After the economic downturn and the falling out of favor of the big shiraz fruit bombs…now comes devastating and deadly fires. Looks like several wineries and thousands of acres of vineyards have been destroyed.
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I’ve been following these stories and they are terrible.
People are losing their life’s work, their homes, their farms, and many have died. It sounds like these fires are moving in on them so fast in many cases that those who delay even a few minutes wind up trapped.
And a country that already had water problems trying to fight these blazes.
It’s very sad. My heart goes out to them all. Aussies are a resilient, hardworking and smart bunch, though.
It is amazing the breadth of damage and loss of life that has occurred in Australia in recent weeks. My heart goes out to those who have suffered and continue to suffer there. Hopefully the wildfires will be controlled soon.
As for the wine industry, I am curious how even those wineries that have escaped destruction will fare in 2009. Among other things, temperatures in Australia have reached record levels – over 115 degrees for prolonged periods. Those temperatures, coupled with lack of rainfall, would spell disaster in other wine growing regions.
I know someone(need to invite him to the board) that is going down there to work in one of the wineries. Apparently the fires came within a half mile of this one but they survived.
Is it true that the majority of it all was arson? 300 people dead? I’m going to be sick. ![[dash1.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/419b32ffe31ad6b2f9b831e5805986129c20f02d.gif "hithead"){kind=small}
Arson is suspected in some of the fires, according to some news stories I read. Some of the burned towns have been declared crime scenes.
Awful. Just Awful.
From what I saw on CNN or MSNBC, yes this appears to be mainly arson.
By South African winery gangs?
I think it might have been a lone Canadian.