoke andwhere was I? And what was I
doing? He's a bus driver on theSunshine Coast. So he drives up
and down the coast a lot. So hesees what's going on. And he's
radioing often to other busdrivers about what's going on.
So I think he was maybe a littlebit more aware of the severity
of the situation.
Stephen Stockwell (00:50):
What did your dad say when he called?
Gabby (00:52):
Where are you? Where's your brother? Why don't you at
home, go home walk home. He'salways a little bit more, not a
worrier, but he likes to knowwhat's going on and to, to make
sure everything's okay.
Stephen Stockwell (01:08):
I remember this day, it was September 2019.
I've got friends who live onQueensland Sunshine Coast. So I
made a point of watching this onthe news. Gabby Barnett, who's
telling this story had justmoved back to her childhood home
after a stint overseas, she cuther walk short after the call
from her dad.
Gabby (01:25):
So we just started packing some bags for each of
us, you know, pajamas,toothbrush, just in case and
started loading the photo albumsinto the car, and birth
certificates and laptops.
Stephen Stockwell (01:40):
So that's Gabby. I'm Steven Stockwell. And
you're listening to doom scrollremedy, where we meet the people
living through the existentialthreats that keep us up at night
and the people who are trying tosolve them. In this series,
we're diving into direct threatsto how we live like bushfires,
and some things that are alittle harder to pin down, not
with the goal of fixing them.
We're not wizards. But we hopewe can slow down enough to
understand all of these bigproblems swirling through our
(02:02):
feeds, which wise have gone frombeing a natural part of the
Australian landscape to wild anddeadly disasters. And in this
episode, we'll find out howUniversity of Queensland
researchers are making them morepredictable. They've got plenty
to work with to at the end of2019 and the start of 2020, the
east coast of Australia lit up.
I was living in Sydney at thetime and it felt like smoke
(02:25):
blanketed the city for months.
Everything was red, I wasbrushing ash off my clothes
hanging on the hills, hoistsjust 10 kilometres from the CBD.
And that deadly fire seasonactually began further north in
Queensland Phrygian to be exact,a little holiday town on the
beach.
Gabby (02:45):
We've always lived in Pridgen and it's changed a lot
in that time. Back in the day,Pridgen was a very sleepy little
town now. It's a little bit moreupmarket, which is strange for
us. But um, but nice. We'vespent our whole lives like
living where we are. And it's alittle bit more in the bush than
say in town, which is quitelovely. But we've always been
(03:08):
very connected to to town aswell. My mum used to have a shop
there. So we caught the schoolbus there every day. So I have a
deep connection to print in.
What's the house like? Well, Ilove it. It's almost like a big
U shaped house. With a big deck.
There are lots and lots ofcountries, which in turn means
(03:28):
we get lots of beautiful beds,lots of Rainbow lorikeets
kangaroos. We have a lovelygarden that my dad maintains. He
spends almost all his timeoutside of the house when he's
not working. Did you have abushfire plan. As a family, we
have always had a plan of attackthat if there was a bushfire or
(03:48):
any reason to evacuate, Isuppose we knew exactly what we
would be going for. We have alarge cabinet with every photo
album ever for our family thatwe knew to go directly to and
actually my mum had a few yearsago, organized that better.
She'd put it more into boxes anddone that in a way that it would
(04:10):
be easier to get up and goquickly. And we've always known
to go for this very oldbriefcase of my dad's would be
over 30 years old that has everybirth certificate and passport
in it. But that's about theextent of our planning.
Stephen Stockwell (04:25):
So take us back to when you got home from
that walk. Did your family haveto evacuate and where did you
go?
Gabby (04:31):
Thankfully, we have good family friends who now don't
live in prison but previouslyhad and so we're very similarly
attached to the situation andkeeping a close eye on things.
So we went up to their house inNoosa when we just sat around
and listened to the news and hadthe radio on and kept abreast of
(04:55):
the situation.
Stephen Stockwell (04:57):
Everyone was up early the next day, but the
good news was Then you the housewas okay. And they probably go
home. A few hours later though,everything felt different. There
was quite strong
Gabby (05:06):
winds, which was a bit alarming. And it certainly,
despite being a sunny day, itwasn't a nice one. It wasn't
clear skies and nice sunshine,it was hot and smoky and a bit
more oppressive. And so we couldnow see far in the distance more
(05:31):
of an orange glow more of theflames and certainly much darker
smoke as well. You could smellit. And so that sometimes
filters then from your nose intoyour mouth. And I mean, it felt
quite serious. It did the firsttime but this time, we knew that
the fire was much closer. And bythen we had heard a lot more of
(05:54):
the news, we could see that theyhad the the large aerial tanker,
so the plane that flies over anddrops water. So you knew it was
much more serious by now andthat they hadn't been able to
get a hold on the situation andon the fire. So it just seemed
that this time was a bit moreserious than the day prior.
