Last Friday we began to hear reports on the news about a fire which was burning out of control by the Pacific Highway near Karuah. Although this is not terribly close to us, about 5km across the bay but about an hour by road, Australians take news of any bushfire in the vicinity seriously especially as were have had a lengthy hot, dry spell and strong winds were forecast - perfect bushfire conditions. 

So we kept a keen ear on the news and discovered the fire was getting much bigger and heading in our general direction. The Rural Fire Service from all the surrounding towns were in attendance but were struggling to contain the fire because of the weather conditions. The most effective way to prevent a bushfire from travelling is to back burn ahead of it so there is nothing left to burn when it gets there, but the wind meant back burning was not an option.

 What they did manage to call on was this huge plane (Ian tells me it is a DC10) which dropped massive amounts of fire retardant on the flames and looks far more effective than the usual helicopters with water bags dangling underneath. 

However, the fire was still progressing and the Pacific Highway had to be closed (this is like closing the M1) as it reached the outskirts of Medowie. Now this is much closer to us, about 25km and most of it bushland, that news focused our minds and we reviewed our bushfire plan. Every household is supposed to have a plan and our plan A involves loading everything important into the caravan and heading off away from danger.  There is a flaw in this plan though because we are at the end of a narrow peninsula and, if the fire is heading towards us we would have no way of driving around it, so plan B is to put our important paperwork into a waterproof pouch, run to the end of the road and jump in the water!

Smoky sunrise from
our balcony

 The fire service give out advice on how to stay and defend your home but, as we live in a wooden house, we probably would not be taking that option. 

The fire had been raging for three days now and in the early hours of Monday morning we were woken by the smell of smoke. We peered out of the windows and it was really thick outside but coming from across the water, not down the road thank goodness! I took a photo of the sunrise from our balcony and you can see how smoky everywhere is. 

View from our front gate

The smoke cleared during the day but was visible from our front gate by the evening so we drove up to sunset point and took some pictures across the water to Karuah where it looked like a furnace was burning in the distance.
Eventually, after nearly a week of battling to save people and properties, the fire fighters were helped by rain and lots of it. At its height, the fire was 80km across, it burned 9500 hectares and, apart from a few sheds and caravans, the firefighters managed to keep it from destroying any properties. It was an astonishing effort from this brave group of volunteers.