Fires

[j.sabourn]

Lewis have you ever seen a bush fire. ? The normal practice out here is to cut off the fuel supply which by local laws means cutting fire breaks around bush property’s. The wind direction and force controls most fires and jumping these fire breaks is not too hard a job in any adverse weather conditions. If you could cut a break about 50 miles across you might feel reasonably safe but even then I would have the car loaded up ready to exit through a planned escape route. Most swimming pools would soon dry up unless of Olympic proportions sprinklers a lot have, but depending on the ferocity and weather conditions is more often easier said than done. It is a job for man power and people who understand the problems. As I write this outside my front window about 8 vehicles of the bush fire brigade are amassed outside on the park, checking all their gear, these are unpaid volunteers so they must be expecting the weather conditions over the next week to be conducive to bush fires. Cheers JWS.

[Lewis McColl]

Yes John, I have seen forest/campo fires when I lived I Spain the next town to us was Javea and they had terrible fires last year and the year before. In Spain the bomberos are a very well admired group and like in Australia a lot are volunteers.
They will use Choppers and if they want to they will hover over your swimming drop a bag down and empty your pool and off they go.
My point was even if by utilising your pool and recovering the water it just might be enough to save your property. I well understand he use of firebreaks but as you say how wide do you make them.

https://youtu.be/GGOdnteO8Fc These planes are just the small ones they have others a lot bigger. These guys can sure as hell get into some very dangerous terrain , sadly they lost a couple last year, brave guys.

https://youtu.be/XdsVvlVLsLw

[Red Lead Ted]

Thank the lord there where no fatalities, I watched an interesting report that drones where used to get a bigger insight into the collateral damage and search for people who may have been trapped. Now that is what i call putting modern technology to very good use. Terry.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi All.
Fires are mostly out now some rain there but the heavy rain missed Tathra. I don't know how I would cope if we lost everything at this late stage of our lives, so feel for the Oldies there. In a nice world the State Govt would pend the $5 billion they are going to spend on a stadium for rugby league on rebuilding that town, and then recovering some of the cost from those with insurance.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

The biggest danger here with bush fires is the gum trees. They are full of eucalyptus oil and when hot they explode.
Burning embers can be carried by the wind for a couple of KLMs, and that is one of the main problems, the second is that the fires create their own wind force.

No loss of life which is a blessing but with the Victoria fires some 500 head of milking cattle died along with 3,000 sheep. there would also be a great number of wild animals that would have perished.

Last count 45 houses and 60 sheds all gone, many of them would be milking sheds or hay barns with winter feed stored.