Stephen Stockwell (06:14):
But we're able to have a bit of a wander
around the house. But you cantell by how Gabby describes the
weather the threat was stillthere. I didn't bother unpacking
the car. It was only a few hoursbefore they were told they need
to leave again.
Gabby (06:27):
Even though we've been aware of bushfires before. This
was certainly the first timethat it had been so serious. And
it was worrying. But you feltcomforted by the fact that we
were all together as a family.
Even though we love that homeimmensely. You felt that that it
(06:49):
was going to be okay even if itwasn't there anymore.
Stephen Stockwell (06:57):
What was it like that night staying with
your family friends?
Gabby (07:00):
Yeah, we were glued to the news. Because by then, there
was a lot of reports thatPridgen town was engulfed in
flames and that the petrolstation had blown up that the
Pridgen Beach Hotel that thelocal pub was no longer there,
the IGA was burnt. None of thisturned out to be true. But this
(07:22):
was what you know, people weremessaging on Facebook, or there
were some people who wereperhaps a bit closer to the
scene who had put some veryalarming videos up which showed
the fire blazing around thetown. Through
Stephen Stockwell (07:38):
the night more than 100 Fire crews work to
contain the fire and the nextmorning, Gabby and her family
were able to head home. Thedrive back was a bit weird
though.
Gabby (07:48):
The route itself was not affected so everything looks the
same. Thankfully, and it wasn'tand even where we live look the
same the fire never got closeenough to actually, you know,
burn the trees near us or tomake our area any different. But
the drive a few days later whenwe could drive into town that
(08:10):
was certainly eye opening andyou could see the real effects
of the fire because all thebushland around the town had
been burned. That was that wassaddening
Stephen Stockwell (08:22):
the firing region only made up a small part
of the 7.7 million hectares thatburned across Queensland that
season. We know how that summerturned down.
News readers (08:34):
We're gonna go Ring of Fire around Sydney is as
angry and as frightening aswe've seen homes have been
destroyed and firefightersinjured in the green wattle
Creek Blaze south of Sydneyemergency warning is in place
for Swift Creek Brook fail andinsane
terrifying scale of Australia'sbushfire disaster is beginning
to emerge.
Stephen Stockwell (08:58):
That summer was wild like I was saying I was
living in Sydney at the time.
And I also flew to CentralQueensland for some work in
November. That whole flight Iwas looking out of the window
and huge smoke plumes and fires.
Sydney was by no means thefrontline of the black summer
bushfires, but it was eerie. Inearly 2020. The whole city was
covered in smoke, you couldn'texercise outside and it was even
(09:21):
hard to breathe when you werewalking around in it. The smoke
in Sydney wasn't coming fromthat far away, but I was never
at risk. The people who werepeople who live in the bush
could see this coming though.
Hamish McGowan is a professor ofAtmospheric Sciences at the
University of Queensland andhe'd seen the signs as well.
Hamish McGowan (09:40):
Well, the landscape had been primed for
several years beforehand, interms of we had some reasonable
growing seasons. So there was alot of fuel and then we went
into a period where we had to ElNinos effectively end on end and
then we had the Indian OceanDipole move into a phase where
By we've also got less rainfallin the southeast of Australia
(10:04):
here. So those two naturalfactors came into play to reduce
rainfall across easternAustralia. Underlying that, of
course, we've had this warmingassociated with anthropogenic
loading of the atmosphere withcarbon, which everybody knows
results in, in global warming.
So we've had this increasingtrend of temperature warming in
(10:25):
the background, and thensuperimposed on that this
natural variability, which ledto these unusually dry
conditions. And we had extremedrought. You know, right up
eastern Australia here inQueensland, people who are
listening to this might rememberthat, you know, in southeast
Queensland here, we had unusualwesterly winds, not confined to
the usual period, which weassociate with the acre, but
(10:46):
extending right through intoSeptember, October right through
to December. And those winds, ofcourse, and travelled over 1000s
of kilometers of landmass, werevery dry, they were hot. So they
were producing metrologicalconditions that lead to extreme
fire weather. So there's a rangeof processes that came into play
there, that led to that veryunusual event.
