We still have a house

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.

Bushfire!

Saturday:

We’re all packed and ready in case we have to evacuate. There is a bushfire nearby and blowing this way. We can see a red glow in the sky (it’s 9:30 at night) and the air is full of smoke.

We went out to have a swim this afternoon - probably our last swim for the season as the weather is set to cool a bit next week - and we could see a huge plume of smoke turning the sun blood red. It was a hot day and very windy - the wind so strong it ripped the safety instruction poster off our fence. The edge of the fire was 9 km away from us at that stage. A friend of Jasmine's living in that direction didn’t evacuate when advised to and was then told it was too late to leave, the roads were closed. The fire is now 1 km away, but on the other side of the suburb, it would have to burn through a lot of houses and the shopping centre to get to us. We’ve been told to wait and watch, for the moment. I suppose they don’t evacuate people unless they have to, the roads would get very clogged. I think we’ll be safe here. Not sure when I’ll go to bed though.