I read all your update with great interest and sadness and would welcome a ping group xx

I would like to continue listening to the news you have. I may not always comment but i do read them and follow the links to read what is happening. Here in Puerto Rico the most they are covering is our situation with quakes but are forgetting to tell us about the r est of the world, which means I appreciate knowing since I very much care about this topic. I pray every day the fires stop and that no more damage is done. Thank you for this. xx

I avoid the news in general because of ScumMo, and hearing of water rights being sold to coal, and towns running out of water.... it breaks my heart. I go to the marches, the protests. I spread news, and donate. And still feel I'm not doing enough.

I appreciate the news here. It's not as in my face as FB.

Hugs and love to all us Aussies. I'm also a shoulder if anyone needs to talk.

edited to add this link to scamwatch to make sure you donate safely.

Would welcome a ping group.

I vote ping group, please Thank you for all the updates Eventually they will stop reporting on the wildfires here in the US

Please keep us updated; I tend to avoid the news here in the US due to the current orange trashcan in charge. I get most of my news from Instagram or Twitter.

Thank you to everyone that has requested a ping group and I'm happy to finally be able to provide one! I will continue to update with news every few days (more often if there is something pressing) I do ask if you can help me out and make a comment if no one else has under my last post as it makes it easier to for doing the next lot of news.
Thank you again for your interest and concern for this beautiful country, with deep gratitude from myself and the whole of Australia!

Now for some other news and sadly I'm going to start with a complete rant, be grateful that I've taken some time to to cool off before making today's post as I was seething when I saw this in the news today! Our wonderful prime minister Scott Morrison is not only an utter jack ass but void of ANY commonsense, with the brain the size of a rat turd!! Enough of name calling even if there is some truth to that statement, what has he done NOW you ask, well I'll tell you. Out of the $2 billion bushfire recovery fund that he put in place by back tracking on his governments budget surplus, he has now dipped into that money to revive Australia's tourism sector announcing an initial $76 million tourism recovery package!!![1] Sorry but WTF?!?!? The claim is "The initiative aims to protect jobs, small businesses and local economies by helping to get tourists travelling across Australia again, in the wake of the bushfires." i[/i] Is anyone else starting to say to them self, but that money was to help those affected directly by the bushfires, those who's homes and lives have been lost, who's lively hoods are the backbone of this country, NOT to make ad campaigns to bring in tourists to get their money to finance the ad campaign or the tourist industry! I understand that tourism brings money into the economy and thus helps business's survive and thrive, but isn't the government putting the cart before the horse? The business's that this campaign will help are already standing, yes they are going to take a hit if tourism drops off but it is nothing compared to the hit already taken by the farming/winery industries let alone the fact that major tourist destinations are gone (80 per cent of NSW’s iconic Blue Mountains is thought to be lost to bushfires as well as popular tourist destinations such as Kangaroo Island in South Australia and Batemans Bay in New South Wales have already been devastated by the fires)[2]

Remember I'm no expert so there are probably more holes in my comments than in a rusty colander so don't ever take what I say as the whole truth, make sure to read the REAL news that I post and make your own well informed decisions.

News and Updates for January 19th

• Morrison government rolls out $76 million tourism package in wake of bushfires
• 'It’s huge': Fears 80 per cent of NSW’s iconic Blue Mountains lost to bushfires
• With costs approaching $100 billion, the fires are Australia’s costliest natural disaster
• Further fire relief expected with second day of downpours across NSW
• Weather Hazards in Australia
• 'We're in a dark time': Young climate activists remember those killed in bushfires
• Yellow Wiggle Greg Page went into cardiac arrest at a bushfire benefit concert
• Bureau of Meteorology Weather Across Australia

Where ever you are, stay safe!
Source: [1], [2] https://www.sbs.com.au/

Thank you

WTF is right. The whole thing is mind boggling.

Sending love and hugs to all affected.

Thank you for this. I joined the group.

Thanks for making the ping group.

I'm sometimes mystified by choices governments makes, but in this case I'm not. Your Prime Minister simply doesn't care - those farmers aren't his source of campaign funds. They won't contribute to his re-election, but the beneficiaries of his tourism fund, they will.

Supporting tourism is generally a good thing - but I agree they need to wait, do some basic repair/restoration first. Make it livable for the people who actually live there.