Stephen Stockwell (11:09):
When the fires started, they were scary
enough. But we also saw thisphenomenon during the black
summer bushfires where theystarted creating their own
weather systems.
Hamish McGowan (11:18):
There was a lot of fire thunderstorms associated
with the events of that year.
And that was mainly because theevents were were so large and so
intense, that they led tosignificant conviction in the
atmosphere. And the atmosphere,in particular locations was also
primed to actually initiate andcontribute to that. Pyro cumulus
numbers development, which isthe word we use to describe fire
(11:41):
triggered thunderstorms.
Stephen Stockwell (11:44):
So the fires are creating its own weather at
this point. But from my like,arm gym, meteorologist point of
view, witness Don't be sort ofhelpful to put it out.
Hamish McGowan (11:53):
Well, sometimes the thunderstorms, of course, do
generate their own rain, so theprecipitation, but often that
might be offset from where theactual fire is on the ground.
But also the thunderstorm islikely to produce other hazards.
So you have lightningpotentially starting new fires
as a result of thatthunderstorm, which has been
initiated by the large primarybushfire in the first place. So
(12:16):
yes, can create create rain,which might enhance or help put
the fire out or dampen it, butit also creates other problems,
which can actually start newfires or enhance fire spread.
Stephen Stockwell (12:29):
I do kind of remember bits of this from
watching videos of rural fireservice at the time, I think
there was one where there's aradio call to get out of the way
because the fire is changingdirection. And it goes from this
red glow in the background to afire blowing past them like the
entire flames burning past thattruck in what felt like a matter
of seconds more than anything.
And so the winds would have hada huge impact on just trying to
(12:51):
fight the fire and the safety ofthe people that are trying to
work in those environments,right?
Hamish McGowan (12:57):
Yes, yes, definitely without question.
Certainly some of the evidencefrom large fires or recording of
impact of large fires, forexample, in California, you see,
bulldozers tipped over by fire,tornadoes, large pickup trucks,
fire trucks. So these are theassociated mineralogy that
occurs with these extremebushfires. And the thunderstorms
(13:21):
that develop with them canpresent a whole range of
challenges to those trying tomanage the fire. And our project
is to develop the capability toidentify these hazards before
they actually impact on theground. So we can actually give
lead time so that the responseis not should have been five
minutes ago, you've got 10 or 15minutes to respond to get out of
(13:42):
the way of the hazard. The otherthing we want to do is track
where those burning embers arethat are lifted into these
thunderstorms by these largefires. That then traveled down
wind still ignited, and land onthe dry ground and potentially
start new fires through aprocess of spotting. So
firebrands that's what we hopeto track. And we've demonstrated
(14:04):
in our pilot work that we can dothat with our mobile Raider.
Stephen Stockwell (14:07):
The project that Hamish is talking about
here is actually a University ofQueensland project supported by
Google that uses artificialintelligence to scour a ton of
radar data to give us a lookinside a fire thunderstorm, it
means we'll get a really goodidea of what's floating around
in there. And this is why thatis useful.
Hamish McGowan (14:24):
So it's a real cocktail of objects in side the
cloud. And what our radarenables us to do is to start to
differentiate those and identifyspeciation. So we can say that
part of the cloud is gothailstones on it, this part of
the clouds got liquid raindropsin it. He has ice crystals and
(14:44):
his burning pieces of bark. Sothat's the capability which our
radar has. So we can actuallytherefore use the AI technology
to actually speed up thatprocess of identification. And
then of course, that flowsthrough to a more rapid
predictive capability andwarning of where these different
(15:05):
particles in particular, theburning parts of trees, back
leaves, twigs, and so forthwhere they're heading, and how
quickly,
Stephen Stockwell (15:14):
so it's going to make the job of the fire is
easier, it's certainly
Hamish McGowan (15:17):
going to reduce the risk, both to fire
personnel, personnel on theground, as well as communities
that are likely to come underimpact or fire, it should
increase warning times to themin terms of ember attack,
identify potential risk fromextreme straight line winds,
tornado Genesis associated withlarge bushfires,
Stephen Stockwell (15:40):
so you can't make the town's and the people
in the firing line safer.
Hamish McGowan (15:43):
So we're not making the environment safer.
directly, we hopefully willreduce and mitigate the risk to
those people should havebushfire occur. But in terms of
making the place safer, thatthat opens a whole other can of
worms.
