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Bushfires Destroy Historic Mt. Stromlo Observatory
Anthony writes "The historic Mt Stromlo observatory has been destroyed by fires. Unfortunately Google cache and similar archives are the only available detailed information. Looks like the web site was housed at the observatory. Telescopes housed there were 74" and 50" reflectors along with the "Oddie" 9" refractor used by the Canberra Astronomical Society. Also destroyed were a number of student houses and workshops. The view from the air is one of molten domes and twisted metal. These fires have already destroyed 388 houses in the suburbs of Canberra. Luckily the winds have not picked up today, but the danger is still high."
The CNN article doesn't mention the observatory but does have some other details about the fires.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
Life in the northern suburb of Palmerston is free of danger currently. There is a thick haze of smoke high in the atmosphere and when i was just outside hanging out the washing I could stare at the sun as with all the smoke it looked like the moon, albeit with a red tinge. very eiry.
Didn't people die in these fires?
Yes, according to the CNN Story, as posted by mmoncur, three people have died in these fires.
The area outside Canberra, Australia's equivalent of Washington, has been on fire for a few days. Yesterday things got much worse and the fires spread over a huge area, eventually reaching the urban areas.
Atleast 400 homes have been destroyed, and 3 people are known to be dead.
I myself was watching the fires during the day as they got closer and closer to urban areas. (The City of Canberra was designed before it was built and there are lots of bush areas between suburbs). When the wind picked up the fires were spreading over huge areas, and I could see flames about 30ft high, taller than the trees they were burning down.
The sky was completely covered in smoke all day, and it was very dark even at 3:30pm. Traffic was frantic and everyone had their lights on. At the supermarket people were desperately stocking up on food supplies.
A few hours later the dried-grassy area right next to my suburb (Monash) caught fire.. some people were evacuating their homes, while others were desperately putting water on their roofs.
After watching the fires get closer and closer to our homes for about 10 minutes, a group of about 40 of us decided to cross the road and put out the fire ourselves. Some people had buckets of water and the rest used branches ripped off nearby trees.
As we got near the flames we realised how hot the fire was. I could hear people yelling "God that's hot" and "fuck that burns".
We hit the flames with our branches and put out the fire bit by bit. At the same time people ran across with water, tipping it on the fire quickly but surely. Once we'd cleared a certain amount we could get through to the lake just beyond the fire, and some people ran down and filled up their bottles etc and then continued fighting the fire with the water from the lake.
It was difficult to breathe and most people were wearing a tshirt or cloth over their faces. Every few minutes I had to stop and get some breath and try to clear my eyes. There was a sense of communion and group-effort.. everyone working together towards the same ends. We had gone from people who wouldn't notice each other walking down the street to people who were going out of their way to save their homes.
After a while we had cleared all the fire, and we stood around relieved.. I was covered in sweat from the heat, and I had ashes all over my clothes. The others who had also been running back and forth stomping out the fires were in a similar condition.
Once we were sure all the fire was out, as we were looking at ourselves and surveying the charred grounds, someone amongst us triumphantly said "Better than watching our houses burn down!". I agreed.
We say 'Bushfires' here in Australia. Brush fire sounds like you're taking personal grooming way too seriously.
Robert Anton Wilson
The fires have been burning for weeks in one form or another, yesterday a combination of old fires and new ones reached Canberra. Canberra is often called "the bush capital", it's a city embedded in bushland. So things could have been a LOT worse.
...
The weather was hot hot hot - 37 Celsius. Strong dry winds coming in off a thousand kilometres of desert to the northwest. It hasn't rained here for about 9 months, Australia is currently in the worst drought for generations, so all the forest is tinder dry. Australian eucalypt leaves have a relatively high oil content, when they start buring the canopy can literally explode.
I was driving earlier in the day, and all I could see to the west was a bank of smoke covering the entire horizon. As the day progressed the smoke covered the city downwind of the fires. It was a thick black cloud, like a heavy thunderstorm. At my house the smoke was pretty high up, so the air at groundlevel was fine, just a little smoke smell.
