I was wondering if any of you live near any of the fire areas and how you are doing. Hope all is well
with you and your friends and families.
I don’t live in a fire-prone region anymore, but have a son with his young family who have the car packed and ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. No fires there at the moment, but it’s just a matter of time. The country is as dry as a chip, and the hottest weather is yet to come.
I live in Central Victoria - about 200km west of the fire area in Eastern Vic. There’s been a definite smoke haze for the last few weeks, but other than that, no. I imagine that people with respiratory problems locally may be having trouble. As I live in the middle of a fair-sized town, I’m not terribly worried, but I do keep an eye on the vacant area just past my fence. Dry grass, and some fair-sized gum trees that might fall on my property if there were a fire there.
There had been a bushfire not far north of town, but they jumped on it pretty quick.
Pretty much the same for family in Canberra and Wagga Wagga.
If you’re interested in the current, updated state of fires in Australia, have a look at the Victorian state emergency page and the NSW Rural Fire Services info page.
As kambuckta says, the whole area is dry as can be, and fire weather started much earlier in the season than normal.
A group of Uni students from my church (not including any people in my immediate friend circle, but including some kids-of-friends) spent the night split between the cinema and the beach at Mallacoota surrounded by firetrucks. Some of them got in the paper. They were later evacuated by the Navy. So that was a thing. One of the young blokes quoted in that article is the son of a minister in the church who stayed on to help with cleanup (and probably did a lot of good, because he’s a top bloke and listening and being useful are two of his standout skills.
My husband grew up 5k out of Orbost, which is basically smack in the middle of the evacuation area. They’ve all moved out now, including the parents, but my MIL keeps in touch with heaps of people still. So far, no reports of any of our connections having lost homes/stock/lives, as yet.
My BIL is a CFA volunteer, but a) not in the affected area and b) he’s on a big holiday in WA this year and not due back for another two weeks (by which time, who knows - unlikely that there won’t be any fires after that point)
It’s smoky AF here in Melbourne, and the doors of the Maths Building where I’ve been working are being kept shut for the first time I’ve known, with a big sign saying please don’t leave them open because of the air quality
That’s about it! Two months of summer left to go…
Nothing major.
My daughter had to change her travel plans over Christmas. She was staying with her MIL, and they got evacuated, and the road up to Sydney was closed so she had to go the long way round. MIL is back in her home now, and luckily the fires didn’t reach it.
At work (child care centre), we have sometimes had to keep the children indoors all day (not fun!) when the air quality was particularly bad. One child was hospitalised due to breathing difficulties. A lot of our staff drive down from the Central Coast, and they are stressing every day that the one road home will get closed by fire, but it hasn’t happened yet.
I’m safe in the middle of the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Though there are a few parks that aren’t too far away, it’s unlikely they’d be a fire risk that couldn’t be doused quickly without serious incident. The only thing I’ve had to deal with is the acrid smoky haze.
But as noted, we are only just entering what is typically the bushfire season, so it’s not over yet. It’s basically so unprecedented it’s impossible to predict what might happen.
Inner Sydney based, so there is nothing within 50kms.
Smoke haze has been awful, worse than 3rd world. Before Christmas it was sufficient to set the smoke alarms at work off three times in a day. Visibility got down to less than 200m. The forecast is for moderate rain over the next 4-5 days which might be the break the firies need in many areas.
Have a number of school colleagues based on the NSW south and mid-north coast most of whom have been at “watch & act” at some stage, two were at “emergency” and one at “too late to leave” but with good preparation and a wind change wasn’t badly affected. They took a photo from their front porch @4:30pm and the camera wanted the flash it was pitch black.
The rest of the family are in north central Victoria and have not been affected. But Victoria and South Australia only needs three consecutive days of 40+ to become a tinderbox in any summer and there are is probably two months more of high risk with limited prospect of relief.
About 11m hectares have been burned so far (27m acres) which is more than the area of Kentucky, Tennessee or Virginia.
The area that’s been burnt out is about the size of Ireland , so, from a distance, you might think that it was like burning out Ireland. It’s not. A great deal of it was national forest, and most of the rest is sparsely populated compared to most of the contiguous USA.
The fires in NSW and Queensland have been burning for a long time. That is characteristic of fires in NSW and Queensland. These are very large fires, and happening very early in summer, which is because the area is very dry, and hasn’t burnt for a long time. Because the fires are so big, they are affecting a lot of people at the same time, and the shear quantity of casualties and burned out homes is large and people affected. Also the shear quantity of smoke. But apart from that, it’s just summer as normal.
I’ve done damping out in the past: I’ve had friends burned out in the past. I’ve watched the fires come up the gorge in the past. I know people in the fire crews. Having a hundred out of control fires all at once is very much like having a hundred out of control fires one at a time.
We do get big fires in the Northern Territory, but they don’t blow smoke across Melbourne and Sydney, and they don’t even make the press around here. And even these fires would be getting less press if (a) there was anything else going on (there is a reason why this time of year is called the ‘silly season’ in the media), and (b) it wasn’t affecting so many people who are on holiday.
add: in no way are these fires “unprecedented”. “Very Big” is not “unprecedented”, and so far nothing has happened that has been unpredictably in an unusual way.