Stephen Stockwell (16:00):
Are we going to start seeing more and more of
those kinds of fires? Do youthink
Hamish McGowan (16:03):
a lot of that will depend on on how our
climate changes as we move intothe future? Some projections are
that yes, we may well see somemore extreme fires. And then
it's it's probably fair todeduce that we're likely to see
more frequent, largethunderstorms associated with
(16:23):
those fires that present theassociated risks that we've
spoken about. But a lot of thatwill depend on on how our
climate changes, both inresponse to our actions, you
know, in terms of putting carbonin the atmosphere and driving
global warming, but also naturalvariability and climate, how
these natural climate cyclesinteract with each other, but
(16:45):
also how they respond to globalwarming
Stephen Stockwell (16:47):
with climate change. Particularly, it feels
like a real plan for the worstkind of scenario, I don't have a
lot of hope that we're going toturn that ship around, which
means that in the immediateterm, we're going to need to
manage the impacts of climatechange, one of which is fires.
And it sounds like your work isgoing to be really useful when
we start having to address that.
Hamish McGowan (17:05):
Yes, I agree completely. I mean, we're not
going to turn around our impacton the atmospheric environment
in terms of global warming,warming in five minutes, that's
going to take decades, if notcenturies. And that assumes that
politically, everybody getstheir act together. And there is
a concerted effort globally todecarbonize and decarbonize the
(17:27):
atmosphere, we need to be ableto respond now to the
consequences of a changingclimate, whether it be net
through natural variability, orour actions are a combination of
both, we need to buildresilience in our abilities to
actually respond to the extremeweather events, whether they be
tropical cyclones, severe hailstorms, or extreme bushfires, we
need to develop new capabilitiesto be able to respond to these
(17:50):
events, so that we can mitigatethe impact that they have on our
communities and the environment.
Stephen Stockwell (17:58):
How do you feel about you know, the
livability of bridge here andyour your future for the area,
Gabby (18:03):
I guess, you come to recognize that if you want to
have a lifestyle, and a home inthe bush, which is what so many
of us do want is to have thatbeautiful connection to nature,
there will always be theseinherent risks, and sadly, that
only worsening because of theimpacts of climate change. So
(18:25):
with that, I think you feel agreater sense of responsibility
to do the right thing for theenvironment and to hope that
others are as well. In order to,to mitigate the risks as much as
possible.
Stephen Stockwell (18:42):
Is there any comfort knowing that, you know,
there? Is this work being doneto better track and better
manage fires and try to reducethose risks?
Gabby (18:50):
Yeah, absolutely. I think any kind of use of, of
technology, or any kind of newproduct or system or solution is
really valuable, especially whenit can, you know, help others
to, to better respond to asituation then absolutely, it is
(19:12):
comforting, yes.
Stephen Stockwell (19:13):
Does it feel like enough? You know, little
measures to better track firesto, you know, to make it easier
and to improve communications?
Does that feel like it's enough?
Or does it feel like, you know,you just sort of turning a
garden hose on climate change abit?
Gabby (19:27):
No, I think that every piece counts, and every little
solution or innovation canassist. Of course, there's the
bigger picture of climatechange. But I don't think that
we should neglect the value ofof little innovations as well
(19:48):
that can can help people inthese situations.
Stephen Stockwell (19:52):
I like this little pieces thing that Gabby's
talking about here, I found theabout projects like this
actually quite comforting. Imean, I'll be Usually we need to
take action on climate change.
That's a non negotiable. Butwhen we're already wearing the
impact as the black summerbushfires show, I'll probably
sleep a little easier knowingthat people like Hamish have
projects like thismake sure you follow Doom scroll
(20:18):
remedy and your favorite podcastapp. So you can join me as we
ask questions like, why are wefeeling more and more anxious
and how bad is plastic for us?
Unknown (20:29):
I think we were quite naive. And I think we've been
quite naive in terms of howwe've dealt with plastic and how
we've let it contaminate, Iguess every sphere of the
environment. You know, from thehighest points of the Himalayas
to the deep ocean trenches, wefind plastic now. And I think
that's kind of we dropped theball in that we didn't really
(20:50):
look at it in terms of how itwould contaminate the
environment and the entireplanet.
Stephen Stockwell (20:56):
dermstore remedy is a podcast from the
University of Queensland. It'sproduced by deadset studios.
It's hosted by me, StevenStockwell, produced by Grace
Pashley the executive produceris Rachel fountain. The sound
design is by Chrissy multiarchto consulting producer Zoe
McDonald and commissioningeditor Greta use S
In the afternoon, I went for a walk with the dog. And
that's when I could in thedistance see some smoke and was
curious but not alarmed at thetime. But whilst I was out
walking, I received a phone callfrom my dad, you know, asking me
(00:30):
if I could see the smoke andwhere was I? And what was I
doing? He's a bus driver on theSunshine Coast. So he drives up
and down the coast a lot. So hesees what's going on. And he's
radioing often to other busdrivers about what's going on.
