Smoky, and not in the Sports Night sense
My view has completely disappeared in smoke from the fires in the hills east of Perth. When I woke up this morning I couldn't see the trees on the other side of the highway, now I can't even see the ones at the back of my property. My throat and eyes hurt from breathing the air in the house, the horses are standing around listless in the paddock, my plans for running and riding today seem to be out... and as far as I know the fires are still nowhere near me at all.
I was pretty surprised to learn that a certain person who had a house fire recently didn't have any smoke alarms, but here I am with no real emergency plan in my second summer here. Under what circumstances would I stay or go? How would I even know what the circumstances were? I'm at the end of a dead-end road... what if I left it too long and the access to the highway was cut off? What would I take? *Where* would I go, assuming I couldn't head for Perth? Would I try to move the horses? (Probably not, I can't think of anything worse than getting stuck towing a horse trailer in a fire.) Should I spend about $10,000 on a water tank, generator and pump for fire fighting so I don't have to rely on scheme water? Or is that a waste of money, since 4 or 5 days out of 7 I'm not even here?
Not long after I moved in, there was a bad fire about 20km away and they announced on the news that the town nearest to me should prepare to evacuate. I stood watching the smoke with a neighbour as we discussed what we'd do (mostly, we discussed the fact that we really didn't know what to do). Fortunately they got that one under control and we didn't have to make any decisions.
I know the basic fill tub, soak wool blankets, line doors and windows, water roof, turn off air conditioning, put animals in largest area possible, wear full-length natural-fibre clothes routine, but I don't know how you decide when the situation is so grave you should try to get away. In the South Australian fires last week, many of the people who were killed were the ones who were trying to escape by car - so that's not always your best option.
As soon as the current fires are out, I am going to call the local volunteer firefighting brigade and have someone help me draw up a plan. If somebody wants to nag me about this in a week or two to make sure I've done it, that would be fine.
I was pretty surprised to learn that a certain person who had a house fire recently didn't have any smoke alarms, but here I am with no real emergency plan in my second summer here. Under what circumstances would I stay or go? How would I even know what the circumstances were? I'm at the end of a dead-end road... what if I left it too long and the access to the highway was cut off? What would I take? *Where* would I go, assuming I couldn't head for Perth? Would I try to move the horses? (Probably not, I can't think of anything worse than getting stuck towing a horse trailer in a fire.) Should I spend about $10,000 on a water tank, generator and pump for fire fighting so I don't have to rely on scheme water? Or is that a waste of money, since 4 or 5 days out of 7 I'm not even here?
Not long after I moved in, there was a bad fire about 20km away and they announced on the news that the town nearest to me should prepare to evacuate. I stood watching the smoke with a neighbour as we discussed what we'd do (mostly, we discussed the fact that we really didn't know what to do). Fortunately they got that one under control and we didn't have to make any decisions.
I know the basic fill tub, soak wool blankets, line doors and windows, water roof, turn off air conditioning, put animals in largest area possible, wear full-length natural-fibre clothes routine, but I don't know how you decide when the situation is so grave you should try to get away. In the South Australian fires last week, many of the people who were killed were the ones who were trying to escape by car - so that's not always your best option.
As soon as the current fires are out, I am going to call the local volunteer firefighting brigade and have someone help me draw up a plan. If somebody wants to nag me about this in a week or two to make sure I've done it, that would be fine.