Things could still be pretty bad. Although hundreds of houses were lost, and fire stations, schools, medical centres and so on, all this is really just on the western edge of the city. The city has many other areas which are just as susceptible given the current drought. We're right in the middle of the hot part of summer, and even hopes for rain depend on El Nino ending around about March. If it doesn't, and we don't get rain for another year,
Getting back to the observatory, Mount Stromlo observatory is on the outskirts of the city, on a medium sized hill called, um, Mount Stromlo. Mount Stromlo had a heavy forest cover. The observatory area on the top of the hill was cleared for some distance around the domes, but I guess the fireball from tens of thousands of tons of wood all going up at once must have been overwhelming.
There were a number of houses on top of the mountain for astronomer families and support staff, I guess they must have been evacuated early on, there's only one way down from the mountain.
It's a big historic loss. The observatory has been of reducing importance in past years due to the encroaching city, but measures such as replacing street lighting with observatory friendly lighting were being undertaken. I doubt it will be rebuilt because of this.
Jamie
I think I was one of the last visitors to Mt Stromlo... I was there just before closing on Friday afternoon, and for some reason did not take any photos... That was a mistake.
There has also not been any people at the Tidbinbilla NASA facility since midnight saturday night according to reports, but it is likely not to get any damage since it is in a field rather than trees. I can assure you that I would not like to be trapped there during a fire since there was a pine forrest right arround, but from memory none closer than about 2 miles.
One of my friends evacuated his computer room at work to his house - with US$500K of equipment in his safe lounge room at home.
I am now back in Sydney... And glad to be out... There are still 750,000 people without power...
Darryl
The Australian government news service, the ABC (similiar to the British BBC) has these links on this story:
e tact-19 jan2003-11.htm
a ctfires/pag es/default.htm
Mt Stomlo observatory severely damaged in fires
http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/act/m
Photos from Canberra:
http://abc.net.au/news/galleries/2003/
Mount Stromlo news
In Australia, forests (except perhaps for rainforests) are called "the bush". So a bushfire is a forest fire.
I just learned about the Mt Stromlo fire here on Slashdot. My spouse was collaborating remotely with a friend doing research there. (My spouse is safe here in the US, friend was at Mt Stromlo, and have no idea about his safety.) Some news websites says the observatory staff had only 20 minutes warning before the firestorm came up the hill through the pine trees. I hope he got out in time, since there is only one road in or out of the observatory grounds.
You might be surprised to find that the rest of the world is not as US-centric as you. In Australia brush refers to low vegetation. When the flames are 50m high and houses are destroyed in minutes it's a bit more than a brush fire.
Lots of detail at the Sydney Morning Herald but here's a specific story.
This is the email running around amongst the Australian Astronomers ..
... Stromlo Observatory is effectively destroyed. All people are
...
Subject: Update on Stromlo Destruction
I have just gotten off the phone with Gary Da Costa and can confirm the
worst
accounted for which is the most important thing. All of the residential
houses, bar two, are gone, as are the 50", Yale-Columbia, Oddie, Old Admin
Building, Workshops, etc. The 74" and Visitor Centre are unaccounted for
right now, but are on the worst side of the mountain and are probably
lost. Gary is hearing that the Woolley building suffered water damage,
but may be salvageable. Nothing reported on the Duffield. In terms of
practicalities, the loss of the Workshop may be hardest to deal with.
NIFS, the instrument soon to be delivered to Gemini, is lost, and what the
loss of the workshop means for the one they had just been commissioned to
build is yet to be sorted.
More news as I hear it
Brad
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:11:30 +1100 (EST)
From: Brad Gibson
Subject: Stromlo Observatory Destroyed
As most of you are by now aware, most of south-west Canberra has been lost
to the raging bushfires. 2500 people have been evacuated thus far with
400 homes destroyed as of this morning. I am now hearing that all of
Stromlo Observatory has been destroyed. As best as I have been able to
find out, no one on the mountain has lost their lives, although at least
one person died in the Stromlo Forest Settlement. I'll pass on updats as
I hear them.
