Winter is traditionally followed by Spring but not here, and not in the era of climate change. Last week was Winter; this week is the Fire Season.
Perhaps that is a little melodramatic, but it’s justified by the conditions we have experienced recently. The fire season is already well under way, as it usually is by this time of year, and we have had several very smoky days in town but today was exceptional. Late this morning I could hardly see Mount Stuart from the Rising Sun intersection on Charters Towers Rd, so I visited Castle Hill with my camera to see what I could see from there. It wasn’t pretty.





I have arranged these in sequence from North to West to South-east and added notes which will be visible as the images are viewed in the light-box.
A controlled burn on Magnetic Island seems excessive and some are wondering whether it’s still under control. Meanwhile, there are big grass fires on Hervey’s Range and in the direction of Oak Valley. The Town Common isn’t burning now, although scars of several recent fires are visible in that photo; some are also apparent in the middle distance of the Stuart shot.
We sincerely hope that today’s smoke still looks exceptional by the time the rains come, in November or later.
Updates
Saturday 7.9.19
I was told by locals that the Hervey’s Range fire was deliberately lit on Friday 6th as a fuel-reduction burn, and this was confirmed on the RFS Permit to Burn page.
Sunday 8.9.19
Air quality today, Sunday, is worse than on Friday, with a thick haze reducing visibility to a couple of kilometres, but it seems to be more dust (blowing up from SE Qld) than smoke. The DES Air Quality page rates our air as “very poor” as I write.
The RFS bushfire information page is showing the fires at Toonpan (that’s the one I called “Oak Valley” on Friday), Hervey’s Range and Magnetic Island, and a couple more in the Upper Ross area.
Reports from people close to the Magnetic Island fire all confirm that it is being closely controlled.
Tuesday 10.9.19
Air quality in town was much better by Monday; the dust had almost gone and the smoke had also diminished.
I have been told the Hervey’s Range fire started on or near the Army land at High Range (Sharp’s Rd) on the Friday and was a threat late on Saturday 7.9.19 but was under control by Monday 9.9.19
I was on the Strand very early on Tuesday; the sunrise was spectacular, thanks to the smoke from Magnetic Island.



It’s not just Townsville, of course.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/06/dead-things-everywhere-is-australia-facing-the-summer-from-hell
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-08/queensland-bushfires-continue-stanthorpe-applethorpe-binna-burra/11489304
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-08/nsw-bushfires-winds-forecast-to-ease/11489350
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-09/more-strong-winds-to-challenge-nsw-firefighters/11490820
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-09/queensland-fires-beechmont-binna-burra-applethorpe-continue/11490356
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-09/queensland-bushfires-in-pictures-stanthorpe-binna-burra/11491780
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-10/more-than-climate-change-driving-queensland-fires/11493950
And now (15.9.19) Darwin: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-15/northern-territory-on-alert-bushfires-threaten-property-darwin/11514770
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/north-queensland-bushfire-suspect-shot-at/11526808
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/08/crews-battle-two-huge-fires-threatening-south-queensland-towns
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-09/gold-coast-hinterland-bushfire-why-rainforests-burn/11491364
An explicit linkage between the early, severe, bushfire seasons and climate change:
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-10/why-are-so-many-bushfires-burning-in-october-new-research/11589152
The research they mentioned is here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0222328 but it’s quite technical.
This year we’ve had a grand (not!) total of 3.5 mm of rain in the ten weeks from mid-July to the end of September. The last week or so has been very windy and there are fires all around Townsville. Yesterday afternoon I visited Castle Hill again to look at them, and I could hardly see Cape Cleveland (in the centre of this photo). Smaller, but not small, smoke plumes were visible from around Julago, Oak Valley, Deeragun and Bushland Beach.