See bottom for prayer request and answered prayer
While climate alarmists would like to blame the Aussie bushfires 100% on climate change, it has been obvious that at least half the fires were set either deliberately or because of stupidity.
This is not the worst fire-season in Australian history in terms of lives lost and homes destroyed, though it may well be before it is done.
2019–20 Australian bushfire season
At least 1516 homes lost (Thought to be over 2,500), at least 25 deaths,
At least 6.3 million hectares (63,000 km2; 24,000 sq mi) burnt, nearly half the size of England.
2008–09 Australian bushfire season:
173 fatalities, 2,060 houses lost
1982-1983: The 'Ash Wednesday' fires of 16 February 1983 caused severe damage in Victoria
and South Australia 75 fatalities, 2464 houses lost
1966-67 Australian bushfire season: 62 fatalities, 900 injured, 7,000 left homeless, 4,286 buildings lost
1897-1898: On "Red Tuesday", 1 February 1898 in Victoria 260,000 hectares (640,000 acres) were burnt,
12 people were killed and 2000 buildings were destroyed
1850-1851: The "Black Thursday" fires of 6 February 1851 in Victoria, burnt the second largest area
(approximately 5,000,000 hectares (12,000,000 acres)) in European-recorded history and killed more than
one million sheep and thousands of cattle as well as taking the lives of 12 people
Bushfires rage between the towns of Orbost and Lakes Entrance in east Gippsland.
DAVID ROSS
IMOGEN REID
The Australian
More than 180 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of the bushfire season, with 29 blazes deliberately lit in the Shoalhaven region of southeast NSW in just three months.
The Shoalhaven fires were lit between July and September last year, with Kempsey recording 27 deliberately lit fires, NSW Bureau of Crime and Statistics and Research data shows.
Police arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the past few months. NSW police data shows 183 people have been charged or cautioned for bushfire-related offences since November 8, and 24 arrested for deliberately starting bushfires.
Queensland police say 101 people have been picked up for setting fires in the bush, 32 adults and 69 juveniles.
In Tasmania, where fires have sprung up in the north of the state and outside Hobart, five were caught setting fire to vegetation. Victoria reported 43 charged for 2019.
Melbourne University associate professor Janet Stanley said arsonists were typically young males, aged 12 to 24, or older men in their 60s.
“There is no one profile, but generally they seem to have a background of disadvantage, a traumatic upbringing and often have endured neglect and abuse as a child,” Professor Stanley said. “They are often kids not succeeding in school, or they have left school early and are unemployed. The boundaries between accidentally and purposefully are unclear because many arsonists don’t plan on causing the catastrophe that occurs. Often there is not an intention to cause chaos and the penalties for accidentally lighting a fire are far less than purposefully lighting a fire.”
Swinburne University professor James Ogloff said about 50 per cent of bushfires were lit by firebugs and impending fire seasons excited them. “They’re interested in seeing fire, interested in setting fire and quite often the information around how fires burn and accelerate excites them,” the director of the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science said.
I wonder if any were set by climate alarmists trying to make a bad situation worse. For some far-left liberals, the end justifies the means.
Prayer
Regardless of how they started, the fires are burning savagely in southeast Australia. Maps of the previous 4 or 5 fire seasons show that most of those fires were concentrated in northern Western Australia which is getting hammered with heavy rain today. The southeast hasn't had a bad fire-season for some years meaning the grounds are super-ready for kindling.
On Sunday, (in North America), I asked my Twitter followers, and two Facebook groups to pray for cooler and wetter conditions for Australia. On Monday, when I checked, it was raining in Sydney. It wasn't a lot of rain, nor did it cover a significant area, but it was a good sign. And, the forecast was for cooler temperatures and a chance of rain over the next few days.
On Tuesday, a friend from Australia informed me that 25 record LOW temperatures had been set that morning in Australia.
I'm now asking my blog readers to join in and pray for a week of cool, wet weather across Australia, but especially in the southeast states. Do you believe in miracles? Then pray. This forecast for Sydney, in the middle of high summer, looks like a miracle to me. Please join and pray and encourage others to as well.
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