BKG
Prof. Brad K. Gibson
Much of the network at the Australian National University is currently down (Canberra has suffered extensive power outages over the weekend). The ANU owns Mt Stromlo and so Web sites may possibly return tommorow. The ANU is safe (currently) as it is located about 20km from fire fronts.
canberra is in australia - so it is a bushfire, not a forest fire.
Secondly, there is not much you can do about a eucalypt fire. The trees have evolved to burn. It really doesn't matter what you do about it, if there are any trees at all, they will burn like bug*ery.
It sounds like the visitor centre, the admin building, and (possibly) the student accomodation aren't too bad. The telescopes are history, as are the workshops. The telescopes will probably never be replaced.
I feel sorry for anyone burnt out, but sorrier for someone with accomodation and no job.
me = Rally driver who has had a good deal of time in Canberra forests
Umm, access roads are actually pretty good. Rough, but good. Most of the forests around Canberra are managed plantations, even the regrowth ones are. I would agree tho, pines plus century worst drought = problem
What the real probelm was, the forests are too close to populations. Many suburbs of Canberra back onto forest and are in themselves have one hell of a lot of trees. Canberra also is not a noted big fire storm risk, unlike the gullies and valleys of Sydney - most firestorms need a gully to get a run on. Unfortunantly, the conditions were perfectly right for a firestorm.
The fire brigaid was also simply unprepared for a firestorm on this scale. You might have had a hope doing somethign nearer Sdney , which has a lot of tankers and aerial craft, but not Canberra. 12 tankers in the ACT is nowhere near enough.
By all accounts this bushfire season has been the worst in Australian History.
Since August\September last year (the usually beginning of bushfire season in Australia is October) we have had several periods (usually lasting 15 days or so) of bushfire threat.
It began last year with Sydney under siege, with fires surrounding the city. And this also happened again later on in the year.
Now we have the whole east coast under threat from the Queensland border to the north of Victoria. This week end we have seen the western suburbs of Canberra go up in smoke, the north of Victoria under threat, all of Australia's Ski Fields under major threat of being wiped out (it is too hot for snow at the moment), with some parts of the fire zones not having had bushfires since 1939.
I am surprised that Sydney escaped Saturdays threat, since the temperature in Parramatta alone was 45 deg Celsius, and was still 40.7 deg at 7pm on Saturday, the only threat to Sydney was a fire in the North.
The problem we have here at the moment is that we have so much dry fuel in the bush, that merely the act of a motorist throwing a smoke butt out the window, can have the potential to destroy property and kill people. This act is now punishable in NSW as arson (which is should be). Not only that but they face a threat that can leap 20km or so, and destroy houses as some previous posters have already mentioned, it is nearly impossible to stop something like that.
I would like to thank our emergency services, especially the volunteers that have been constantly putting their lives at risk since the beginning of the bushfire season, and will continue to do so until the season is over. (I would be out there as a volunteer fire fighter, if it was not for the severity of my asthma).
In short I do not think that Australia has seen a bushfire season like this in its history.
I feel for all the people who have lost homes and loved ones, and hope that you are able to recover from this tragedy quickly, and urge all Australians (and any one else out there in the world) to help out in any way that you can, even if it is only by donating a dollar.
Thanks
Super Elmo
Sydney, Australia.
For those interested, most of the damage was caused not by regular fires, but by a "firestorm", burning embers raining down from the sky. This caused hundreds of spot fires around the suburbs, and in inaccessible areas, gaps between houses and fences, in power poles. This type of fire (this large) has never happened in Australia before.
m .au/National/story_45108.asp
For those blaming fire services for not being fast enough, some facts:
* The Canberra fire forces are equipped to deal with SIX house fires at the same time.
* Over FOUR HUNDRED homes have been destroyed.
Many more fires have burned and been put out by residents using garden hoses and garden tools.
Even those of you without a calculator can probably see where the problem lies.
Some suburbs have lost access to water completely, with water station pumps burned out.