So I think he was maybe a littlebit more aware of the severity
of the situation.
Stephen Stockwell (00:50):
What did your dad say when he called?
Gabby (00:52):
Where are you? Where's your brother? Why don't you at
home, go home walk home. He'salways a little bit more, not a
worrier, but he likes to knowwhat's going on and to, to make
sure everything's okay.
Stephen Stockwell (01:08):
I remember this day, it was September 2019.
I've got friends who live onQueensland Sunshine Coast. So I
made a point of watching this onthe news. Gabby Barnett, who's
telling this story had justmoved back to her childhood home
after a stint overseas, she cuther walk short after the call
from her dad.
Gabby (01:25):
So we just started packing some bags for each of
us, you know, pajamas,toothbrush, just in case and
started loading the photo albumsinto the car, and birth
certificates and laptops.
Stephen Stockwell (01:40):
So that's Gabby. I'm Steven Stockwell. And
you're listening to doom scrollremedy, where we meet the people
living through the existentialthreats that keep us up at night
and the people who are trying tosolve them. In this series,
we're diving into direct threatsto how we live like bushfires,
and some things that are alittle harder to pin down, not
with the goal of fixing them.
We're not wizards. But we hopewe can slow down enough to
understand all of these bigproblems swirling through our
(02:02):
feeds, which wise have gone frombeing a natural part of the
Australian landscape to wild anddeadly disasters. And in this
episode, we'll find out howUniversity of Queensland
researchers are making them morepredictable. They've got plenty
to work with to at the end of2019 and the start of 2020, the
east coast of Australia lit up.
I was living in Sydney at thetime and it felt like smoke
(02:25):
blanketed the city for months.
Everything was red, I wasbrushing ash off my clothes
hanging on the hills, hoistsjust 10 kilometres from the CBD.
And that deadly fire seasonactually began further north in
Queensland Phrygian to be exact,a little holiday town on the
beach.
Gabby (02:45):
We've always lived in Pridgen and it's changed a lot
in that time. Back in the day,Pridgen was a very sleepy little
town now. It's a little bit moreupmarket, which is strange for
us. But um, but nice. We'vespent our whole lives like
living where we are. And it's alittle bit more in the bush than
say in town, which is quitelovely. But we've always been
(03:08):
very connected to to town aswell. My mum used to have a shop
there. So we caught the schoolbus there every day. So I have a
deep connection to print in.
What's the house like? Well, Ilove it. It's almost like a big
U shaped house. With a big deck.
There are lots and lots ofcountries, which in turn means
(03:28):
we get lots of beautiful beds,lots of Rainbow lorikeets
kangaroos. We have a lovelygarden that my dad maintains. He
spends almost all his timeoutside of the house when he's
not working. Did you have abushfire plan. As a family, we
have always had a plan of attackthat if there was a bushfire or
(03:48):
any reason to evacuate, Isuppose we knew exactly what we
would be going for. We have alarge cabinet with every photo
album ever for our family thatwe knew to go directly to and
actually my mum had a few yearsago, organized that better.
She'd put it more into boxes anddone that in a way that it would
(04:10):
be easier to get up and goquickly. And we've always known
to go for this very oldbriefcase of my dad's would be
over 30 years old that has everybirth certificate and passport
in it. But that's about theextent of our planning.
Stephen Stockwell (04:25):
So take us back to when you got home from
that walk. Did your family haveto evacuate and where did you
go?
Gabby (04:31):
Thankfully, we have good family friends who now don't
live in prison but previouslyhad and so we're very similarly
attached to the situation andkeeping a close eye on things.
So we went up to their house inNoosa when we just sat around
and listened to the news and hadthe radio on and kept abreast of
(04:55):
the situation.
Stephen Stockwell (04:57):
Everyone was up early the next day, but the
good news was Then you the housewas okay. And they probably go
home. A few hours later though,everything felt different. There
was quite strong
Gabby (05:06):
winds, which was a bit alarming. And it certainly,
despite being a sunny day, itwasn't a nice one. It wasn't
clear skies and nice sunshine,it was hot and smoky and a bit
more oppressive. And so we couldnow see far in the distance more
(05:31):
of an orange glow more of theflames and certainly much darker
smoke as well. You could smellit. And so that sometimes
filters then from your nose intoyour mouth. And I mean, it felt
quite serious. It did the firsttime but this time, we knew that
the fire was much closer. And bythen we had heard a lot more of
(05:54):
the news, we could see that theyhad the the large aerial tanker,
so the plane that flies over anddrops water. So you knew it was
much more serious by now andthat they hadn't been able to
get a hold on the situation andon the fire. So it just seemed
that this time was a bit moreserious than the day prior.
