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Post by djm16 on May 12, 2017 13:59:41 GMT
Last week was far too exciting. We came home from the beach on Sunday night to our secluded bush property in the hills to find 11 fire appliances and a 12T water tanker parked outside preventing the wild fire that took out our neighbours' property from jumping the road into ours. The people who caused the fire one property further over were lucky not to lose their house. They had done a "controlled" burn the day before and not gone around extinguishing the embers. Sunday morning the wind picked up and re-ignited it. We noticed the smoke and thought "they are keen, burning off on a Sunday morning!" and carried on down to the beach. An hour later and it had jumped into our neighbours' property and was running wild. By the time we got home at 6pm all the excitement was over and they were all there just mopping up, allowing half burned stuff to continue, and checking for flare ups and ember attack, but every inch of ground was burned, every grass tree and every bit of dead would still alight.
By the night I was as sick as a dog with the flu, and monday night was admitted to hospital for rehydration. Tomorrow will be my first day back at work.
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Post by Warwick on May 13, 2017 1:00:13 GMT
Not that many years ago we wouldn't have believed it could happen at this time of year. Glad to hear that your place is OK.
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Post by ozriderp5 on May 13, 2017 9:28:21 GMT
Not that many years ago we wouldn't have believed it could happen at this time of year. Glad to hear that your place is OK. I drive to Geelong 3 days a week down the Bacchus Marsh Geelong Rd and there have been some massive burn off's lately. Most appear to be completely unattended.
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Post by Warwick on Feb 2, 2019 7:58:03 GMT
As it's the 10th anniversary next week, I thought I'd resurrect this old thread, and replace all the photos that Photo_ucket kindly removed. More smoke in the air this morning from the fires to our east. Nothing serious in our area so far this summer, but February and March are usually hotter.
I've added a few extra photos from 2009, near the start of the thread.
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Post by johnwp5bcoupe on Feb 2, 2019 10:08:50 GMT
Bl**dy hell where did those 10 years go Warwick
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Post by Warwick on Feb 2, 2019 10:30:52 GMT
I know, John. In fact, where did the last 20 years go?
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Post by Warwick on Feb 13, 2019 5:30:35 GMT
Well, it has been a strange few days. The local community held a commemorative evening at the Jindivick cricket ground last Friday. Jindivick is a tiny town to our north. www.jindivick.org.au/ The town and surrounding farms escaped by the skin of their teeth on Black Saturday, as did we. It was a great evening, with the unveiling of a commemorative sculpture in the park, followed by a fully catered barbecue. It was well attended with about 300 people from the surrounding district, and their families. But it also stirred up some buried memories and feelings. The next day, a friend and neighbour organised a gathering for a barbecue for our immediate neighbourhood, and all those who were stuck here on that day, 10 years ago. It was largely due to the efforts of many of these people that our place was saved. Unbeknown to me at the time, they were fighting the fire on the other side of our road, about 350m from our house. They managed to stop it from crossing the road until a fortuitous (for us but not others) wind change shifted the direction of the fire, and it made a left-hand turn. The houses in our neighbourhood were spared. Only a few sheds and other small buildings were destroyed. Earlier last week, we had a few very hot days in a row, with the Sunday before the anniversary being 41 degrees C. However, a welcome cool change arrived in the evening. The house was about 32 deg. inside by the end of the day. We are off the electricity grid, and the air conditioner I installed last year runs entirely off the solar panels, and can only lower the temperature by a limited amount. Prior to its installation and for the past 20 years, by the end of a hot day the temperature inside this poorly insulated house would be 2 or 3 degrees above the outside temperature. Anyway, I went to bed with all the windows open to let the house cool down overnight. I was awoken after midnight by an alert on my mobile phone. I was home alone. It was from the state's emergency services authority, alerting me to a fire in the bush about 800m away down the other end of our road. It had been caused by a lightning strike. I got dressed and went outside for a look. I couldn't see, hear, or smell anything, so I went back inside and lay on the bed, and waited. Another alert about 40 minutes later informed me that it was small and had been attended to. I didn't sleep easily, as I was half awake for much of the time. I was awoken in the morning by the light from the open windows and the smell of smoke throughout the house. Outside, there was brown smoke everywhere. I was suddenly transported back 10 years to that very similar experience. A quick check of the bushfire app on my phone told me that there was no fire in my vicinity, and the smoke was coming from the big fire well to the east of here, that had been burning for more than a week. But that didn't alleviate the feelings. It was very strange. My rational mind told me that there was no problem, but on a deeper level, the stress was back. It hung around for a day or two. Sorry. I got a bit carried away. I wasn't intending to write all this, but it just kept coming and I've actually found it quite cathartic.
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Post by johnwp5bcoupe on Feb 13, 2019 5:54:26 GMT
I am glad all is well Warwick
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Post by Warwick on Feb 13, 2019 6:54:51 GMT
Thanks old friend. Summer is far from over but I think our neck of the woods will be OK for a few years to come, although the seasons have changed considerably and there has been a lot of forest regrowth since then. It's highly likely that we are heading into another long drought, so that doesn't help. It's 10 years since the last big drought ended, and it lasted almost 10 years.
