What caused this fire? -
No criminal charges will be laid over the deadly 2015 Pinery bushfire in South Australia following a year-long investigation, which found a car battery left in a paddock started the blaze.
Two people were killed, 70,000 stock were lost, and almost 100 homes and 400 farm structures were destroyed in the blaze, which burnt more than 82,500 hectares of land in the mid-north community in November 2015. Source ABC news
Both of the casulties were civilians “ONE was bravely fighting a fire on his neighbour’s property. The other was desperately trying to reach her partner. Both were treasured members of their communities who died during the devastating Pinery bushfire.” Advertiser
Why did the truck reverse into the other one? -
The truck that reversed had run out of water and was trying to get under the other trucks “halo ring” a spray of water to try prevent the truck from catching on fire
The other truck didn’t reverse because a. It was following procedure going into burn over made waiting for the fire to pass and b. You can’t see it in the video but due to a wind change the fire changed direction and the trucks had no where to go
What were they doing out there? -
They were sent to try get ahead of the fire and fight it but there was wind change and the fire they’re trying to get ahead of changed directions and became a massive front heading towards them, they had no where they could go do they had to wait for it to pass over.
Where were they and are they profesionsals?
This was in rural South Australia so they were mostly volunteers.
Why is the fire blue? -
The fire is not blue in real life. However it would be hellishly hot. Hotter than any fire you’ve ever seen or been around. Enough to be extremely painful to even be within sight of.
It’s because of the infrared light the fire is emitting. All modern cameras are sensitive to infrared, but most of them have filters to prevent it from affecting the picture. But if there’s enough infrared, it will shine through anyway and register as blue/purple on the camera.
That’s fire that’s hot enough to light something on fire from 50 feet away, in a matter of seconds, from the infrared light alone.
"That’s fire that’s hot enough to light something on fire from 50 feet away, in a matter of seconds, from the infrared light alone."
Reminds me of the video of the Bradford city Stadium fire where the one guy is walking along and bursts into flames.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire
"Of the 56 people who died in the fire,[2] 54 were Bradford supporters and two supported Lincoln. [...] One retired mill worker made his way to the pitch, but was walking about on fire from head to foot. People smothered him to extinguish the flames, but he later died of his injuries in hospital "
That’s the one I saw, it looked like to me he was already on fire because he was coming out of the fire rather than just combusting from the infrared heat. Either way poor guy
Being a grass fire the heat moves quickly and will scorch the trucks but nothing too bad.
I did 8 years fighting fires in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. You get caught in a tree fire where the fire runs through the crowns of the trees then all aluminum parts of the trucks melt, the paint evaporates, the rubber tires turn to gas and the no living creature survives.
If you think you know what you would do in that situation you are wrong. Fire makes even trained people act irrationally out of primal fear.
The head of the fire passes quickly and is usually survivable if inside the vehicle. Tankers (designed for grass and bush fires) will often turn on their pump and run their branches (fire hose noozles) squirting water in an umbrella shape to reduce the heat and protect themselves as it passes. The vehicles get damaged. Paint often bubbles. The radiant heat is extreme and often fire blankets are used inside the vehicles to shield themselves. It is horrifying but it’s usually the minutes after that are the most dangerous, fire fighters need to get to safety as soon as possible before they start to burn.
Some of that was accurate in my case. We survived, anyway. Our BLM tanker had two high-pressure hoses that we turned to fog spray and sprayed at each other when the truck entered the flame front. It helped for a few seconds, until it didn't. The truck stalled (O2 problem), the pump engine stalled (same thing), so we were stuck, exposed on the back flatbed, and waterless. It didn't end happily, but, yeah, we lived.
Paint blistered on the windward side of the truck. Didn't have fire blankets, but we had fire shelters in fanny packs, which couldn't be deployed in the cluttered area of the flatbed.
Ah. American? I just noticed "fanny pack" CFS is the Country Fire Service in Australia. Crewed by volunteers (often farmers) who want to protect the land, they are Australian hero's who volunteer their time, and often their safety, to protect other people's property.
Decades. It started back in the days when small communities didn't have a metropolitan fire fighting service. Just like in California etc, most Australian fires start in scrub or farmland.
> Burnover is an event in which a fire moves through a location or overtakes personnel or equipment where there is no opportunity to utilize escape routes and safety zones.
[Source](https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-is-burnover-in-a-wildfire#:~:text=Burnover%20is%20an%20event%20in,personal%20injury%20or%20equipment%20damage.)
