Australia's Science Forum

I do hope everyone is safe, my heart goes out to you all. Please stay safe all of you.

Ditto. Feel so sorry for all that have lost property and stock, as well as our native animals.

Praying for rain for those areas - someone on the news last night said they would need 150mm to put the fires out. Poor things need a break, they've been fighting fires on the north coast since July.
Also a good time for anyone in a fire prone zone or living near to one to have your fire plan ready. We have one - grab stuff and run. Won't be sticking around to try and fight a raging inferno with a garden house on our house pump.

Not good here . We had 40 houses destroyed over the weekend around our school . Tomorrow our valley is likely to be evacuated ...one of our teachers has been advised that tomorrow he has to evacuate ..the power will be disconnected from that area .

Merilyn1 wrote: ↑11 Nov 2019, 10:29 Won't be sticking around to try and fight a raging inferno with a garden house on our house pump.

No power no pump .

We will decide at the end of the day whether the school will be open tomorrow .

My house is in another area but there is only 15-20km of state forest between the fire front here and home .All our memories and papers are packed in my van waiting the orders should it happen.

Oh bigmack - that's dreadful.... Stay safe and good luck! To you and everyone else

oh bigmack my thoughts and prays are with you all. Do take care.

15km is not far so you have taken the wise move of being ready to go. Keep us posted. Do pray that you, your school and everyone involved is kept safe.
Yes, no power, no water and we've never bothered with a generator. Our water tank is big enough to fight off much anyway.
Illawarra and Shoalhaven areas have also now been increased to a catastrophic level for tomorrow. Thankfully at this stage there are no fires burning but will only take one idiot...

Thankyou all for your blessings and I offer mine to you Merilyn and all others out there tomorrow . May the idiots chose wisely....we have enough danger already .

Incidentally the Pump down by my dam just failed a few weeks ago and I've been using a spare to water the garden but it doesn't have enough pressure to squirt water . Just tried to ring around and see if I can get another .
Every pump shop is sold out

Sending prayers for rain and thinking of all that is affected by these devastating fires.

Thinking of you all in the affected areas - praying that you stay safe!

Keen to hear how the day went for you Bigmack?

We wet the place down in the morning and evacuated to Coffs Harbour as recommended by the RFS.
The smoke in Coffs was chokingly thick in the morning but by lunchtime the wind was blowing offshore so it not so bad . We managed to get a tiny air-conditioned dogbox at a camping ground so we were lucky to find a place that would take us , our dog and two cats which didn't cope very well .
By Wednesday we decided to return home and it was all OK .
Apparently the strong winds from the west didn't happen and thankfully we were lucky this time .

It was an interesting exercise to see how much time it took to find things like insurance papers etc ...they weren't where we thought they were and had we no time to pack , goodness knows what might have happened .
Knowing we only had My van and my wife's car which basically took all the Pets and there food , it was difficult to decide what really mattered and what we could say good bye to should the worst happen .

Luckily no lives were lost here this round , but this is only the start of what will be a long hot and scary fire season . My concern is that when it happens again , folk will be more likely to not evacuate as many thought it was a waste of time .

Glad to hear all was ok for you. I assume insurance papers are all online now. We've once had to evacuate in a hurry and in the end it was family and pets that mattered. Of course our cat was no where to be found so had to hope for the best for her. (All was good - fire was water bombed about 50m from our house).
I know what you mean about people becoming complacent. It did not turn out to be any where near as bad as predicted here in the Illawarra. I've heard people complaining about the danger being over-stated. There is certainly the worry that next time they will dismiss warnings altogether. Apparently it was 1968 when the escarpment last went up. One day it's going to happen and I am sure not looking forward to it. Very scary indeed.

Good to have you back Bigmack.

Good to hear you were okay, Bigmack. Poor moggies, they really don't like change. I live in a pretty dry part of the world and have had a few close calls with fires. We now have things always half ready to go - computer backups, irreplaceable items live in a suitcase near the door. Who would have thought that the north coast people would ever have to start thinking like that?

I get concerned by people's attitude too, Kathryn. Will the complacency get worse? I heard a couple of things yesterday that made me think people were not really aware of the seriousness of Tuesday, who knows what they'll be like next time!

So here I am with another day of college closure. This time due to the fires in Burragorang Valley which are now around Oakdale and Werombi. The RFS recommended the college be closed today - so no one at all on site. At this stage the winds are favourable for us (both work and home) and the forecast doesn't look too sinister. I do feel for the people to the north of us who are really impacted by this fire. I could see the smoke and orange glow on the horizon last night (about 30km from home) - at times it was looking very angry.
Hope anyone who is affected by any of the fires again is able to stay safe.

Yes please stay safe.