One power station has been completely razed, residents in that area may be without power for a month or more.
Several fire engines and police cars have been lost, roads are blocked by fallen trees and power lines, some of which are on fire.
Firefighters have been out saving other people's homes while their own burned to the ground.
A fire station itself caught fire, and no engines went to put it out, as people's homes were still in danger.
Give them some credit for putting their lives and homes on the line, to save others.
_______________________
News links:
Residents are posting in a Canberra community at LiveJournal.
Canberra Communtiy
Google news about Canberra:
Google news
Canberra Connect Government Website (sometimes is not loading)
Canberra Connect
ACT Bushfire Status
www.esb.act.gov.au/media/bushfire.htm
Red Cross locating evacuees
www.news.com.au
Make a donation to the Red Cross
RedCross.org.au
_______________________
There's news from Observatory astronomers here
_______________________
http://news.ninemsn.co
Fires destroy Stromlo observatory
Irreplaceable equipment worth millions of dollars was destroyed when the Canberra bushfires ravaged the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory.
Research officer Vince Ford, a 38-year veteran of the observatory, told AAP staff were given 20 minutes' notice to evacuate as a fire storm on Mount Stromlo caught authorities by surprise.
A single road through pine forests links the observatory, established by the Commonwealth in 1924, with suburban Canberra.
"There's no way we could have saved it," Mr Ford said.
The fire storm destroyed all the observatory's telescopes and the original observatory building, which dated back to 1924.
"It's gone, it's all gone," Mr Ford said.
"We've lost all the telescopes, the administration building, which was the original observatory back in 1924.
"The first telescope has actually been there since 1910, it's gone.
"The main research telescopes, the 74-inch and 50-inch, they're gone. I've just seen pictures of it from the air and we don't have a telescope left."
The Australian National University (ANU) facility was one the premier astronomy training and research centres in Australia.
"(It's a huge loss) from a historical point of view, from a cultural point of view, from a scientific point of view," Mr Ford said.
"It's an absolute disaster."
Observatory staff still hope they may be able to salvage some of their research, stored on computers in office buildings that might have escaped the worst of the blaze.
The observatory offices are believed to be standing, but have been water damaged.
"At least we should be able to recover the hard disks from some of the computers, but at this stage we're guessing," Mr Ford said.
"All we know is the observatory is gone."
Some back-up files would also have been stored at the main ANU campus in Canberra.
"But a lot of the work will be at the observatory," Mr Ford said.
"Some of us, being suspicious sods, have stuff at home, but most of it would have been on the computers or in the offices up at the observatory."
ANU vice-chancellor Ian Chubb was due to meet observatory chiefs to be briefed on the extent of the damage. ©AAP 2003
The Vice Chancellor for the University was just on the local radio and vowed that the observatory will be rebuilt. I suppose while light pollution may diminish its value to research, it is an exceptional educational facility (plus the street lights around here have been replaced with mercury vapour lamps over the years).
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
As of 9pm Australian EST
The official tally is:
4 People dead
247 homes destroyed (NOT 400!)
many more are thought to be destroyed but official tally is 247...
ninemsn has this story on the fires
shame on all of you who make jokes about australians dying
I currently live in Melbourne, and in the news down here, it (the 2 week old bushfires in ACT) are being blamed on severe lightning strikes. Same goes for Blue Moutains in NSW.
Here: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single .cgi?2003019/crefl1_143.A2003019000000-20030190004 59.2km.jpg
1 9/
: //www.mthotham.com.au/today/cams_4.htmw .hotham.net.au/index_flash.html
;-)
Off this site: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/20030
Different resolutions available.
There are also fire burning around:
Mt Hotham (hours delay) : http://www.mthotham.com.au/today/cams_5.htm
http
http://ww
Fires also at Mt Beauty valley, I'm about 70km away and the smoke is very thick, smells nice though! The moon was blood red some nights ago, but the smoke it too thick to see it now, also missed the sunset due to smoke.
This is what happens when we encroach into the bush. We get the gum trees and wildlife, but also bush fires. If we can't handle the heat etc.