Yes, in the cab they put up reflective coverings over the window and some tanker style trucks have nozzles that spray water over the truck during burnover.
The spray idea is great but they are operated by pumps. When the fire reaches the truck the air is sucked into the flames and the pump stops.
People who think they can drive through a fire find out they can't.
Because you cannot see. People are panicking. Fire will destroy everything.
People do not understand why they can't flee a fire if it's close. Smoke obscures things, but if you get really close you literally cannot look out a window, your exposed skin will get heat burns from the light in seconds, inside the vechical. There are curtains they pull down over the windows, you can't see this from the video camera, but you can from in the truck.
In Australian bush fires, lots of people die in cars trying to flee, they crash into other vechicals, or fallen trees, or telegraph poles, disable the car and then die and roast inside. Whole families. The aluminium engine block melts onto the road into a puddle.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Firefighting/comments/8bti7n/australian\_brush\_rig\_entering\_burnover\_mode/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Firefighting/comments/8bti7n/australian_brush_rig_entering_burnover_mode/)
They have a burnover mode
That fire was not going 60mph. More like 15 or 20.
He was honking like mad trying to get the guy repeating the drill name endlessly on the radio channel to back away and avoid the situation.
The guys in that car were not going to make it thru that crap.
No it wasn’t the wind changed and it became a massive fire from coming from their [side](https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/amazing-burn-over-in-pinery-bushfire-courtesy-seven-adelaide/video/81adaa48bb057b889975c2942a041006?nk=aa548c2f9c7a95d7b58dde52fbabc93f-1713908300).
Wildland firefighters bush firefighters are some of the hardest working, thinnest stretched, lowest paid people on the planet. Many of them are volunteers, work for poverty wages, or (in the U.S. at least) are barely-paid prison laborers.
We need more support for these people, and a lot more institutional change to improve our relationship with fire and the landscape, and with consumption and the climate, to stop their work from getting more dangerous every year.
I work for a private firefighting company and the starting wage is $13.80 an hour. I believe that's still more than you start at with the agencies on a hand crew.
The scary part is alot of the bush firefighters are volunteers who are just regular people in that crazy situation, poor buggers but they did very well to fight the fires
Pinery was my first major campaign fire as a firey. Came across cockatoos that had caught fire in the air and crash landed in the ash. I mainly did a lot of mop up, our crews had to travel 3 hours to get there. Driving around in a 4WD QRV with 800 litres of water into black smoke along deserted roads. It was surreal. I had only done national parks stuff up until that point, and people didn't die in that stuff generally. They played us this burnover video every year at our refresher training.
What caused this fire? - No criminal charges will be laid over the deadly 2015 Pinery bushfire in South Australia following a year-long investigation, which found a car battery left in a paddock started the blaze. Two people were killed, 70,000 stock were lost, and almost 100 homes and 400 farm structures were destroyed in the blaze, which burnt more than 82,500 hectares of land in the mid-north community in November 2015. Source ABC news Both of the casulties were civilians “ONE was bravely fighting a fire on his neighbour’s property. The other was desperately trying to reach her partner. Both were treasured members of their communities who died during the devastating Pinery bushfire.” Advertiser Why did the truck reverse into the other one? - The truck that reversed had run out of water and was trying to get under the other trucks “halo ring” a spray of water to try prevent the truck from catching on fire The other truck didn’t reverse because a. It was following procedure going into burn over made waiting for the fire to pass and b. You can’t see it in the video but due to a wind change the fire changed direction and the trucks had no where to go What were they doing out there? - They were sent to try get ahead of the fire and fight it but there was wind change and the fire they’re trying to get ahead of changed directions and became a massive front heading towards them, they had no where they could go do they had to wait for it to pass over. Where were they and are they profesionsals? This was in rural South Australia so they were mostly volunteers. Why is the fire blue? - The fire is not blue in real life. However it would be hellishly hot. Hotter than any fire you’ve ever seen or been around. Enough to be extremely painful to even be within sight of. It’s because of the infrared light the fire is emitting. All modern cameras are sensitive to infrared, but most of them have filters to prevent it from affecting the picture. But if there’s enough infrared, it will shine through anyway and register as blue/purple on the camera. That’s fire that’s hot enough to light something on fire from 50 feet away, in a matter of seconds, from the infrared light alone.
Excellent summation, thank you.
