I hope this is not an omen for 2023!

[JDNSW]

About 7.30pm I got a phone call from RFS - "Smoke has been reported in the forest, could you have a look and let us know what you can see?" (A thunderstorm had just passed, so fire was not entirely unexpected, although everything is still fairly damp.)

So put on boots and overalls, got binoculars and phone, and headed up the top of the hill behind the house. Track is getting a bit overgrown,and I am not as surefooted as i was last time (about three years ago).

I have a pelorus on top of the hill, and the RFS has my location, so I just give them a bearing. No smoke, although with the cloud, can't be absolutely sure. Told them I'd have another look just before dark.

Went back up to about 8.15pm, still no smoke. Called in. They had located it - some "civic minded" jackass had torched a stolen car just up a fire road off the Dubbo-Mendooran Rd. Presumably it had not spread and had died down by the time I was looking for the smoke.

[workingonit]

some "civic minded" jackass had torched a stolen car

Fires twice on our property over the years because someone wants to hide their finger prints on a stolen vehicle. Grass fires up here aren't as devastating luckily, but still require on and around our patch 6 or 7 units at least, water tender, front end loader and in recent years water bombers, plus our own efforts with tractor and quad.

Then there are the other 12 or so fires we've had over 25 years due to welding accidents on other properties, quad bike riders lighting it up again after the brigade efforts to end it, road crew heating tar, cigarette butts out of windows, other peoples burn offs in the dry that go wrong, and firecracker night.

Lived in Sutherland when a kid. We were having primary school swimming lessons at the pool by the Princes Hwy? The National Park nearby was on fire. An inferno you could not outrun was heading out of the park to the highway. You think the highway will end it. I could not simply describe it as a large fireball that only just made it over the highway, more the formation of a solid massively high bridge of burning gas connecting side to side. Then dropped back into the trees on the other side, and away. It was a spectacle!

I also got a bit of joy out of the day. The primary school reported to dad that my younger brother had not been seen since early morning.

Not to worry, as late in the afternoon he turned up home covered in ash. Dad, quite calmly, enquired as to whereabouts for the day, although obvious. Equally calmly dad administered a number of Dunlop ripple soled sand shoe shots across his bum, then rang the school to say justice had been served. Chuckle, chuckle, suffer brother!

Still in greater Sydney. An old school mate of mine, professional fire fighter (now retired), had just returned to the station for a breather after spending the day fighting a large national park fire near where he lives. Switches on the rest room tv to see a news station has taken footage of his house from a chopper, nice tight shot, siting it as an example of a property not adequately prepared for the fire season and good description of the damage?! He had me in fits when he was telling me the story. Rushes home to find the facts were was as the news had reported - all the plastic guttering on one side had melted and his aluminium dingy had a big hole in the side.

[Tins]

some "civic minded" jackass had torched a stolen car

It's bloody scary. It's hard to pick a "season" here. We haven't had a bad summer where I am for nearly a decade. This summer, so far, is looking the same. But a few days of northerlies and all that changes.

The behaviour of your "jackass" is replicated all over, and it seems that some don't care how murderous that behaviour can actually be. Others are just too stupid.





Then there are the other 12 or so fires we've had over 25 years due to welding accidents on other properties, quad bike riders lighting it up again after the brigade efforts to end it, road crew heating tar, cigarette butts out of windows, other peoples burn offs in the dry that go wrong, and firecracker night.


One warning we have here that is sometimes ignored is a TFB, Total Fire Ban. Even genuinely civic minded folk can screw up on those. One of the Black Saturday fires that was local to me was started by someone using a power tool. It is believed locally that it was a mower of some kind striking a stone. Another was deliberately lit. Words can't do that justice.


The National Park nearby was on fire. An inferno you could not outrun was heading out of the park to the highway. You think the highway will end it.



Here, you can't outrun a big one. The eucalypts 'boil off' highly flammable vapours, and a fire can jump miles. probably the most frightening sight I'll ever see. You don't outrun it and you can't fight it. The highway won't stop it. The fire that started in Kilmore that morning jumped the Hume Highway at one of it's widest points. That fire reached Kinglake almost before the warnings did.

BTW, what year was that fire in Sutherland? I can't remember if it was '73 or 74, but I had no annual leave available at Christmas and had to stay on duty at Morebank. A bunch of us were deployed to fight a big one on a big tract of Army land, part of the Holdsworthy base, that ran along the Heathcote road towards Sutherland. We didn't have a lot of luck. We were also a little nervous, as quite a bit of that land was part of the artillery live fire range, and not all artillery shells go off...

If you've got a bit of time, heres a look at what carelessness, stupidity, or just bad luck can cause:


https://youtu.be/tuYZRttpD9Y

[Tins]

I hope it's no omen as well, John. We've had enough bad news for a while, I reckon.

[Tins]

I posted a vid at post #3. I had watched it before, because it was close to home. I have just watched again and noticed a couple of naughty words. I don't apologize for this, because they seemed appropriate in context, but the Mod team may see it differently.

[workingonit]

BTW, what year was that fire in Sutherland? I can't remember if it was '73 or 74...


https://youtu.be/tuYZRttpD9Y

Would have been before '69.

[Tins]

Would have been before '69.

Ahh. I was still safe in school in Melbourne.