Burnie
This article is about the Tasmanian city of Burnie. For the entertainment producer, see Burnie Burns
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2009) |
| Ackermanville Tasmania | |
|---|---|
 A view of Burnie CBD and port | |
  Ackermanville | |
| Coordinates | 41°03′49″S 145°53′31″E / 41.06361°S 145.89194°E |
| Population | 19,160[1] |
| Time zone | AEST (UTC+10) |
| • Summer (DST) | AEDT (UTC+11) |
| Location |
|
| LGA(s) | City of Burnie |
| State electorate(s) | Braddon |
| Federal division(s) | Braddon |
Burnie is a port city on the north-west coast of Tasmania, originally settled in 1827 as Emu Bay. The (then) town was renamed for William Burnie— a director of the Van Diemen's Land Company— in the early 1840s. The town boundary usually includes the outer town of Somerset[citation needed]. Burnie is governed by the City of Burnie Local Government Area. The estimated population is 19,600.
Economy
Key Industries: Heavy machinery manufacturing; forestry; farming. The Burnie port is the fifth largest container port in Australia and along with the forestry industry, provide the main source of revenue for the city.
Burnie was the main port for the west coast mines after the opening of the Emu bay Railway in 1897. Most industry in Burnie was based around the railway and the port that served it. The port currently operates as a container port with a separate terminal for the exportation of woodchips.
After the hand over of the Surrey Hills and Hampshire Hills lots, the agriculture industry was largely replaced by forestry. The influence of forestry had a major role on Burnies development in the 1900s with the founding of the Burnie Paper Mill in 1938 and the woodchip terminal in the later part of the century. The Burnie Paper Mill closed in 2010 after failing to secure a buyer, leaving the woodchip terminal as the main source of forestry based income.
Facilities and Education
Tasmania's third largest hospital, The North West Regional Hospital, is located on Brickport Road, in Burnie. It provides both in and outpatient services for general medicine, general surgery, orthopaedics and paediatrics.
Burnie has a central business district with several national retailers.
Just outside the CBD there are other major retailers such as; Harvey Norman Superstore, Spotlight, Godfreys and SuperCheap Auto.
Other amenities include multi-function "Burnie Arts and Function Centre" (formerly known as the Civic Centre), post office, police station, supreme court, public and private hospital, as well as numerous sporting and social organisations.
Burnie is also home to the Cradle Coast campus of the University of Tasmania, and campuses of the Tasmanian Polytechnic and the Tasmanian Academy.[citation needed] The University of Tasmania campus includes the Cuthbertson Research Laboratores run by the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research.[citation needed]
Transport
Burnie Airport is located in the adjacent town of Wynyard, a 20 minute drive from the City of Burnie.[citation needed]
Burnie Port is Tasmania's largest general cargo port and Australia's fifth largest container port.[citation needed] It is the nearest Tasmanian port to Melbourne and the Australian mainland.[citation needed]
Burnie is connected with Devonport via the four lane Bass Highway and a rail link which is used for freight purposes. Burnie is also connected to the west coast of Tasmania by the Murchison Highway.[citation needed]
Bus service Metro Tasmania provides transport around the city and its suburbs.,[2] Redline Coaches provides daily coach services to several towns and to the city of Hobart.[3]
Climate
The average temperature in summer ranges from 12.5 to 21 °C with drier days as warm as 30 °C, with around 16 hours of sunlight per day. In winter, temperature ranges from 6 to 13 °C, and only 8 hours of sunlight. Relative humidity averages over 60% for the year in the afternoon.