Wow your government sounds a lot like ours, they have no respect to the people. I love your HA btw. xx

Ugh That's all I have to say about the new news Ugh! So not cool :/

joined the ping group, thanks for setting it up!

firstly, we've finally had a little rain here today!! unlike other parts of the country, we've only gotten a few millimetres, but it's better than nothing! after flare-ups of the fires on Mt Buffalo late last week resulting in evacuations for some communities south of Myrtleford again on Friday, the rain has once again helped to dampen the fires and help protect those homes and properties. they're predicting 80% chance of more rain tomorrow, so hopefully that will continue to help the firies control things in those areas. it feels like the media is shifting to reporting more about recovery, but the fires are still very much active in some areas.

secondly, i agree, whythefuck do they think they should spend 45mil on a couple of "marketing initiatives"?! can i roll my eyes any harder?! they mention the allocation of that, but i wonder what the rest of the 76mil is going towards - i really hope that will go directly to supporting those small businesses that rely on tourism. the area where i live relies heavily on tourism, especially during this January/school holiday/Summer period, and many of the local towns are still void of visitors (and some locals) and businesses are really struggling. i don't see how an ad campaign will help them right now. (or maybe they should spend it on a permanent fleet of firefighting aircraft and better equipment for firefighting services, to better help us to fight these types of fires in the future?! oR mAyBe, just maybe? they could put it towards dealing with climate change?!) anyway, on a positive note, the people have once again sprung into action and are using social media to help get the word out for businesses affected by these fires. in one group on facebot i've seen anything from cheese-makers, accommodation, candle-makers, clothing, jewellery, condiments to mechanics advertising their little businesses in their fire-affected patch of the world. if you're interested in checking out some of those businesses (quite a few would have online shops and depending on the product probably wouldn't mind shipping overseas, but don't quote me on that you'd have to check) here is the group! they're on facebook and now on instagram as well. the group was only created 11 days ago and already has 28k+ members on fb!

and lastly can i just say , i love the nickname ScumMo lolol 👌 so good!

anyway, that's the end of my wall of text, off i go to bed!

Hi guys, firstly huge thank you to , really appreciate the information and you are so right with the news and weather reporting, it was something I wanted to mention today but you beat me too it. By no means is this crisis over, the rain has only given the firefighters a small reprieve and helped make the fires more 'manageable' but the fires are still burning (see Weather Hazards in Australia) and we are only in January, the fire season is far from over!

I personally feel some areas have been over looked in the media so I thought I'd try and highlight some of the less mentioned areas with news and information, especially for those of you overseas. I'll try to find up to date articles to give you an understanding of not only what is occurring but what these areas were like, their economic place and structure and what the fires have done to them not only emotionally and environmentally but economically.

I wanted to start with Kangaroo Island, part of my home state of South Australia, which is best known for it's its agriculture, fishing and nature reserves, it is 1,701 square miles of coastline, mountains, bush-land and desert making it our country's third largest island. Sitting 70 miles southwest of Adelaide it is home to a variety of wildlife, beaches and wineries, it has a population of 4,417 "Over 140,000 people visit Kangaroo Island each year, making it one of the most popular destinations in South Australia. Some of the most visited attractions include Flinders Chase National Park, the Kelly Hill Caves, Little Sahara, Parndana Wildlife Park and Seal Bay"[1] most major attractions are situated in the South Coast region of the island, which is where most visitors go along with the Flinders Chase National Park, this is also the worst affected area by fire.

KI's agriculture and primary industry is potatoes, Ligurian honey, canola crops, prime lambs, shellfish, figs, and wool, the island also consists of 30 wine growers and 12 wineries as well as Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers. The islands native wildlife is made up of the Kangaroo Island kangaroo, Rosenberg's sand goanna, southern brown bandicoot, tammar wallaby, common brushtail possum, short-beaked echidna, Australian sea lion and long-nosed fur seal which are native to the island, as well as six bat and frog species. The sole endemic vertebrate species is a small marsupial carnivore, the Kangaroo Island dunnart. The koala, common ringtail possum and platypus have been introduced and still survive there. The introduced koalas have flourished on the island, to the degree that their preferred food source, the manna gum, is at risk of local extinction. KI's koala's are also chlamydophila pneumoniae free due to its isolation from other colonies, thankfully a proposed cull of the creatures was rejected due to public out cry, instead sterilisation was opted for population control, this in hindsight with the near wiping out of koalas with the main land fires seems unfortunate.[2] The island is the last South Australian refuge of an endangered subspecies of the glossy black cockatoo, which is now feared to be endangered with the wiping out of it's habitat, Kangaroo Island has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA)[3] with little penguin colonies at Penneshaw and Kingscote which are both in decline[4], the northern coast of Kangaroo Island contains important fossil-bearing deposits, dating from the late Lower Cambrian, such as the Emu Bay Shale (late Botomian, 517 million years old) while fossilised footprints indicate Australian megafauna, such as the Diprotodon, Sthenurinae, and Thylacine were once distributed on the island. [5]