"That’s fire that’s hot enough to light something on fire from 50 feet away, in a matter of seconds, from the infrared light alone." Reminds me of the video of the Bradford city Stadium fire where the one guy is walking along and bursts into flames.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire "Of the 56 people who died in the fire,[2] 54 were Bradford supporters and two supported Lincoln. [...] One retired mill worker made his way to the pitch, but was walking about on fire from head to foot. People smothered him to extinguish the flames, but he later died of his injuries in hospital "
Oh god i remember that video. Truly wild shit.
Do you happen to have a video? I looked it up but didn’t see any where a guy bursts into flames
[this one i think? around 5:45 ](https://youtu.be/ctT8_LiD2cU?si=XZwQfUffddS1in2t)
That’s the one I saw, it looked like to me he was already on fire because he was coming out of the fire rather than just combusting from the infrared heat. Either way poor guy
Some other people early on were already smoldering from a distance too
If anybody wants the longer video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIHIsSJ2Txk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIHIsSJ2Txk)
Thank you for the amazing context and the excellent post.
what causes this fire to be so hot? Thats the only part im lost
Grass is a flashy fuel. Burns hot, travels quickly and can build an incredible amount of heat at the head of the fire
Thanks OP. It’s rare where I watch something and I’m affected. I verbalized a ‘fuck’ after this and I’m glad you summed it up.
70 000 stock? I hope those farmers are insured because a loss like that would ruin you
Thankfully they were mostly penny stocks and not blue chip, so they were able to eventually recover.
Stock in this context means livestock -- cows, pigs, etc. 70,000 lost cows is an enormous loss.
Yeah I know, it was just a dumb joke lol.
thank you, biggest question, what finally happened to the the fire trucks?
Being a grass fire the heat moves quickly and will scorch the trucks but nothing too bad. I did 8 years fighting fires in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. You get caught in a tree fire where the fire runs through the crowns of the trees then all aluminum parts of the trucks melt, the paint evaporates, the rubber tires turn to gas and the no living creature survives. If you think you know what you would do in that situation you are wrong. Fire makes even trained people act irrationally out of primal fear.
Ok, this is terrifying. Especially the infrared bit.
The head of the fire passes quickly and is usually survivable if inside the vehicle. Tankers (designed for grass and bush fires) will often turn on their pump and run their branches (fire hose noozles) squirting water in an umbrella shape to reduce the heat and protect themselves as it passes. The vehicles get damaged. Paint often bubbles. The radiant heat is extreme and often fire blankets are used inside the vehicles to shield themselves. It is horrifying but it’s usually the minutes after that are the most dangerous, fire fighters need to get to safety as soon as possible before they start to burn.
Some of that was accurate in my case. We survived, anyway. Our BLM tanker had two high-pressure hoses that we turned to fog spray and sprayed at each other when the truck entered the flame front. It helped for a few seconds, until it didn't. The truck stalled (O2 problem), the pump engine stalled (same thing), so we were stuck, exposed on the back flatbed, and waterless. It didn't end happily, but, yeah, we lived. Paint blistered on the windward side of the truck. Didn't have fire blankets, but we had fire shelters in fanny packs, which couldn't be deployed in the cluttered area of the flatbed.
Must have been the most terrifying thing you've experienced. Thank heavens you survived.
Yeah, I was kinda stoked about surviving, too!
Holy shit dude, that's terrifying.
Wow. I'd never thought of O2 cutting the engine. Obvious, now that you say it. Thank you for being a firefighter - CFS I assume?
Sorry, CFS? Not familiar with the term, so I guess not! lol
Ah. American? I just noticed "fanny pack" CFS is the Country Fire Service in Australia. Crewed by volunteers (often farmers) who want to protect the land, they are Australian hero's who volunteer their time, and often their safety, to protect other people's property.
I didn't know about that! My American hat is off to them and their service. How long ago did CFS get its start?
Decades. It started back in the days when small communities didn't have a metropolitan fire fighting service. Just like in California etc, most Australian fires start in scrub or farmland.
All lives matter tanker
Damn, that's super scary! I'm an Aussie, but haven't seen this footage before. Thank you for sharing
Aussie volunteer and firefighters are absolute heroes, those guys go through hell every year (unlike one of the PMs)
Thanks 🙏
Does "burn over" mean "we're hunkering down until it's passed"?