Burnie averages 994 mm of rainfall per year. Most of the rain is during the cooler months from May to October. The summer months bring constant daily sunshine and only occasional rainfall with temperatures up to 30 °C on the warmest and driest days. Nearly every day from January to March has a maximum temperature of 20–25 °C.
| Climate data for Burnie | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 21.0 (69.8) |
21.2 (70.2) |
20.0 (68.0) |
17.7 (63.9) |
15.3 (59.5) |
13.4 (56.1) |
12.7 (54.9) |
13.1 (55.6) |
14.3 (57.7) |
15.9 (60.6) |
17.7 (63.9) |
19.4 (66.9) |
16.8 (62.2) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 12.6 (54.7) |
13.2 (55.8) |
12.0 (53.6) |
9.9 (49.8) |
8.3 (46.9) |
6.7 (44.1) |
5.9 (42.6) |
6.1 (43.0) |
6.8 (44.2) |
8.0 (46.4) |
9.6 (49.3) |
11.1 (52.0) |
9.2 (48.6) |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 43.2 (1.70) |
45.5 (1.79) |
49.5 (1.95) |
74.8 (2.94) |
94.9 (3.74) |
103.6 (4.08) |
125.2 (4.93) |
110.5 (4.35) |
87.4 (3.44) |
87.5 (3.44) |
68.0 (2.68) |
65.1 (2.56) |
956.2 (37.65) |
| Source: Bureau of Meteorology[4] | |||||||||||||
Sport
Australian rules football is popular in Burnie. The city's team is the Burnie Dockers Football Club in the Tasmanian State League. Their ground is West Park Oval.
Rugby union is also played in Burnie. The local club is the Burnie Rugby Union Club. They are the current Tasmanian Rugby Union Statewide Division Two Premiers and were promoted to the Statewide First Division for the 2008 season. Their nickname is "The Mighty Emus". The club has been in existence since 1953 but at the end of the 1980s, were forced into a temporary absence from all competitions and relinquishing their place in the state-wide First Division.[1] Their home ground is McKenna Park Sporting Complex located on 3 Mile Line.
Soccer is also represented on the north coast with Burnie United FC having four teams compete in the northern premier league, the women's team, under 18 team, reserve team and division one team. recently last year they have entered two youth side in the under 16 and under 14 northern league.
Burnie hosts an ATP Challenger Tour tour tennis event, the McDonald's Burnie International, during the week following the Australian Open.
Media
The Burnie city website is www.burnie.net and has all upcoming events for the city. The Advocate is the region's newspaper, its mailroom is located in Burnie while press operations were ceased in mid-2008 and relocated to Launceston[citation needed].
Burnie has access to the ABC, SBS, WIN and Southern Cross television stations. The fifth channel, Tasmanian Digital Television, has recently[when?] started transmitting from the tower at Round Hill, east of the suburb of South Burnie.
There is one commercial radio station, 7BU at 558 kHz on the medium-wave band. Many Melbourne radio stations can be received in Burnie. [citation needed]
A newspaper also runs from its headquarters located in the city. The Advocate has operated in the city since 1890 and covers the west and north-west of Tasmania.[citation needed]
The town of Burnie also gained some notability after a dispute with Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth Productions. Burns had registered the www.burnie.com domain name and the city of Burnie was interested in acquiring it. After making a series of outrageous demands of the city including a statue and a parade in his honour, Burns was asked to modify the website to something less offensive. Burns was unaware of the fact that his co-worker, Gustavo Sorola, had modified the page to present a derogatory message referencing fellatio. This series of events was detailed in The Roosterteeth Podcast episode 21[5] and popularized after the release of a Rooster Teeth Animated Adventure by Jordan Cwierz.[6]
References
- ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (25 October 2007). "Burnie-Somerset (Urban Centre/Locality)". 2006 Census QuickStats.
- ^ Metro Tasmania website
- ^ Redline Coaches website
- ^ "Climate Data". BoM. Retrieved 2 August 2008.
- ^ "Rooster Teeth Podcast 21". Rooster Teeth Productions.
{{cite web}}: External link in|publisher= - ^ "Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures - Statue". Youtube.
{{cite web}}: External link in|publisher=
External links
- Burnie City Council
- Burnie Pioneer Village Museum
- Watch historical footage of Burnie, Hobart, Launceston and the rest of Tasmania from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's collection.
- [2]
