For those who may not have seen a town destroyed by fire, It's a hell of a thing ..........
Over 100 homes lost in this fire, plus 4 Fire fighters injured with the loss of one fire truck, so far.
At last report, the fire is now with-in 1.5km of Harvey, although slowed in pace, it still poses a threat, plus dry thunder storms are expected to come this afternoon, they just can't win down in the South West.
When we were in Tassie, 2012/13 - the fires down there wreaked havoc on the small community of Dunally - with only one in four houses surviving the fires that also burnt down the bakery, the sawmill, and severely damaged the local shop. The fish and chip shop on the wharf was still going, as was the pub, with camping out the back.
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jules "Love is good for the human being!!" (Ben, aged 10)
That's a bit like us when we went all the way up to Onslow, up on the N/W coast, when we arrived we found that the IGA supermarket had burnt down, this incorporated the Bakery and Butcher shop,
The only food stuffs available in Onslow was all frozen, incl bread, meat, and only canned milk, the bread had an expiry date long passed, and the meat was something to make you turn into a Vegetarian.
All the supplies for town were being sold from the local GYM, sitting on trestle tables, but they did have a freezer there.
I suppose when the only store in town burns down, you have to make do with what you have.
Wow .....thats devastation at its best...... Or worst.....
Thanks for the pics KJ......... May we ask how you got them......... I would have thought access would be limited at this time?
-- Edited by Bushpie on Saturday 9th of January 2016 12:53:11 PM
G'day Bushpie, Yes access to the town is restricted to most, except for emergency services,
Some of the Photos were taken from the Web, some were supplied from friends who are still in the Brigade,
I'm to old to tackle fires any longer but, here I was thinking Yesterday, "Is there something I could do to help" I asked the Daughter who was in the Brigade at the same time as myself, She said, the best thing I could was,....... "Keep out of the Bloody way" "nice"
Flamin kids !!!!
K.J.
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From Coast to Coast, We'll see it all.......One Day
The worst is hearing looters are looking over to thieve gear from the devastated people. Maybe time to deal with them and secure the areas even if it means using the army as the police are otherwise occupied saving people
the loss of property and native bush is bad, but the loss of 2-3 people is terrible.
Given that rural bush fires throughout Australia seem to be coming more frequent, perhaps some govt authority (perhaps the local police or shire) can be charged with setting up a system whereby older, solo or vulnerable people are checked by nominated people (not just one who could be out of town or also at imminent fire risk and busy saving their own life) to ensure they are not going to be in harms way. Kind of like a fire neighbourhood watch. Obviously it wont work if the fire is very sudden, but even with Yarloo, they had sufficient advance notice that the fire was heading in their direction, that this kind of simple system MAY have made a difference.
This is not a criticism of the people of Yarloo, but just a positive idea of something that could be trialed to see if it avoids such tragedies elsewhere in the future.
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
the loss of property and native bush is bad, but the loss of 2-3 people is terrible.
Given that rural bush fires throughout Australia seem to be coming more frequent, perhaps some govt authority (perhaps the local police or shire) can be charged with setting up a system whereby older, solo or vulnerable people are checked by nominated people (not just one who could be out of town or also at imminent fire risk and busy saving their own life) to ensure they are not going to be in harms way. Kind of like a fire neighbourhood watch. Obviously it wont work if the fire is very sudden, but even with Yarloo, they had sufficient advance notice that the fire was heading in their direction, that this kind of simple system MAY have made a difference.
This is not a criticism of the people of Yarloo, but just a positive idea of something that could be trialed to see if it avoids such tragedies elsewhere in the future.
That's a good "Positive" thought there Bruce , I think It should be looked at and implemented straight away,
I think the big factor would be time involved, in most cases, people are more concerned with their own circumstances, to be worrying about others, but there should be some group, un-involved in the emergency other than to look after those who are invalid or too old to help themselves,
Come to think of it, What's happened to the Salvo's ??? haven't heard about them getting involved in any disaster lately, did hear them crying poverty just before Christmas, when their stocks of food supplies were getting low, but nothing about supplying meals to the fire-fighters, maybe they could be charged with looking after old people in these disasters,????
K.J.
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From Coast to Coast, We'll see it all.......One Day
That's a "positive" idea Jim LOL - some mutal back patting....
Hadnt thought of these organisations, but there must be someone or some Body that can do this.........the biggest problem of course will be like these fires where the power and phone lines went down so people based outside of the affected area maybe quite useless.
Every town has its local police, voluntary ambos, often silverchain nurses (who would probably know which people are vulnerable) and senior shire staff. I'm sure there are other local people like this who can be charged with just checking the welfare of only ONE other person than themselves and their own families.
At least the State govts should have a look at the idea - in a "positive" way of course - and decide if it would work or not, rather than just waiting for these terrible outcomes.
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
I think all of the local government folks and police will be already tied up with emergency duties - Also in the case of some areas the LGA could be many hours away from where the fire is.
