Currawong
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2012
- Messages
- 2,208
Fire conditions are pretty bad in Australia at the moment. Here's a map of current fires in New South Wales:
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:
Driving down, there was a small fire off to the side of the highway over the river that had just sprung up
The firies were out in force nearby
Heading towards the big fire near my friends' place. They live just off to the right of this pic.
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.
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.
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
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.
Stay safe Aussie Hogs !!
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:
Driving down, there was a small fire off to the side of the highway over the river that had just sprung up
The firies were out in force nearby
Heading towards the big fire near my friends' place. They live just off to the right of this pic.
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.
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.
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
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.
Stay safe Aussie Hogs !!