Stephen Stockwell (06:14):
But we're able to have a bit of a wander
around the house. But you cantell by how Gabby describes the
weather the threat was stillthere. I didn't bother unpacking
the car. It was only a few hoursbefore they were told they need
to leave again.
Gabby (06:27):
Even though we've been aware of bushfires before. This
was certainly the first timethat it had been so serious. And
it was worrying. But you feltcomforted by the fact that we
were all together as a family.
Even though we love that homeimmensely. You felt that that it
(06:49):
was going to be okay even if itwasn't there anymore.
Stephen Stockwell (06:57):
What was it like that night staying with
your family friends?
Gabby (07:00):
Yeah, we were glued to the news. Because by then, there
was a lot of reports thatPridgen town was engulfed in
flames and that the petrolstation had blown up that the
Pridgen Beach Hotel that thelocal pub was no longer there,
the IGA was burnt. None of thisturned out to be true. But this
(07:22):
was what you know, people weremessaging on Facebook, or there
were some people who wereperhaps a bit closer to the
scene who had put some veryalarming videos up which showed
the fire blazing around thetown. Through
Stephen Stockwell (07:38):
the night more than 100 Fire crews work to
contain the fire and the nextmorning, Gabby and her family
were able to head home. Thedrive back was a bit weird
though.
Gabby (07:48):
The route itself was not affected so everything looks the
same. Thankfully, and it wasn'tand even where we live look the
same the fire never got closeenough to actually, you know,
burn the trees near us or tomake our area any different. But
the drive a few days later whenwe could drive into town that
(08:10):
was certainly eye opening andyou could see the real effects
of the fire because all thebushland around the town had
been burned. That was that wassaddening
Stephen Stockwell (08:22):
the firing region only made up a small part
of the 7.7 million hectares thatburned across Queensland that
season. We know how that summerturned down.
News readers (08:34):
We're gonna go Ring of Fire around Sydney is as
angry and as frightening aswe've seen homes have been
destroyed and firefightersinjured in the green wattle
Creek Blaze south of Sydneyemergency warning is in place
for Swift Creek Brook fail andinsane
terrifying scale of Australia'sbushfire disaster is beginning
to emerge.
Stephen Stockwell (08:58):
That summer was wild like I was saying I was
living in Sydney at the time.
And I also flew to CentralQueensland for some work in
November. That whole flight Iwas looking out of the window
and huge smoke plumes and fires.
Sydney was by no means thefrontline of the black summer
bushfires, but it was eerie. Inearly 2020. The whole city was
covered in smoke, you couldn'texercise outside and it was even
(09:21):
hard to breathe when you werewalking around in it. The smoke
in Sydney wasn't coming fromthat far away, but I was never
at risk. The people who werepeople who live in the bush
could see this coming though.
Hamish McGowan is a professor ofAtmospheric Sciences at the
University of Queensland andhe'd seen the signs as well.
Hamish McGowan (09:40):
Well, the landscape had been primed for
several years beforehand, interms of we had some reasonable
growing seasons. So there was alot of fuel and then we went
into a period where we had to ElNinos effectively end on end and
then we had the Indian OceanDipole move into a phase where
By we've also got less rainfallin the southeast of Australia
(10:04):
here. So those two naturalfactors came into play to reduce
rainfall across easternAustralia. Underlying that, of
course, we've had this warmingassociated with anthropogenic
loading of the atmosphere withcarbon, which everybody knows
results in, in global warming.
So we've had this increasingtrend of temperature warming in
(10:25):
the background, and thensuperimposed on that this
natural variability, which ledto these unusually dry
conditions. And we had extremedrought. You know, right up
eastern Australia here inQueensland, people who are
listening to this might rememberthat, you know, in southeast
Queensland here, we had unusualwesterly winds, not confined to
the usual period, which weassociate with the acre, but
(10:46):
extending right through intoSeptember, October right through
to December. And those winds, ofcourse, and travelled over 1000s
of kilometers of landmass, werevery dry, they were hot. So they
were producing metrologicalconditions that lead to extreme
fire weather. So there's a rangeof processes that came into play
there, that led to that veryunusual event.