I personally believe that for large blocks (2ha and above) firebreaks should be much larger - remember in the fires a couple of years ago that the only home saved in one area was one where the owner had been sued by the council for too large a clearing! The absolute minimum should be the current requirement. I'm actually surprised that the insurance guys are not insisting on this. Unfortunately the environmetalists have pared back firebreaks to what I reckon is less than the minimum.
G'day Cadpete, It's all very well saying increase the size of the Fire Breaks but, When there is a 60kmh wind blowing behind a fire front, there will be an ember attacks and spot overs happening up to and beyond a distance of 1/2 km.
One would need to have a mighty big, fully cleared block, to feel safe in this sort of situation .
I've seen this happen while fighting bush fires, you think you have stopped the fire, until you turn around and see smoke rising well behind you, Blood annoying and frighting as well.
It seems that there was a lack of communication in this fire, they are blaming the break down of phone services and power as the cause, and finally the water running out, because of power failure the pumps to the town water supply failed.
It's hard to say what the actual reason is, it's too late now for many people, maybe in the future there may be some system put in place that will work, lets hope so, and real quick as well.
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From Coast to Coast, We'll see it all.......One Day
Fair comment Kiwijim, your knowledge is much better than mine. I work in the town planning area and the latest requirements restrict clearing to only a small area around the building envelope, basically a 20m square where you can actually build and clear, a further 20m area of 'hazard reduction' area and then cannot touch the rest of your block!
Cadpete - being in town planning, maybe you can tell us why each council has its own idea of future fire mitigation.
In the City of Wanneroo (Perth, WA) they have many large bush fires - the last one was finally put out about a week ago after burning about 900 H of national park and threatening a local town.
But we recently looked in an area not so far from there (that also had a smaller bush fire 2 weeks ago that came very close to a big block of houses). The developer was selling life style blocks of 2H upwards to 10H. It had a number of covenants on it, which included a council one prohibiting any clearing of the flora on any of the blocks. The area had been cleared years ago by a farmer and all the green stuff was secondary re-growth - but lots of very dry grass trees and other dry native re-growth.
The council also stipulated where on the block (and what size) the house and any sheds were to be placed. The block we were interested in had the house to be built close to one of its boundaries, so it would have been sitting on the edge of the mandatory firebreak.
We weren't happy about the fire risk (nor the look) of the scruffy bush we were not allowed to cut down at all.
Any idea why a council would do this? Aside from the aesthetics, we were put off by what we considered a serious fire risk.........
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
short answer - I wish I knew! I'm a draughtsman at work so don't get involved in planning issues as such.
I suspect that a lot of it stems from the environmental groups 'protecting' the bush and wanting to minimise the impact of housing in 'rural' areas. also Barnett has stated that he wants to have something like 10-15% of WA as natural bush - why?. As I said to Kiwijims - the restrictions deter people from wanting the bush lifestyle by basically giving you less control of your block than if you were in the middle of suburbia
Oh we are bad, very bad then!!
We burn our bush every winter, The front half of the 5 acres is basically cleared with planted trees. What grass there is kept very short or is non existant. Our fire breaks are 4 metres (council regs 3.5 metres with clear driving height of 3.6 metres.. so fire trucks don't wipe out their aerials) and are kept scarified all year...heaven help anything that dares grow on it!! The back half of the block is bush that we burn every winter and hopefully by next fires season will be a bare paddock apart from trees. We are working on that, have about 1/3rd done. The neighbours over the back haven't ploughed their fire break and have 5 acres of scrub that has never been burnt so has a good fire load, one side neighbour has his firebreak done but again has about 4.5 acres of bush that has not been burnt ever. The other side neighbour has a 4 metre firebreak done by us and his block is grass which we slash where we can then over the road are more 5 acre bush blocks with a token firebreak of one small plough width. Our fire plan is "get the hell out" at the first sign of a fire getting too close. ( have seen bush fires and embers fires and don't want to go there again!!) . Our council say it is an insurance requirement that building area has buffer zone with no overhanging trees over buildings and any trees in buffer zone must have 2 metre clearance under them ( so if their is a grass fire the tree leaves wont catch fire..conveniently forgetting that there is just as much danger that the fire will run up the tree trunk and ignite the tree tops. Any fire break that is not on your boundary has to approved by council for insurance purposes. We have a deviation firebreak as our circular driveway as we did not want to remove all the trees the previous owner planted on the front boundary. We have a massive big Ficus that the previous owner planted 20 years ago, over the years extended the house so it now over hangs the house. Beautiful tree and very shady and the birds love it, the roots go off looking for water, had to replace drains that were blocked when we bought here from the roots so it has to go this winter which is the deadline given by council. Our council fly over once a year "inspecting fire breaks from the air" and only physically check from the ground if someone complains to them or asks for advice. (we asked for advice about using the driveway as a firebreak). I guess they use google earth and can check from their office as well.
Hi Sufil, you mean that crunchy stuff on the ground is grass??!! Hahaha!
Good feedback, we know how prepared you are, we were ready to go with five minutes notice when fire was burning at Woodridge, thanks to your vigilance. Luckily, we all did not have to leave, as the fire didn't get that close.
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jules "Love is good for the human being!!" (Ben, aged 10)