Semi-silly question, but then again I suppose you need to know the area. That would have done nothing. Half the houses that burnt down were built from brick - but all houses have some flammable materials and the intense heat caused most of that to just burn up (the ruins in many cases still had half the brick walls intact, but the other stuff was gutted). On top of that most houses in Canberra have decent gardens, with trees etc... and those burnt as well.
As to the suggestion of paving - well apart from the fact that we are completely surrounded by bush, and it would be a huge perimeter to pave - yesterday the winds were such (up to 100 km/h) that the glowing embers were being blown as far as 15 kilometers away, and starting spot fires there. In fact I think most of the houses were lost to spot fires.
Oh and considering this has been called our worst fire since 1938 (in a normal year we don't lose any houses to bush fires) I don't think anyone really expected it, nor would a scheme such as paving get approved due to the huge cost (and low odds of paying off).
As terrible and horrific as it's been, I really can't stand that people are labelling it the "worst ever". Not being from the eastern side of Australia probably has something to do with the way I feel about this (yes, people west of Qld, NSW and Vic feel like they're in a different, neglected country), but it seems that people are forgetting that *the* worst fires *ever* were Ash Wednesday in SA and Vic on February 16, 1983:
L AG/ASHWED83/AW83.HTM
m e/Transcripts/s678221.htm / FAAF080E6756F7904A25679300155B2B?OpenDocument e nts/nature/1983_ash%20wednesday%20bushfires.htm
2545 Buildings destroyed
75 People died
>390,000 Hectares burnt
source: http://sres.anu.edu.au/associated/fire/IUFRO/CONF
Don't get me wrong, the current predicament is terrible and serious, but please don't forget history or act like NSW is the only state that matters.
These are also some pages descibing that day:
http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_in_ti
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~gscfa/ash.htm
http://www.nre.vic.gov.au/4A25676D0022F2EE/BCView
http://www.historysmiths.com.au/CentFedPlayKit/ev
Google will help you find more.
As Australian children learn in Geography, large fires are actually part of the cycle of the Australian habitat. Some common plants and trees will only reproduce after a fire has damaged them.
Canberra actually has a close interface with the habitat, with large areas of bushland in between suburbs, bushland coming up the the back fences of suburbs and tree cover throughout the suburbs. It is this close interface that made the fire get such a strong hold in residential areas.
The hilly terrain, high fuel loads, very hot temparature and very high winds turned a bush fire into a fire storm.
These firestroms create their own massive winds (ie: in excess of that day's 70Km/h atmospheric winds), sending firebands many of miles/kilometers ahead of the firefront, starting new firefronts way ahead of the main front. You'll see that firebrands landed on the roof of one house in the suburb of Giralang, many kilometers to the east of the western suburbs. Because of this many Canberrans away from the firefront slept outside, with a bucket of water handy.
If you look on a map you'll see a nature reserve following the Cotter River down the west of Canberra. This is the corridor the fire used to attack so many of the western suburbs simultaneously. It then used the inter-suburb bushland reserves to approach more inner suburbs.
In retrospect, more of a break with the "lore of the habitat" is desirable.
I do wish Slashdotters would at least know something about the subject when they make a posting.
Cheers, Glen. A recent Canberra citizen.
Actually, it was lightning about a week ago. The fires have been burning deep in (inaccessible regions of) a national park that adjoins affected woodland areas.
It was not arson, nor a minor fire that might be sarted by such. The sky was black (litterally, street lights came on, visibility was nil) and the air clogged with smoke throughout canberra from around 3pm in the afternoon. This is after several days of a smoky haze over the city.
The $5M spectrograph that was being built there (to go on the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii) was destroyed as well. This is a major loss for the Astronomical community. Very sad.
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
According to this Spacedail article the databases of astronomical research have been salvaged, the team will keep building their instruments, probably on the main ANU campus and Stromlo will be rebuilt (though I'm guessing minus the telescopes).
I've written down some of my own memories of Mt Stromlo observatory.
What is the inverse of the Matrix?