Monday 21 October 2013

Real Life Intervening

Hey, I wanted to take some time out of our lives to give you a warning in the case that I stop being able to post anything new onto this blog.

As of, well, now, my house is stilling in an unstable place.
It’s not an earth quark or anything; it’s just that there are three fire fronts and a high possibility for them to merge as one in the Gross Valley, and whip out the ridge in which I live.
Its’ not just my house that’s it’s a Blue Mountains thing, but I know for certain that if the fire come close this house will possibly, more than likely, burn up in the blaze.
Fun for us, devastating, a little scary and life.

 I’m not sure if you can fully understand what it’s like to live in a high bush fire area. But it’s a part of summer here in Australia, only for the last 8 years it’s been absent, instead we have had massive flooding.
Which for this moment is brilliant, it means that we have plenty of water to put the fuckers out, but it also means there’s a butt load of bush trash waiting to be burnt up in this heat.

Before I continue I think I should add a picture to show you a little of what we’re facing, but I couldn’t get a snap of the site and the fires in it, so I drew a map for you—it’s really shit, but it’s basically what’s happening.
The purple is where we live, the red the fire. I’ve written the amount of hectares that have been eaten but I’m not sure if you’re able to see that.

 
Now, that area on the bottom right, is Springwood, that area has a cumulated the most damage. They have lost 195 house, in and the surrounding areas, as well as damaged 109 properties. A man even dyed in it. However, he had a heart attack but it was probably due to the high stress and smoke inhalation.

We have to thank everyone that’s helped out in that, because it’s the right thing to do, as lots of families are homeless now, with nothing to their name (well, until the checks come) as the fire seemed to more rapidly and with little warning.
I’d like to think this is the most we will lose. I’m not naive to think it’s going to be true, as Bells Line of Road (which is that purple line under the big arse red spot) is already seeing house lost, but in all the years that I can remember there was never more than one town lost to bush fires. and that mostly always happens because we aren’t prepare for what’s in front of us. And right now, since it seems to be raining over the rest of Australia, they have all leant us most of their rural fire squads.

What they are fear the most, and what they are planning for, is Wednesday, when, along with high temps we are going to be seeing 100k hr northerly winds. And I’m not smart enough to figure out where that’s going to end up pushing the fire, but from what I’m hearing, the fire-rey are waiting for all three fire fronts to end up combining into on inside the Gross Valley (which is the blank spot in the middle. This will lead to a massive fire front that they won’t be able to hold off. There just isn’t enough manpower for that, especially if it heads across to us.

Though, since this morning, when they were sure it was going to happen sooner rather than later, it’s seen that the temp hasn’t reached as high as predicted nor the wind. I’m guessing there main goal at the moment is keeping each fire as a single blaze and keeping it out of the Gross, which is a lot easier said than done, because, as I see it, if they are able to hold it as long as possible they might not fire it goes that far when the wind hits it. or maybe if it isn’t in there, it might not reach the houses until the wind dies down.

But I haven’t been listening to the news for a good hour now, so I’m not sure what’s happening either way. I’m just hopeful and thankful since all the smoke from the fires seems to have head on down towards the city, which means it’s less likely to start a new blaze from the ambers.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about this, maybe when it’s all over I’ll go into it more, tell you how it went and all that, but for now, I just wanted to give you all a heads up just in case I drop off the internet world. It’s probably just means I’ve been evacuated and that I may or may not have anything to come home to.

But, like I said (if not, here it is) bush fires are a fact of life around here. And honestly the smell of one and the threat and the heat, well, to me it’s finally summer, and we haven’t seen that in so long I was longing for this day. Even though it’s quite hot here.

Talk soon