Fire Update 8pm 23.10.13
Still here, bum unsinged but completely knackered.
What was feared to be a truly catastrophic day turned out a lot better than feared. It was still bad but it could have been so much worse.
New fires have broken out just outside of Newcastle, a city north of Sydney, the fire further down the mountains flared up again and another two are giving firefighters a hard time getting them under control.
The fireline of the State Mines fire that I'm so bloody close to mostly behaved due to both lucky rain last night and tireless work by our wonderful volunteers. The damp ground from the rain kept it less active in the morning and gave them a chance to do further burn back and suppression work. A part of the fire about 2km south of me gave us a bit of a scare in the early afternoon and is still unstable, but the immediate threat has eased. I spent most of today hosing down the house and ground around the yard and the empty place next door, clearing dry, left over autumn leaves that kept getting blown in from the same property and spotting things to do to make the house and yard more prepared - there's always something - and realising that the terrible air quality over the past few days has taken more of a toll on my lung function than I'd realised.
Add to this an award winning bout of passive aggressive behaviour from an emotionally burnt out teenaged son, and I'm ready to drop.
I'm hoping I get a decent sleep tonight as my reserves are teetering around empty.
A good sleep would go a long way, as we have possibly another two days of high risk weather predicted.
Still here though, and the house and yard are a bit more prepared so not complaining too much - it could be a lot worse than it is.
The RFS is now reported as saying that the results of their investigation into our fire shows that it was started by a military explosive device at the local ordnance range.
I'm a bit puzzled by this as when the fire first started, local news reports stated concerns as to what would happen when the fire reached the range. I'm waiting on a report with a bit more detail to see if it was misreported either on the day the fire started or on the recent report I heard. It could have been that a mortar was shot off the range into bushland by mistake, or it could be that the RFS were misquoted and they'd said that the fire passing through the range really kicked it off.
I'll see what the more detailed reports say.
What was feared to be a truly catastrophic day turned out a lot better than feared. It was still bad but it could have been so much worse.
New fires have broken out just outside of Newcastle, a city north of Sydney, the fire further down the mountains flared up again and another two are giving firefighters a hard time getting them under control.
The fireline of the State Mines fire that I'm so bloody close to mostly behaved due to both lucky rain last night and tireless work by our wonderful volunteers. The damp ground from the rain kept it less active in the morning and gave them a chance to do further burn back and suppression work. A part of the fire about 2km south of me gave us a bit of a scare in the early afternoon and is still unstable, but the immediate threat has eased. I spent most of today hosing down the house and ground around the yard and the empty place next door, clearing dry, left over autumn leaves that kept getting blown in from the same property and spotting things to do to make the house and yard more prepared - there's always something - and realising that the terrible air quality over the past few days has taken more of a toll on my lung function than I'd realised.
Add to this an award winning bout of passive aggressive behaviour from an emotionally burnt out teenaged son, and I'm ready to drop.
I'm hoping I get a decent sleep tonight as my reserves are teetering around empty.
A good sleep would go a long way, as we have possibly another two days of high risk weather predicted.
Still here though, and the house and yard are a bit more prepared so not complaining too much - it could be a lot worse than it is.
The RFS is now reported as saying that the results of their investigation into our fire shows that it was started by a military explosive device at the local ordnance range.
I'm a bit puzzled by this as when the fire first started, local news reports stated concerns as to what would happen when the fire reached the range. I'm waiting on a report with a bit more detail to see if it was misreported either on the day the fire started or on the recent report I heard. It could have been that a mortar was shot off the range into bushland by mistake, or it could be that the RFS were misquoted and they'd said that the fire passing through the range really kicked it off.
I'll see what the more detailed reports say.