Thread: Road to recovery after the fires

Hi been helping at my sisters new house in Kinglake. My job is to put down the decking, knees suffering badly, but getting there slowly. A lot of work is going on trees getting cleared and new homes springing up all over. Sadly some only have a small memorial, cross or a bunch of flowers and quite a few are up for sale.

We were lucky I used to be a member of the CFA not too far from Kinglake (Had to retire from injury on the job ). and was listening to the CFA radio on the day. I new the area and was able to update them as to what was going on and then tell them get out NOW!

They got out just in time and managed to save a family stranded after a head on collision during the panic.

My concearn is the lack of action by the authorities for the upcoming fire season, by this I do not mean the Vol's. There are areas around Melbourne that are still totally over grown with very high fuel loads, (The Dandenongs, Nt Warrendite etc.) limited access, narrow roads, no reticulated water.

Think a big effort should have been made to at least start reducing the amount of flammable material on the road sides as well as designated refuges. A new warning systm via the telephone and a new systm to tell us how bad the day is going to be is not going to help when a fire starts half a klm down the road and travels at speed towards a populated area.

Put the sirens back on the fire Stations ??
Clean up the National Parks, we all love the bush but??

What if your camping in a remote spot with no mobile reception?? Some would recognise the danger and leave, many might not!

My Sister and her family were very lucky they got out just in time The townships of St Andrews, Strathewan Arthurs Creek Kinglake Flowerdale and many more had little or no warning.

Hope we can learn from this and make some changes unlike all of the past inquiries that are forgotten a few years later.

Andrew

Originally Posted by austastar

We were camped in at Liffey falls (N. Tas), warm weather and dry, down a long, very narrow dirt road.
Knowing there were bush fires around, I was quite wary, and when smoke was quite evident (smell and sight) we scampered out of there asap.
Once up on the main road we had a choice of direction, and seeing no immediate threat headed South towards home.
It turned out that the smoke was from fires around Bridgewater (S Tas), nearly 200km away, but I wasn't happy at the end of a narrow road with only one way out.
cheers

Went in there to camp one night, after a walk around and looking at the size of some of the trees and the downers (fallen trees), I decided to head down into Delaraine.
cheers
blaze