Fire

It is hard to know what to write.  Australia is in Crisis with out of control fire storms tearing through bush, farms and townships.   Finally, the forces have been activated and the reserves have been called out to help.  Most people feel it is too little, too late and our PM is being heavily criticized for refusing to meet with fire services in the winter and put plans in place for this type of emergency.

Today, we have a reprieve from the scorching conditions and a cool change has brought some welcome rain. It is not making much difference in other places where the wind change tended to make things worse.  Even though the fires have not reached the Yarra Valley most people are directly affected in some way. My friend’s youngest brother has died on his farm and our next-door neighbour in NSW is under ember attack.  We will be lucky if our property up there does not burn.

Strangely the nearest town, Cooma has had an extra problem with flooded streets and houses when a massive water tank burst. Typical Australia. You are busy trying to survive one form of danger and another sneaks up from behind and gets you whilst you are preoccupied.  There is so much happening that you have to actively search the internet for specific places to know of anything dramatic is going on.

Our media is full of apocalyptical pictures of red skies and people huddled on beaches as a last resort.  The roads are mostly closed so thousand are being rescued by sea.  This means holiday makers have to abandon their cars and trailers, but even where roads are open the lack of power limits the availability of fuel.  This crisis is terrible, but the longer-term effects will cause problems for years as we well know. On the land fences and fodder are all lost and cannot be easily replaced.

We have got most of the hay in, thanks to Morg and his friend, but a shed full of hay is also a big fire risk. Luckily the farm buildings are well away from our house. We are preparing our property as best as we can.  We are putting the farm equipment in our fire reserve and moving any essential stuff to the house cellar.  On Friday we had a digger come and excavate a hole in the bank for us to put up a car port by the house.  The pile of earth at the side is actually a welcome fire barrier.  I have given up caring about aesthetics!

 We are not sure what to do with the gas tanks.  They are prone to explode in extreme heat and go off like bombs.  I feel that they should be thrown into the dam but Edd says this is impractical.  Luckily the gas tank for our house is in a pit behind the house roof but we have tanks for the donga and dairy that are actually close to the hay shed which is not a good look!

In the last fires we got all our animals into our fire reserve and they survived OK, so we plan to do the same again.  The wild animals are more at risk and there are fears that rare species could be wiped out completely.  I suppose the same applies for flora.  It will be a long time before the full effects of this calamity can be assessed