Associated Press published a comparative scale of the largest wildfires since 2018 when the world began to burn

And the drought continues across New South Wales....

There is no land in NSW which is not affected by drought.

CDI = Combined Drought Indicator. RI = Rainfall Index. SWI = Soil Water Index. PGI = Pasture Growth Index. DDI = Drought Direction Index

Data current to 11/1/2020 (AEDT)

Australian Council of Social Service calls on Morrison to increase "seriously inadequate" emergency payments to bushfire victims

The Guardian, 13 January 2020:

Australia’s peak welfare body is calling on the federal government to immediately boost emergency payments for those affected by bushfires, saying it is concerned the current amount is “seriously inadequate”.

The Australian Council of Social Service chief executive, Cassandra Goldie, has written to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, with a range of recommendations the organisation says are urgently needed to help provide relief to those affected by the bushfire crisis that has destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

“It is vital that the federal government continues to play its role providing adequate support to the thousands of people so badly affected,” Goldie said.

“Acoss is very concerned that the current Disaster Recovery Payment is seriously inadequate, particularly for people on lower incomes and with fewer assets, family and friends to secure transport, alternative housing options and immediate recovery resources.”

The group is calling for the payment, which has not increased since 2006, to be boosted from $1,000 to $3,000, and from $400 per child to $1,000 per child. 

Other recommendations include increasing the Disaster Recovery Allowance, which is paid at the same rate as Newstart, which the organisation said was inadequate to cover basic living costs, and providing additional relief for people on low incomes who could not afford insurance.....

Less in response to this ACOSS call and more as pushback against his poor numbers in the 12 January 2020 Newspoll which showed Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese as the preferred prime minister with a lead of 4 points, Prime Minister Morrison has announced an increase in the Disaster Recovery Payment for children to a total of $800 per child from 20 January 2020.

Families who have already received payments for children will automatically be paid an additional $400 according to media reports.

Clarence Valley Council receives $1 million in bushfire recovery funding

The NSW Berejiklian Government has received its state share of the $2 billion in bushfire recovery funding from the federal government and, has informed Clarence Valley Council to expect to have an extra $1 million in its coffers this week.

This money is in addition to grants already received from the NSW Government to assist with repair of certain road infrastructure damaged by the bushfires.

Council expects to use this $1 million grant to rebuild community assets such as sporting facilities and community halls, as well as creating infrastructure which will increase resilience in times of disaster.

The million dollar grant is welcome, however the financial cost of these devastating fires will be a strain on council and local communities for some time to come.

Everytime someone says of Australia 'It's not climate change, it's drought and too much dry fuel in the forests' remember these basic numbers

The Guardian, 13 January 2020:

Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2019, with average temperatures 1.52C above the 1961-1990 average. Our second hottest year was 2013, followed by 2005, 2018 and 2017. 

New South Wales – one state hard hit by the bushfires – broke its record by a greater margin, with temperatures 1.95C above average, beating the previous record year, 2018, by 0.27C. 

At a very basic level, rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere change the earth’s radiation balance, allowing less heat to escape. 

Australia also had its driest ever year in 2019, with rainfall 40% lower than average, based on records going back to 1900. NSW also had its driest year....

There have been two other meteorological patterns that helped generate the extreme conditions Australia has been experiencing, and both these “modes of variability” were in “phases” that made conditions worse. 

The Indian Ocean dipole was in a “positive phase”, meaning the Indian Ocean off Australia’s north west was cooler than normal and the west of the ocean was warmer. 

Positive dipole events draw moisture away from Australia and tend to deliver less rainfall. 

But there is evidence that the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are also impacting the dipole and another phenomenon, known as the southern annular mode (SAM). 

A 2009 study found that positive dipole events “precondition” the south of the country for dangerous bushfire seasons and that these events were becoming more common. 

A 2018 study in the journal Nature Communications found the number of extreme positive dipole events goes up as climate heating continues. 

An animated history of average maximum temperatures and rainfall in Australia since 1910 can be found here at https://youtu.be/okmjuh0pNCU

The Australian Bureau of Meterology has produced two charts which display the stark transformation in temperature and precipitation across the continent over the past century.

The first chart shows the anomaly of mean temperature for each calendar year from 1910 to 2019, compared to the average over the standard reference period of 1961–1990.

The colours range from dark blue (more than 3 degrees Celsius below average), through blues and greens (below average), yellow and orange (above average), and then brown (more than 3C above average).

The Bureau has also produced a second chart showing rainfall in each year since 1900.

The colours range from dark red (lowest on record) to white (average) and dark blue (highest on record).

Rain predicted across NSW from today but it's not all good news - may be landslips, fallen trees & flash flooding on land burnt by bushfire since August 2019

Weather Update: Heavy rain and the potential dangerous impacts to fire grounds in NSW and East Victoria.

Video is current at 12pm AEDT 14 Jan 2020.

Info: https://t.co/t2CaglH2RW and follow advice from emergency services.#nswfires #vicfires #ausfires @NSWRFS @VicEmergency pic.twitter.com/zQrk6RAa4s

— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) January 14, 2020

NSW Bushfire Emergency Declaration covering the Clarence Valley has been revoked as fires begin to diminsh

Bushfires in the Clarence Valley are diminishing.

So the Section 44 Bushfire Emergency declation declared in August 2019 when the NSW Rural Fire Service was battling around twenty fires a day - many caused by hazard reduction burns on private land which ran out of control - was revoked last week.

Although the fire grounds have contracted significantly, the Myall Creek Road and Washpool National Park fires are still burning and peat in the Shark Creek area is also still alight.

However, these fires have been listed as under control for some weeks.

Valley residents should still keep an eye open for new fire activity, because forewarned is forearmed for our scattered communities.

Since June 2019 an est. 548,698 hectares have burned in a local government area comprising a total of 1,044,996 hectares. That is almost 53 per cent of the Clarence Valley land mass affected by fire to date.

The fires kicked off in a big way in September when the Shark Creek fire entered Yuraygir National Park and spread to threaten Angourie and Wooloweyah with one spot fire burning as far north as the vicinity of the Yamba community pool before being controlled.

Then in October-November the Nymboida region began to blaze, quickly followed by the spread of the Myall Creek Road fire into the Valley, then Washpool National Park began to burn and Woombah through to the New Italy area as well as Bunjalung National Park lit up - creating even larger fire grounds.

Now on Wednesday 15 January 2020 the smoke has gone, the air is clean, in the Lower Clarence River the water remains clear and, popular beaches along the Clarence Coast are much as they were before the bushfire emergency began.

During the Christmas holidays the tourists came back, so there are small children in rashies, young women in sarongs & sandals and proud local grandparents showing off their visiting grandkids once more peopling our streets.

But all is not well. 

We can easily count how many homes, sheds and how much community infrastructure we've lost in the Valley and, eventually money will rebuild much of what is gone.

Trying to gauge the degree of loss of natural landscapes, wildlife biodiversity and cultural sites - and what that means to us as regional communities - will be much harder.

The Clarence Valley may find itself changed forever.