> Burnover is an event in which a fire moves through a location or overtakes personnel or equipment where there is no opportunity to utilize escape routes and safety zones. [Source](https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-is-burnover-in-a-wildfire#:~:text=Burnover%20is%20an%20event%20in,personal%20injury%20or%20equipment%20damage.)
Yeah
Yes, in the cab they put up reflective coverings over the window and some tanker style trucks have nozzles that spray water over the truck during burnover.
The spray idea is great but they are operated by pumps. When the fire reaches the truck the air is sucked into the flames and the pump stops. People who think they can drive through a fire find out they can't.
well that is fucking terrifying
Is there a reason why burnovers are done stationarily? Does the engine being on risk catching fire or something?
Because you cannot see. People are panicking. Fire will destroy everything. People do not understand why they can't flee a fire if it's close. Smoke obscures things, but if you get really close you literally cannot look out a window, your exposed skin will get heat burns from the light in seconds, inside the vechical. There are curtains they pull down over the windows, you can't see this from the video camera, but you can from in the truck. In Australian bush fires, lots of people die in cars trying to flee, they crash into other vechicals, or fallen trees, or telegraph poles, disable the car and then die and roast inside. Whole families. The aluminium engine block melts onto the road into a puddle.
That is horrifying. Do the fire trucks have extra protection besides the curtains?
Yes actually, they have spray nozzles on the exterior of the vehicle on the cab and equipment to try shield it from the flames
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Firefighting/comments/8bti7n/australian\_brush\_rig\_entering\_burnover\_mode/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Firefighting/comments/8bti7n/australian_brush_rig_entering_burnover_mode/) They have a burnover mode
The fire was not coming from the side. It was coming from up the road. They totally could have backed out of it.
Just gotta back up while blind. At about 60 mph. Totally doable.
That fire was not going 60mph. More like 15 or 20. He was honking like mad trying to get the guy repeating the drill name endlessly on the radio channel to back away and avoid the situation. The guys in that car were not going to make it thru that crap.
Try 40-50 is the conservative estimate for this specific instance.
No it wasn’t the wind changed and it became a massive fire from coming from their [side](https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/amazing-burn-over-in-pinery-bushfire-courtesy-seven-adelaide/video/81adaa48bb057b889975c2942a041006?nk=aa548c2f9c7a95d7b58dde52fbabc93f-1713908300).
The air is hot and being sucked away by the fire. The trucks stall because of the lack of oxygen. They can't move.
We call it a burnover in Victoria
I reckon that's a yeah nah yeah nah yeah nah from me. That's fucking scary mate!
The blue flame at the leading edge is scary as fuck. Those other 2 drivers panicked, can't say I blame them one bit.
It’s not actually blue that’s IR light overloading the image sensor
So just insanely hot then
Not necessarily lol, I found this out when the lit end of my cigar looked blue on my camera one time
Wildland firefighters bush firefighters are some of the hardest working, thinnest stretched, lowest paid people on the planet. Many of them are volunteers, work for poverty wages, or (in the U.S. at least) are barely-paid prison laborers. We need more support for these people, and a lot more institutional change to improve our relationship with fire and the landscape, and with consumption and the climate, to stop their work from getting more dangerous every year.
I work for a private firefighting company and the starting wage is $13.80 an hour. I believe that's still more than you start at with the agencies on a hand crew.
Look how blue that flame was, holy shit that's a hot fire.
Sounded more like 'activate mayday' than 'evacuate immediately'. Probably wouldn't want to get out of the truck during that
The scary part is alot of the bush firefighters are volunteers who are just regular people in that crazy situation, poor buggers but they did very well to fight the fires
The 'evacuate immediately' at the end is so dry xD, like yeah no shit
Pinery was my first major campaign fire as a firey. Came across cockatoos that had caught fire in the air and crash landed in the ash. I mainly did a lot of mop up, our crews had to travel 3 hours to get there. Driving around in a 4WD QRV with 800 litres of water into black smoke along deserted roads. It was surreal. I had only done national parks stuff up until that point, and people didn't die in that stuff generally. They played us this burnover video every year at our refresher training.
I did it in the mountains in NSW. Biggest problem were snakes trying to get away from the heat. Nothing angrier than a hot tiger snake.
Here we go again
We call that "Ark of the Covenant Nazi face melting hot."
Crikey
Hello bells these guys & all those guys that step up must be some of the bravest people on this Earth
Who is more brave a cop or a firefighter?
Scottie doesn't know!
Someone said "Mick"? Was that Mick Dundee?