Tuesday:
Well we still have a house, and are all safe.
We stayed up most of the night on Saturday monitoring the bushfire situation, early Sunday morning they downgraded the danger rating so we relaxed a bit. But by lunchtime the wind picked up again and the danger rating was put back up to emergency. The air was full of smoke and floating ash. The fire front reached the point that I had decided would be when we abandon ship (ie house) so we grabbed out bags and went. Several houses of family members living nearby evacuated at the same time - in fact we used our second car to help get them all to safety.
We went to a big shopping centre a few suburbs away, watched a movie (Ready Player One, which we enjoyed) then shared dinner and a hotel with brother-in-law's family (kind of had to stay together, with Ping's parents staying with them they didn't all fit in one car). All the local hotels were full, we had to go further towards the city to get rooms. I was very tired after the previous sleepless night and slept like the proverbial log.
In the morning the fire danger rating had been downgraded again, although the fire kept growing. Every time we checked the website the coloured-in area on the map was a bit bigger. The firefighters were still keeping it away from houses, but it was creeping south through more bushland. At breakfast I rang the dentist to check they were closed as the kids had appointments and was stunned to find they had reopened (after being closed on the weekend) - they are a couple of blocks closer to the firefront than our house - and we were quite a long way away so it was a mad rush and we were very late but they saw us anyway. The sky was amazingly clear, our house was still there, everything looked great.
By Monday afternoon (none of our people went to work) it was smoky again, fire still growing, but we were not in any immediate danger. Slept ok last night. There are burned leaves in the backyard, floated here from the fire, so we still need to be vigilant. Tim has gone to work today, we are hoping for rain. Still have bags packed and waiting by the door.
Hi Natalie, so glad you are all ok so far. We live in Southern Spain, and although we don't get fires like yours in Australia, we've seen a few locally during the summer and they are scary. They are usually due to negligence and the police are very strict on the perpetrators. We live in the mountains on the coast and have had helicopters and planes filling up with sea water to dump on the fires. Please take care, and here's wishing your adventure is soon over safely!
ReplyDeleteThanks Arismum, we’ve had the helicopters and planes back and forth too dumping water, I think from a river nearby. Very glad to have them! The police say this fire was deliberately lit, unbelievable that people would do that but they do. Hopefully they get caught. We’ve been very lucky this time, no loss of life and not much property damage, but more than 3000 hectares of bush land with wildlife gone.
DeleteI'm glad to hear that you're all okay. Such a terrible situation. I hope you get lots of rain to help with this situation. Stay safe!
ReplyDeleteNo rain yet 🙁 but the fire is still under control.
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