A very tense day just past with fires breaking out all around the valley. With no mobile phone coverage here therefore no direct alerts, I was woken by loud shouting and vehicle movement on a neighbouring property at 3 am.
Then I saw a tree light up like a roman candle on the cliffs to my north. Then the phone started ringing with neighbours deciding what to do, leave or stay.
I got into action, filling containers and buckets with water. Sweeping up dried leaves and packing a bag with water, food and the essentials.
The Rural Fire Brigade arrived at 11. They inspected the 3 water tanks for their outlets, luckily the tanks are fill. Marked my neighbour ( Joe) and my frontage so other firies know we are staying to defend as long as possible.
My escape route is to Chris’s large flat open space where we have agreed to meet if the time arrives to abandon our homes.
A huge thank you to Chris Carson, NP worker, who is my next neighbour and keeps me informed of the fire’s progress.
Tuesday is going to be the next high danger alert day which extends from the Queensland to Victoria.
Who ever thought 20 years ago when our valley regularly got 2 and a half metres of rain annually to see now less than half that rain. To watch the forest dry out and to have to endure the politicians who still deny climate change as a reality.
Oh you darling Don I am so glad you have a good plan which include leaving. You are a treasure to the Valley.
We are at the top of the road, right up high against Nightcap NP as you know. We fled 3am Saturday morning when the whole sky was red.
We came back 10am to find the RFS had back burnt all our forest. Wonderful as we are now much lower fire load, terrible in that 5 years of bush regen went up in smoke. Irreplaceable as we are not having the rain tp grow those trees anymore.Very many trees and boulders falling down. Wont be safe to even walk those steep slopes for perhaps a year. Not till a month or so after rain. I guess I will plant where I am able and I will choose more dry tolerant species. But cautious though about eucalptus as they would explode around us. Any suggestions? High dream is it will regenerate by itself.
In fact we didn’t have any wild fires on our property, only the back burning. The wild fire went down John Sandersons place so i believe.But a change of wind and it would have been a different story.
love
Mary Fox (Avinashi Saraswati) maryfox108@gmail.com phone 0421 701 949
>
LikeLike
How are you going Don?
Please keep safe.
Sending you all our thoughts
LikeLike
Sending all our love and hope for a safe days for you all tomorrow. Take care lovely. Xxx
LikeLike
Take care of yourself above all, Don….thinking of you x
LikeLike
Hi Don, thinking of you, hope you’re okay, Love Jan
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLike