Aussie Bush Fires
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Interesting to think of the fuel load in that way - up to 50% increase in available hazard. Probably contributes to they can't do hazard reductions as often
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Looks like the Blue Mountains are done for. Gospers is currently out of control and tending towards Kurrajong Heights. The topography will have it roar up the valley and Thursday's forecast is looking dim. Maximum of 43 and winds northwesterly 25 to 40 km/h in the morning. So likely to jump the road and burn unabated until it gets to Warragamba Dam.
All the main towns along the Great Western Highway could be affected.
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@antipodean Looks pretty fucken grim and summer has just started.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Bush Fires:
Looks like the Blue Mountains are done for. Gospers is currently out of control and tending towards Kurrajong Heights. The topography will have it roar up the valley and Thursday's forecast is looking dim. Maximum of 43 and winds northwesterly 25 to 40 km/h in the morning. So likely to jump the road and burn unabated until it gets to Warragamba Dam.
All the main towns along the Great Western Highway could be affected.
Not quite done for then, Antipodean, or now.
Daughter No 2 is on the western edge of Katoomba about 1.5 kilometres from the Carrington Hotel (where my son in law managed the bottle shop for 5 or 6 years) and about 1 kilometre north of Cliff Drive near the Three Sisters. Cliff Drive is the northern edge of the Megalong Valley "Ruined Castle fire", she sits above Megalong Creek Valley offshoot. The fire front hasn't got to the ridges there yet.
The Rural Fire Brigade people have the current situation as "The fire has burnt over 9,000 hectares and is being controlled." The Blue Mountains is subject to serious fires each summer, this year is a belter, but the fire blokes have been all over it all my life. The media would do well to wind down the hysteria a good bit - every year it is supposedly unprecedented, longer, faster, higher, more threatening, saturated in cholesterol and exhibiting ADHD.
They have been on "be ready to leave pronto" footing for several weeks now. That means everyone close by all the time, a bag of valuables at the door, and a fast exit east to the CBD main street (concrete and bitumen sanctuary). They cannot contemplate a long distance dash down the Great Western Highway in either direction because it can be closed within minutes if the wind blows in the wrong direction momentarily. They tell me they would be flat out seeing 50 yards ahead anyway.
The family takes it all in their stride (two boys 20 and 17, my grandaughter 15). My daughter works in Katoomba and has a role manning central fire communications through this period. My son, the other two girls and I do a morning ring around each day and I pray for easing of the threat.
I spotted a photo in their local Rural Fire Service collection - several 30 something blokes looking serious and a water truck, could easily be Silver Ferners. Their names are noted, including Farr Gough.
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Crazy stuff, screw being caught up in that..
Australia fires: Holidaymakers flee to water as blaze hits town
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Just to bring this thread up to date a little. Today in NSW there's eight fires currently at emergency level and another
sixseven at "watch and act", all of them are out of control. We're expecting a southerly change which should push the fires to the South of Batesmans Bay towards town:
Then there's 4000 people taking shelter at the water's edge in Mallacoota:
Victoria is burning out of control to the east of Mallacoota to Bairnsdale, north to the Great Dividing Range.
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@antipodean that stuff with the tankers between the fire and the people is surreal. How some of these fireys are still upright given how long they have been fighting fires continuously is nothing short of astounding.
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@mariner4life yep, those people are true legends.
Fark those pics are just insane!!