英语六级阅读 Death toll in Australian wildfires rises past 170
2009-02-11来源:和谐英语
Victoria state Premier John Brumby said a commission would examine all aspects of the fires, including warning and evacuation policies that allow people to stay to protect their homes. Some former police officials dismissed the idea of forced evacuations, noting the ferocity of the weekend fires seemed to preclude such an option.
"I think our policy has served us well in what I'd call normal conditions, but what we saw at the weekend were just not normal conditions," Brumby told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television. "We prepared, I guess, for a high tide, a king tide even, but what ran over the state was more like a tsunami."
There were extraordinary tales of survival.
Daryl Hogan of Wandong, 12 miles north of Whittlesea, said he jumped into his pool to escape the flames as they roared over his house, leaving it unburned but destroying his neighbor's home.
Mark Strubing said he and a companion were unable to outrace the flames, so they took refuge in a drainage pipe under the road as his property outside Kinglake was destroyed.
"Mate, I've looked at this pipe before, you'd never ever crawl under there. It's full of spiders and all sorts of uglies," he told Nine Network TV news.
He said they rolled around in the water in the pipe to wet their clothing as flames started licking inside the pipe.
"It was a terrible dark place to go, but it felt pretty good at the time because I'd be dead right now if I didn't," he said.
Scientists say it is impossible to blame man-made global warming causes for any single event, such as the weekend wildfires.
However, Australia's top climate scientists said in a major report two years ago that global warming will make the country more prone to these types of intensive fires, even pinpointing the southeast — the region now ablaze.
"Heat waves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency" in Australia and New Zealand, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded.
"An increase in fire danger in Australia is likely to be associated with a reduced interval between fires, increased fire intensity, a decrease in fire extinguishments and faster fire spread," the report said.
The conditions that lead to more fires are worsened by global warming, said Mike MacCracken, scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.www.hxen.net
"Both the rising carbon dioxide concentration and climate change cause conditions to be more favorable to wildfire," MacCracken said. "You get faster build of biomass (grasses and trees), you get more intense drying, longer periods without rain. So you create the conditions that can lead to wildfire."
"I think our policy has served us well in what I'd call normal conditions, but what we saw at the weekend were just not normal conditions," Brumby told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television. "We prepared, I guess, for a high tide, a king tide even, but what ran over the state was more like a tsunami."
There were extraordinary tales of survival.
Daryl Hogan of Wandong, 12 miles north of Whittlesea, said he jumped into his pool to escape the flames as they roared over his house, leaving it unburned but destroying his neighbor's home.
Mark Strubing said he and a companion were unable to outrace the flames, so they took refuge in a drainage pipe under the road as his property outside Kinglake was destroyed.
"Mate, I've looked at this pipe before, you'd never ever crawl under there. It's full of spiders and all sorts of uglies," he told Nine Network TV news.
He said they rolled around in the water in the pipe to wet their clothing as flames started licking inside the pipe.
"It was a terrible dark place to go, but it felt pretty good at the time because I'd be dead right now if I didn't," he said.
Scientists say it is impossible to blame man-made global warming causes for any single event, such as the weekend wildfires.
However, Australia's top climate scientists said in a major report two years ago that global warming will make the country more prone to these types of intensive fires, even pinpointing the southeast — the region now ablaze.
"Heat waves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency" in Australia and New Zealand, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded.
"An increase in fire danger in Australia is likely to be associated with a reduced interval between fires, increased fire intensity, a decrease in fire extinguishments and faster fire spread," the report said.
The conditions that lead to more fires are worsened by global warming, said Mike MacCracken, scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.www.hxen.net
"Both the rising carbon dioxide concentration and climate change cause conditions to be more favorable to wildfire," MacCracken said. "You get faster build of biomass (grasses and trees), you get more intense drying, longer periods without rain. So you create the conditions that can lead to wildfire."
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