By January 2020 the island was one of many places nationwide affected by bushfire as part of the 2019–2020 Australian bushfire season. Across Kangaroo Island, fires burnt in excess of 1,500 square kilometres (370,000 acres) two people died due to the fires and a number of wildlife species, some unique to Kangaroo Island and some already endangered before the 2019–2020 bushfires, might now be facing extinction in the wild as a result.[6] This beautiful island has been hit hard and while I want to share ALL information, good and bad, I respect that some of you don't want to see the bad too up close, as I think that is up to 'viewer discretion' I will not write about it or post those images but provide links to information for you to view if you wish to.

Kangaroo Island News

Kangaroo Island Devastation from the Air

Animal rescue teams on Kangaroo Island are finding koalas 'totally shut down' in fire aftermath

Assassin' spiders feared extinct after Kangaroo Island bushfires

Kangaroo Island's glossy black cockatoo population feared decimated by fires

Kangaroo Island Plantation, independents ravaged by fires

Up to 100,000 sheep killed in Kangaroo Island fires, as farmers tally livestock losses

Kangaroo Island bushfires: grave fears for unique wildlife after estimated 25,000 koalas killed

Kangaroo Island bushfire likely to continue for weeks, with flare-ups every afternoon

The search for wildlife survivors on bushfire-ravaged Kangaroo Island | ABC News

Frightening satellite photos capture the immense scale and savagery of fires that have smashed Kangaroo Island

Sources: [1] https://kangarooisland-australia.com/about-kangaroo-island.php [2], [3], [4], [5],[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Island#Agriculture Yes I do still need to post today's news although there isn't much even for us as chookie mentioned so if someone can make a comment please as I've run out of room with this post 😊

Thank you for the links, my heart breaks at all the loss and devastation.

Sending love.

Thanks for posting!

I have a tendency to over explain things, am a perfectionist and suffer from social phobia and depression. I spend hours compiling some of the information here, going through many reports, comparing them all and making sure that what is posted here is accurate and true, I am extremely aware and cautious with what I post as it is important to me that I only ever give out 'whole truth' news and filter out that which is sensationalism. I spend further (probably unnecessary) time editing, re-editing, further editing, correcting, and rewording prior to finally posting in the hope of giving you clear, concise and easy to access information. Last night I spent many hours compiling articles and information on the sheep industry (as the next topic of news) ready to put together for today's post but later that night I found myself completely broken down in tears, I couldn't get the image of the koala sitting at the water edge from yesterday's post out of my head (Animal rescue teams on Kangaroo Island are finding koalas 'totally shut down' in fire aftermath), I hadn't realised just how much this was taking a toll on my emotional and mental health. This for me starts a vicious cycle of 'piggyback depression', the thought of 'how can I be this upset when I haven't been directly affected by the fires', 'what are the poor farmers going through', 'how are those that lost love ones coping', and 'oh dear god the animals, all those animals'. I know this didn't really need to be written as it is of very little relevance compared to what this topic is about, again I've over explained things so you understand why I will be taking a few days off from posting any other material besides direct news links. Thank you to everyone that is finding the forum of help, and caring what is occurring here in Australia and thank you for understanding.

News and Updates for January 21st

• Canberra pelted by hail the size of golf balls
• Melbourne suburbs hit with wild weather
• Hail, flash-flooding and damaging winds ravage Australia's east coast
• Extreme drought pushing platypus population to 'brink of extinction'
• New Tasmanian premier says more must be done on climate change
• Emergency payments for people affected by Australia's bushfires 'seriously inadequate'
• Government pursues cheap bushfire loans
• Weather Hazards in Australia - There's Rain but Fires STILL Burn
• Bureau of Meteorology Weather Across Australia

hugs

Would a (supportive) hug help?

Thank you so much for all your efforts to keep us current with good accurate information. My heart goes out to you and everyone affected. Those poor animals n the koala photos did me in bad too. </3