bush fire dingbats

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

it's that time of year again. ABC is reporting that both the Mornington Peninsula fire and the multiple blazes here in Tas (well, some of them) are being treated as suspicious.
What sort of dingbat does that in this weather?
What a bunch of losers.

Graz

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Yeah, couple of days before the fire that went through our place in 2014 (Started by a tree falling on a power line, yet to see if the power auth gets pinched for lack of maintenance) there was a string of fires on the Calder and Hume freeways.

No idea if they actually caught the fella but apparently the fires came up along the route at the right times for someone chucking out something to light them from a car traveling at the speed limit, seven or eight separate fires from memory.

Having been burned through by one, I can only consider people who deliberately start fires to be defective.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Drove past the scorchmarks of one on Sunday where you would pretty much see where they flicked the cigarette.
The sentence for this kind of thing should include a stint at a hospital burns ward.

[scagman (John)]

Anyone found guilty of starting a fire should at the very least be thrown in jail for life, or better yet handed over to the people who lost loved ones and or property and burned at the stake, very slowly. Instead they are given a slap on the wrist and let go. Lighting the fire is attempted murder.

[FI93 (Norm)]

Good Evening Ben, Cigarettes today are self extinguishing, to start a fire by a thrown one, the cig has to be at a 45 degree angle on "Tinder" fuel. the cig has to be facing the prevailing wind above 10km/hr and the humidity has to be 24% or less.... then you have a CHANCE of starting a fire.
The old one of rubber banding match heads around a cig to give a time delay is very much negated by the self extinguishing.
Thats why I have a metal detector in my investigation kit..... the idiots are using sparklers, very hard to spot a small burnt wire in the debris but once the area is nailed down to the size of a coffee table then out comes the metal detector.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I always see thrown butts as just one more example of the contempt people seem to hold anything that they do not own in. I mow the roadside of our property for both appearance and fire safety (About 700M of frontage next to a Vicroads managed road, they used to mow reserves fence to fence but now only do a couple of meters each side of the carriageway, so towns like where I live have a frightening stock of six foot high, thick, tinder dry grass leading into them) The volume of bottles and cans and various fast food wrappers and other detritus thrown from cars disgusts me every time I mow out there.

Self extinguishing would have to be one good change then. The number of lit butts I see thrown from cars is enough to make my blood boil though I would not want to trust to it with how dry the roadsides get.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Smoke has rolled in around Collinsvale in Tassie. I'm about 20 km out of the Hobart. Visibility is now about 500m. Moon looks like a red grapefruit. Setting sun was blood/fire red. Could barely see Mt Wellington on my way back from the city.

There are no fires within 50km of here but it echoes very much of Ash Wednesday when I existed on the other island. Horrid is a massive understatement. Eyes are stinging, sore throat.... Anesthesia by scotch is helping. Hate summer with a passion. GIVE ME SNOW!!!

[andyc (Andy)]

Originally Posted by FI93

Good Evening Ben, Cigarettes today are self extinguishing, to start a fire by a thrown one, the cig has to be at a 45 degree angle on "Tinder" fuel. the cig has to be facing the prevailing wind above 10km/hr and the humidity has to be 24% or less.... then you have a CHANCE of starting a fire.
The old one of rubber banding match heads around a cig to give a time delay is very much negated by the self extinguishing.
Thats why I have a metal detector in my investigation kit..... the idiots are using sparklers, very hard to spot a small burnt wire in the debris but once the area is nailed down to the size of a coffee table then out comes the metal detector.

I'm not convinced.
1: a lit cigarette I'd not 'safe' by any definition, there's a damn good reason there are penalties for tossing one.
2: a fair few fires every year start near highways, and the casual chucking of lit cigs is far more likely the cause than conscious arson activity.
3: 'self extinguishing' doesn't seem too effective, when you wander past smouldering bins & ashtrays.
4: smokers should never be exempt from littering