Bush fire season

As you may have heard we are having a horrific bush-fire season. There are still many big fires burning down the East coast of the country. We have been in drought for so long that the ground is extremely dry and with low humidity, high winds etc. it was a disaster waiting to happen. We get regular bush fires but this year they have been the worst on record. Our fire alerts are from Low through to Catastrophic, and this is the first year ever that the catastrophic signs have been used. We have had help from interstate firefighting teams but also teams from NZ and USA. 

We are in a period of relative calm at the moment but next week is predicted to be the start of another cycle.  So far we have lost about 700 homes, with unfortunately 6 deaths, and it has burnt out nearly 2 million hectares. We have been on the fringe of one of the largest fires in NSW and have been living in a smoke cloud for weeks. The winds have been fickle, blowing one way and then another, but because of our topography the smoke doesn’t clear to the West over the mountains. There is also the constant drone of aircraft somewhere above us in the smoke as the firefighting planes, large and small, return to refuel or pick up fire retardant.

Unfortunately we are now discovering that a lot of these fires were originally deliberately started.

 

A lot of our time is spent in the garden trying to keep everything alive in these very dry times. Despite water restrictions we manage, using water stored when it does occasionally rain.

Along the ridge line.

 Somewhere at the end of the street there are a range of hills.

 Another flareup.

Thank goodness for our Rural Fire Service and all their heroic fire fighters.