We went to the mainland Thursday: CG, Rabqa, me. Mostly we were doing a hit & run on Koorong to pick up some teaching materials for next year but as we returned to the jetty, this is what we saw!
In 30 plus years here we have never seen a fire like this. Being subtropical we tend to be more dampish during the fire season but this year has been both hot & dry with very strong winds that have blown nearly constantly.
Poor Rabqa arrived after they closed the roads with her cat locked in at home & both she & I praying like mad he would be safe. I did feel the Lord say all was good but it was 7.30pm before they let those not in the fires immediate path through & then, much later that night, the fire came to within 150m of her place. Much excitement we could all have done without with fire crews arriving from the mainland, bulletins coming up on what to do & evacuation centres, heaps of boys in blue, the IGA staying open till past midnight just in case ofs & an extra ambulance...
And after all that the firies did a super job. No lives lost, no homes burnt. The worst was a couple of sheds incinerated. Meanwhile it wasn't affecting us at all as we are at the other end of the island, right out of harm's way, but the kids kept ringing [think they were peeved to be missing all the excitement] & I rang my mother before she saw the news & panicked. Then I rang a lady we know in a wheelchair to make sure she was ok & I counted up how many beds we could conjure up just in case we got refugees.
It burnt out of control through the night but then the wind dropped, the fire got contained & we are now more or less back to normal.
The sad part is it was probably arson. The bad fires usually are but what sort of a maniac thinks fires raging out of control burning everything in their path are fun? Meanwhile I eyed my gutters full of leaves knowing full well we have so many trees that my gutter are the least of my concerns & they never stay clear anyway. Christmas in Australia.
Okay, that makes two fires for you, one in house and one out. Scary! As you know, north and west of us in the Appalachian Mountains has had a bad time with forest fires since it was so dry all summer, but now it is raining more. And one of the worst fires that swept though Gatlinburg, Tennessee with high winds looks to have been started by two juveniles. So unbelievable! But within a day we had the first of two major rain storms that came in from the north. It rained heavily for a few days all in the fire zones and they were able to get all the fires under control.
ReplyDeleteYes, well, no 3rd! I saw the Gatlinburg fires ~ bad. We have had rain too & we just thank God it wasn't worse because getting everyone off the island would have been a nightmare!!! They were talking about it @ one stage but we nearly all have pets & most of us wouldn't have left them behind & so....
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