Stephen Stockwell (11:09):
When the fires started, they were scary
enough. But we also saw thisphenomenon during the black
summer bushfires where theystarted creating their own
weather systems.
Hamish McGowan (11:18):
There was a lot of fire thunderstorms associated
with the events of that year.
And that was mainly because theevents were were so large and so
intense, that they led tosignificant conviction in the
atmosphere. And the atmosphere,in particular locations was also
primed to actually initiate andcontribute to that. Pyro cumulus
numbers development, which isthe word we use to describe fire
(11:41):
triggered thunderstorms.
Stephen Stockwell (11:44):
So the fires are creating its own weather at
this point. But from my like,arm gym, meteorologist point of
view, witness Don't be sort ofhelpful to put it out.
Hamish McGowan (11:53):
Well, sometimes the thunderstorms, of course, do
generate their own rain, so theprecipitation, but often that
might be offset from where theactual fire is on the ground.
But also the thunderstorm islikely to produce other hazards.
So you have lightningpotentially starting new fires
as a result of thatthunderstorm, which has been
initiated by the large primarybushfire in the first place. So
(12:16):
yes, can create create rain,which might enhance or help put
the fire out or dampen it, butit also creates other problems,
which can actually start newfires or enhance fire spread.
Stephen Stockwell (12:29):
I do kind of remember bits of this from
watching videos of rural fireservice at the time, I think
there was one where there's aradio call to get out of the way
because the fire is changingdirection. And it goes from this
red glow in the background to afire blowing past them like the
entire flames burning past thattruck in what felt like a matter
of seconds more than anything.
And so the winds would have hada huge impact on just trying to
(12:51):
fight the fire and the safety ofthe people that are trying to
work in those environments,right?
Hamish McGowan (12:57):
Yes, yes, definitely without question.
Certainly some of the evidencefrom large fires or recording of
impact of large fires, forexample, in California, you see,
bulldozers tipped over by fire,tornadoes, large pickup trucks,
fire trucks. So these are theassociated mineralogy that
occurs with these extremebushfires. And the thunderstorms
(13:21):
that develop with them canpresent a whole range of
challenges to those trying tomanage the fire. And our project
is to develop the capability toidentify these hazards before
they actually impact on theground. So we can actually give
lead time so that the responseis not should have been five
minutes ago, you've got 10 or 15minutes to respond to get out of
(13:42):
the way of the hazard. The otherthing we want to do is track
where those burning embers arethat are lifted into these
thunderstorms by these largefires. That then traveled down
wind still ignited, and land onthe dry ground and potentially
start new fires through aprocess of spotting. So
firebrands that's what we hopeto track. And we've demonstrated
(14:04):
in our pilot work that we can dothat with our mobile Raider.
Stephen Stockwell (14:07):
The project that Hamish is talking about
here is actually a University ofQueensland project supported by
Google that uses artificialintelligence to scour a ton of
radar data to give us a lookinside a fire thunderstorm, it
means we'll get a really goodidea of what's floating around
in there. And this is why thatis useful.
Hamish McGowan (14:24):
So it's a real cocktail of objects in side the
cloud. And what our radarenables us to do is to start to
differentiate those and identifyspeciation. So we can say that
part of the cloud is gothailstones on it, this part of
the clouds got liquid raindropsin it. He has ice crystals and
(14:44):
his burning pieces of bark. Sothat's the capability which our
radar has. So we can actuallytherefore use the AI technology
to actually speed up thatprocess of identification. And
then of course, that flowsthrough to a more rapid
predictive capability andwarning of where these different
(15:05):
particles in particular, theburning parts of trees, back
leaves, twigs, and so forthwhere they're heading, and how
quickly,
Stephen Stockwell (15:14):
so it's going to make the job of the fire is
easier, it's certainly
Hamish McGowan (15:17):
going to reduce the risk, both to fire
personnel, personnel on theground, as well as communities
that are likely to come underimpact or fire, it should
increase warning times to themin terms of ember attack,
identify potential risk fromextreme straight line winds,
tornado Genesis associated withlarge bushfires,
Stephen Stockwell (15:40):
so you can't make the town's and the people
in the firing line safer.
Hamish McGowan (15:43):
So we're not making the environment safer.
directly, we hopefully willreduce and mitigate the risk to
those people should havebushfire occur. But in terms of
making the place safer, thatthat opens a whole other can of
worms.
Stephen Stockwell (16:00):
Are we going to start seeing more and more of
those kinds of fires? Do youthink
Hamish McGowan (16:03):
a lot of that will depend on on how our
climate changes as we move intothe future? Some projections are
that yes, we may well see somemore extreme fires. And then
it's it's probably fair todeduce that we're likely to see
more frequent, largethunderstorms associated with
(16:23):
those fires that present theassociated risks that we've
spoken about. But a lot of thatwill depend on on how our
climate changes, both inresponse to our actions, you
know, in terms of putting carbonin the atmosphere and driving
global warming, but also naturalvariability and climate, how
these natural climate cyclesinteract with each other, but
(16:45):
also how they respond to globalwarming
Stephen Stockwell (16:47):
with climate change. Particularly, it feels
like a real plan for the worstkind of scenario, I don't have a
lot of hope that we're going toturn that ship around, which
means that in the immediateterm, we're going to need to
manage the impacts of climatechange, one of which is fires.
And it sounds like your work isgoing to be really useful when
we start having to address that.
Hamish McGowan (17:05):
Yes, I agree completely. I mean, we're not
going to turn around our impacton the atmospheric environment
in terms of global warming,warming in five minutes, that's
going to take decades, if notcenturies. And that assumes that
politically, everybody getstheir act together. And there is
a concerted effort globally todecarbonize and decarbonize the
(17:27):
atmosphere, we need to be ableto respond now to the
consequences of a changingclimate, whether it be net
through natural variability, orour actions are a combination of
both, we need to buildresilience in our abilities to
actually respond to the extremeweather events, whether they be
tropical cyclones, severe hailstorms, or extreme bushfires, we
need to develop new capabilitiesto be able to respond to these
(17:50):
events, so that we can mitigatethe impact that they have on our
communities and the environment.
Stephen Stockwell (17:58):
How do you feel about you know, the
livability of bridge here andyour your future for the area,
Gabby (18:03):
I guess, you come to recognize that if you want to
have a lifestyle, and a home inthe bush, which is what so many
of us do want is to have thatbeautiful connection to nature,
there will always be theseinherent risks, and sadly, that
only worsening because of theimpacts of climate change. So
(18:25):
with that, I think you feel agreater sense of responsibility
to do the right thing for theenvironment and to hope that
others are as well. In order to,to mitigate the risks as much as
possible.
Stephen Stockwell (18:42):
Is there any comfort knowing that, you know,
there? Is this work being doneto better track and better
manage fires and try to reducethose risks?
Gabby (18:50):
Yeah, absolutely. I think any kind of use of, of
technology, or any kind of newproduct or system or solution is
really valuable, especially whenit can, you know, help others
to, to better respond to asituation then absolutely, it is
(19:12):
comforting, yes.
Stephen Stockwell (19:13):
Does it feel like enough? You know, little
measures to better track firesto, you know, to make it easier
and to improve communications?
Does that feel like it's enough?
Or does it feel like, you know,you just sort of turning a
garden hose on climate change abit?
Gabby (19:27):
No, I think that every piece counts, and every little
solution or innovation canassist. Of course, there's the
bigger picture of climatechange. But I don't think that
we should neglect the value ofof little innovations as well
(19:48):
that can can help people inthese situations.
Stephen Stockwell (19:52):
I like this little pieces thing that Gabby's
talking about here, I found theabout projects like this
actually quite comforting. Imean, I'll be Usually we need to
take action on climate change.
That's a non negotiable. Butwhen we're already wearing the
impact as the black summerbushfires show, I'll probably
sleep a little easier knowingthat people like Hamish have
projects like thismake sure you follow Doom scroll
(20:18):
remedy and your favorite podcastapp. So you can join me as we
ask questions like, why are wefeeling more and more anxious
and how bad is plastic for us?
Unknown (20:29):
I think we were quite naive. And I think we've been
quite naive in terms of howwe've dealt with plastic and how
we've let it contaminate, Iguess every sphere of the
environment. You know, from thehighest points of the Himalayas
to the deep ocean trenches, wefind plastic now. And I think
that's kind of we dropped theball in that we didn't really
(20:50):
look at it in terms of how itwould contaminate the
environment and the entireplanet.
Stephen Stockwell (20:56):
dermstore remedy is a podcast from the
University of Queensland. It'sproduced by deadset studios.
It's hosted by me, StevenStockwell, produced by Grace
Pashley the executive produceris Rachel fountain. The sound
design is by Chrissy multiarchto consulting producer Zoe
McDonald and commissioningeditor Greta use S
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.