Bush Fires

As I write this my state of New South Wales is ablaze. 100's of 1000's of 1,000,000's of hectares of bushland and farmland has been burnt and many more are threatened.

Each summer in Australia we have what we call our 'bush fire season'. Every Australian, just about, shudders every time we hear that a fire has started somewhere as the cost to us is usually part of a National Park and the wild life that resides there. Thanks to our wonderful volunteer & professional firemen & woman we don't often hear about loss of life or property or if we do it is because of their massive efforts and experience that the loss is kept to a minimum.

This year however is one of those years where the conditions have come together to form a very frightening difference and the loss of life is a very real possibility.

We have had record high temperatures, hot dry winds blowing in off the desert, plenty of rain over the prior summer and winter and a complacent Governments who prefer to 'see how it goes' rather than prevent it altogether. All of this has combined to form 'catastrophic' conditions for the first time in over 10 years. Fire Storms.

Last night when I went to bed there were 141 individual fires burning across the state, 45 of those were out of control and 5 were heading toward settlements.

There were some that were deliberately lit and while I know in my heart of hearts that they are usually young kids I just want to make them sit there and watch their house burn to the ground so they can know the full force of what they have done, then jail them for life. I don't care if they are young and made a stupid mistake, these types of fires are all consuming rivers of heat and smoke. I cant describe the fear of being in one of these fires, all I can say is that it is with you for life and every time there is another fire it brings it all back.

In 1994 I watched a fire racing up the ridge in front of my parents home in the southern suburbs of Sydney. As the fire approached my father was up on the roof with a hose, hosing down both his and the neighbour's houses, the smoke was so thick and black that we couldn't see him. We could hear houses over on the ridge exploding in the heat and we could smell the chemicals in the air from plastic & metal burning. The fire had jumped a river as if it were a stepping stone and had raced up the ravine in seconds. The fire brigade had to drive about 10 kms to come around to face it.

People were driving past our place with the paint blistered on the bonnet, roof and boot of their cars, pets and children tangled up together with their meagre possessions, fear stamped into their faces.

Ash started to rain down on us and we could finally see the flames 30 – 40 feet high, throwing themselves from tree top to tree top. The HEAT. Indescribable heat came at us in waves and then the smoke, thick, black.

Dad was telling us to get inside as he could see that it was heading toward us, then miraculously, the wind changed. A southerly change came through and blew the fire back on itself and in moments the flames were gone.

We lost 1 person from our community and 80 homes that day. Every person that was outside and nearby lost every hair on their body (unless you had a cap or hat) and there were quite a few who had smoke inhalation or burns.

I know that most Aussies are praying that our exhausted fire fighters are able to get these new fires under control now because there is another heat wave coming tomorrow.