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Post by David on Feb 13, 2019 9:29:32 GMT
Fascinating post (in a good way) Warwick.
Hopefully if the worse is over, you and others can sleep a bit easier now. Best wishes to all involved.
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Post by Warwick on Feb 14, 2019 2:04:12 GMT
Thanks David.
For those of you who are reading this thread for the first time, it may be a bit puzzling as to why it is located in this part of the forum. Therefore, I've added some explanatory notes at the beginning of the thread, at the top of the first post on Page 1.
As I write this, a large bushfire is wreaking havoc in northern NSW around the small town of Tingha.
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Post by David on Feb 14, 2019 9:23:47 GMT
No real need to explain Warwick.
Although this forum is car based, it also has a strong social side (long may that continue) and such reports, albeit from the other side of the world, just reminds us all not to take things for granted.
I hope you and others here find some comfort in knowing that although we might be with you in person, we are there in spirit.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 2, 2019 4:00:59 GMT
Here we go again. Same forest, 10 years and 3 weeks to the day. But fortunately the wind is just a breeze and the temperature is 34 deg.C, not 45.
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Post by johnwp5bcoupe on Mar 2, 2019 8:47:51 GMT
I hope you miss it all "stay safe"!
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Post by Warwick on Mar 2, 2019 9:20:07 GMT
Thanks John. It's dead calm here at the moment, so unless the wind springs up and it's from the 'wrong' direction, it should be OK. But it will mean a sleepless night. But at least this time we have a mobile phone warning app from the fire authority to alert us. Last night I was watching spectacular electrical storms to the east and to the west. Those dry lightning strikes are what started this, and others to our east, but further away.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 3, 2019 2:58:40 GMT
We're now in the evacuation alert zone, waiting to see what happens next. Car packed ready to go.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 3, 2019 9:57:49 GMT
9pm and pitch black outside. The cool change has arrived but with it are gusty winds from the west/southwest. That will rev it up and swing it around towards us. Just like last time! It's going to be an interesting night.
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Post by johnwp5bcoupe on Mar 3, 2019 12:37:11 GMT
9pm and pitch black outside. The cool change has arrived but with it are gusty winds from the west/southwest. That will rev it up and swing it around towards us. Just like last time! It's going to be an interesting night. Bu**er Vince
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Post by enigmas on Mar 3, 2019 22:42:20 GMT
I'm no where near the bush fires John but even in the metropolitan area where I live it's unseasonally hot and dry with temperatures in the high 30s. We've had 4 days like this in a row IIRC. Too hot to do anything outside till late afternoon. We do have both evaporative cooling and a large aircon in the back section of our home...so it's quite cool inside...but step outside and that's something else. No way would I live in a bush setting...for obvious reasons considering OZ's extreme summers! Our little shangri-la. A view to our backyard from the kitchen.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 4, 2019 2:50:39 GMT
Looks nice, Vince. An uneventful night, around here at least. The forecast strong winds of up to 70kph didn't eventuate, fortunately, so the Bunyip fire didn't grow as much as expected. It's also moving south again, so won't get any closer to me. It's difficult for them to forecast the weather near a fire of this size, as it creates its own, due to the vast volume of heat rising rapidly from it. Didn't get much sleep so I'm still somewhat knackered. The high altitude thick smoke has been replaced by thinner smoke down to ground level. Looks like a foggy morning. We've just finished the hottest summer on record, and one of the driest. Autumn (it's autumn now) is expected to be much the same, and probably followed by a drier than normal winter. We can probably expect more of this, more frequently, in the years to come. Here's a link to the interactive map of the current fire situation across Victoria. tinyurl.com/y49k62csThe link should take you to a zoomed in view of the fire in the Bunyip forest. You can pan around and zoom out.
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Post by johnwp5bcoupe on Mar 4, 2019 8:58:03 GMT
I have been thinking of you both so glad your are ok
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Post by Warwick on Mar 4, 2019 10:40:31 GMT
Thanks John. The worst is probably over for my district, although they're forecasting strong winds again tonight or tomorrow. But it's just a possibility. It didn't eventuate last night. So I'll be dozing lightly again tonight, with the emergency alert app running on my phone. Unfortunately, it's still looking grim in other places. But no lives lost.
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tonys
Rover Fanatic
Posts: 419
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Post by tonys on Mar 4, 2019 11:26:54 GMT
Warwick (+ Vince)
It's difficult for some of us to really understand what it must be like for you folks; we have friends in WA who had a lucky escape a few years ago, although their neighbour (a little way away) wasn't so fortunate (but fortunately only damage to property). They recently travelled (by road) to the general area around Melbourne and I was getting regular updates and photos etc etc..
We sometimes moan over here that we'd like it to be warmer but I gather that the aircon units don't work too well during power outages and even when working some struggle with the temperatures you've experienced in recent months. That's not a problem that we experience.
Best of luck.
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Post by enigmas on Mar 4, 2019 22:28:09 GMT
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Post by johnwp5bcoupe on Mar 5, 2019 9:08:53 GMT
Keep us up-to-date Vince please
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