Off Topic Australia on fire

Currawong

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May 19, 2012
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Fire conditions are pretty bad in Australia at the moment. Here's a map of current fires in New South Wales:

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Last night we had a series of thunderstorms roll through the rural area where I live, with hardly any rain but a lot of lightening that could spark fires. Today we had 80+km/hour westerly winds, and a series of fires started up in the region and started moving east.

From my front deck I look east towards the coast, and about the middle of the day I could see a massive smoke cloud rise up just over the horizon. It was a bushfire that had started just to the west of the house of some very good friends of mine. They live in the bush in a very high risk area and looked to be right in the path of the fire - depending on which way the wind blew. But they are currently overseas so they couldn't defend their property.

I thought I'd drive down and look after their place - just in case. I threw some things in the back of the ute and headed off:

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Driving down, there was a small fire off to the side of the highway over the river that had just sprung up

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The firies were out in force nearby

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Heading towards the big fire near my friends' place. They live just off to the right of this pic.

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Luckily the wind was blowing the fire to the north of their property. Here's the view from the beach below their house. The smoke was maybe 5km to the north (it's a wide-angle shot so looks a lot further away than it is). But a small change in wind direction could easily send it this way.

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I cleared around the house, and hung around for a while until it was clear the wind wasn't going to shift direction. Then I saw on the fire app that a big fire was in the bush to the west of my place, so off I drove back up the hill. Here's the view from my property when I got home, showing a trail of smoke from the fire which is in the hills off to the left. Luckily not much smoke yet.

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I've been doing a lot of fire prep lately. Clearing vegetation with the tractor and chainsaw, watering the grass around the house and water tanks to create a fire barrier, etc. I've got a 1,000 litre water tank on a trailer and a fire pump

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Hopefully the fire doesn't come my way tomorrow!!

It's a good time to honour the rural fire brigades - mostly volunteers - who will be out all day and night trying to control these fires all over the state. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Stay safe Aussie Hogs !!
 
Stay safe dude and I hope ye get them under control soon .
That koala on fire video is gone viral poor dropbear
 
These fires all over the world are hardcore I just had to deal with the big fire in northern california.
Stay safe and take care
 
Be safe sir and great job looking after your neighbor then yourself Good man!
 
Stay safe mate. Looks like you're well prepped. We have had several bigguns burning in a recent times here in SEQ. Almost all are under some sort of control now. But that really means nothing as everything is tinder dry. Unusual for this area.
 
Please be safe. We have them every year as well. They are scary.
 
It's very much like a Busse guy to be prepared for ANYTHING...with his Busse's!

I've seen on the nightly news where you blokes are suffering through drought, but I hadn't heard of fires to this extent...

Be cautious and smart and keep us updated when/if you get time!
 
Where in NSW are you located? We have family in Orange & Kempsey. Supposedly Willawarrin is completely gone. Be safe down there mate!
 
Fingers crossed for you all! Seeing a lot of stories about the fires there and not good ones.
 
Gracious, I hope the fires get put out very quickly.
Stay safe and God Bless.
 
Preparedness is a virtue, your doing what you can do. Hopefully it won’t come your way
 
Yikes, we have had our share out west here in the States as well... got so bad they started just started listing the places that weren't on fire......lakes, snow capped mountains, roads...
 
Stay safe and thank you for posting photos and sharing what is going on in your part of the world. Wildfires are unpredictable and scary things, kudos to the firemen and people out fighting them. If anything, this has convinced me that I need to stop bitching about the ice, snow and cold weather here in Vermont. I much prefer it to the fires that you and the residents in areas of California are dealing with.
 
That fire down the coast was reported at 1pm yesterday and by 7am this morning was already 2,500 hectares. It's slowed down now because the winds have died down.

I just talked to another mate who's a cattle farmer, his property is right next to the fire. He said "I don't get scared easy but I was scared last night." Luckily it skirted around his property, he had all his gear ready but didn't need to use it. He and I cleared (by hand with chainsaws) a few thousand small trees on his property a few months ago, that surrounded their second house that they rent out, so that should have helped a bit. I'm on call to go down and help him if the fire heads his way, but fingers crossed the firies will get it under control.
 
Glad you are OK mate, lots of people aren't just now !! the "Rualys" do a great job in crappy conditions when this shyte happens. I am in "The 'Burbs" but we butt onto one of the National Parks on the north side of Sydney. It is one spark from a big'n !!

Goodonya for looking out for your neighbour's place mate.
 
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