Panic!

Msg from Vic Police: Extreme weather in Vic expected Mon night & Tues. High wind & fire risk. Listen to local ABC Radio for emergency updates. Do not reply to this.

Hello ScoFans!

That's the SMS we received today. It was funny at work, at first only two of us got it and 4 missed out. The two that got it (me and the other guy) were quite pleased with ourselves, saying they must have sent it to us because we're worth saving. The girls said it's only because we have criminal records, and the police knew how to contact us. Then they started saying "I bet you get charged for that message. I bet it comes on your bill" Then they started receiving them, and their tune changed.

Winds are expected to hit over 150 km/h tomorrow and with fires still in progress around the state, firefighters are concerned not only the existing fires will burn out of control, but as the conditions will be similar to those on "Black Saturday" that a whole new series of fires may start.

Just when we were starting to think it was safe again.

Fire danger is measured based on a formula, which takes into account temperature, dryness, wind and various other factors. 50 is a dangerous number. 70 means there is little to no hope of fighting the fire. Two places in the state are over 300 tomorrow, and there are very few below 150. Even where my parents live, which was my evacuation point, is in the 150s.

It's been thoroughly debated though, what sort of warning to send out. "What happens if we warn everyone and nothing happens?" was the fire departments argument. That reminded me of something lecturer once said about workplace training.

"Employers often argue, what happens if we train people they and leave? I ask them, what happens if you don't train them and they stay?"

I guess it is this logic that lead to the above SMS being sent to 5,000,000 phones today. It's better to tell people and nothing happens, than it is to not warn people and a lot more lives are lost.

One of our clients are not opening their office tomorrow. I know this because they bought in all their payroll information they normally bring in on Tuesday's so that we can get their wages prepared and make sure they are paid on Wednesday. They have it all, safety, a day off and comfort in the fact they will be paid this week.

Anyway, it's just as likely nothing will happen tomorrow. It will be just another day. But I just wanted to throw out to the bloggosphere how times have changed, and for those that haven't dealt a lot with bushfires, a glimpse of what life is like from my perspective.

I'll leave you today with a story my grandfather told me on the weekend about his days as a fireman.

His firetruck wouldn't start and they were out in the bush with the fire moving towards them. Another fire brigade offered to tow them out, and so they tied the fire trucks together. They were going up the hill toward the road and the fire truck at the front was slowly, painfully making its way there. One of the firefighters in the front lost patience, took out his axe and cut the rope. The truck rolled backwards through fences and down the hill toward the river.

My grandmother heard on the car radio that they had lost contact with a Plenty fire truck, and ended up crashing the car with my mum and uncle inside.

The firefighters from my grandfathers truck all jumped in the river and survived. When the fire had passed, they walked back to the truck and it hadn't been burned at all, but around it had. They turned the keys, and the truck started.

Nobody ever admitted to being the firefighters in the other truck, even though they spoke to brigades from all over the state.

Anyway, on a more positive note I have some awards to give away sometime this week. Not only am I giving you the chance to win a reward in our little game and you stand no chance of losing anything, I'm also giving away awards. I'm so generous.

A bit closer to home

Today, I'm not telling stories about what I've heard on the radio. It's more about discussions I've had with coworkers and the likes.

I was told one of my clients was on the television over here this morning. Her family home was one of the 1,000 that has burnt to the ground. After looking at a list of clients who haven't lodged their returns last week and having seen her name and complained about how difficult her stuff is to deal with, it made me feel bad to hear she now has nothing left.

Well that's not completely true. Her son went back to their home after the fires and all he found was a jug. A jug that was on the second floor of their house was the only thing that survived, although it now has a hairline crack.

She won't be the only one of our clients who is affected by this.

But when discussions in the office yesterday came to defending your home or fleeing (I mentioned in the last post we are the only state that has this choice), I was surprised by the number of people who would stay and fight. Especially after seeing what has happened to those who have stayed to fight.

Sure, in some cases it has been successful, but there have been a lot of lives needlessly lost.

One of the girls I work with also said her husband told her he would stay and defend their business, which fair enough his family has owned for generations, and send her and their children away before the fire got anything like dangerous. I thought, if I were him, there was no way I would risk her having to tell their children I wouldn't be joining them.

But she said the kids have been funny with the fires. They were so worried about them coming and she said "But you've been to near where the fires are, remember that water? How can a fire jump water? What happens when a fire gets to water?"

Not convinced she told them that if the fires come, they can go and hide under water in the pool. One of the kids said she thinks they should just grab enough money to buy a house an run off. Her mum then explained they don't have enough money to buy a new house and how insurance works, and she thought that was a pretty good deal. Pay a little bit of money each month, get a new house.

Today, after the popularity of the last koala that I posted on this blog, I'll leave you with this video which you may have already seen.

The fires rage on

I woke up early this morning. I lay in bed waiting for my alarm to go off.

As it got closer to the time I normally wake up, I realised how dark it still was outside.

Then I remembered the bushfires and panicked. Could it be smoke causing this darkness?

I hurried out the back and looked around. It didn't seem much different to yesterday, and the wind was blowing south.

As I am north of the fires, a southerly wind is a good thing for me. But I was concerned about those they had already evacuated, most of them were moved south of the fire.

So I got went through my morning ritual and got ready for work. I was there early and put the radio on. The first piece of news I hear is that the number of confirmed dead is now at 173. Black Friday which occurred in 1939 and Ash Wednesday which occurred in 1983, both of which we still commemorate annually, did not claim this many lives even when added together. As an Australian with parents and grandparents who grew up near and remember the tragic loss of life of the earlier two fires, who have heard the stories and hoped it wouldn't happen in their lifetime.. to now see this is saddening.

There were very few warnings on the radio. Sure enough, the fire was heading towards people who had already been once evacuated.

It was a relatively quiet morning. There were no towns under any immediate danger, and whilst they were talking to firefighters who were going home now to return on Friday (they expect it to burn at least that long), and they warned people that with winds picking up this afternoon everything would start again, people were hopeful.

But, when I returned to lunch, the list of towns under threat was 8-10 long. They told us it would happen, I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was still somewhat unsettling. Those towns have received warnings for the past few days, so hopefully everyone is out of there by now.

Unless, they choose to stay and defend their property. We are the only state in the country where you can, if you so choose, put your life in danger to stay and defend your home. There are no mandatory evacuations. If they tell you to leave and you say you'd rather not, then you stay. This has resulted in a large number of the deaths (but I think most of them were people who left too late), and it is now being debated as to whether we should be given the choice.

A woman rang the radio today and said she had seen her sister was listed among the missing in the newspaper, and on the website. She had called them several times to let them know her sister was staying with her, but the lines were so busy she never got through. The radio presenter asked how her sister felt about being missing when she wasn't, and the woman put her sister on the phone.

Her sister told her story. Her and her husband sat on the back porch and saw the fire coming down the mountains, and she asked her husband what they would do. Her husband looked at the fire and said "We'll be okay", but she didn't think so, so he told her to leave. She left him the car and started to walk. A neighbour saw her walking and offered her a ride. With how quickly the fire spread, she knew her husband wouldn't make it out alive.

In the morning they had a lawyer on (as they do every Tuesday), and this week he was answering questions to do with the fire. Someone rang in and said they had recently sold their house in one of the affected towns. However, the day to hand over the keys had not yet arrived and now, the house is burned down.

He was told that the contract would state he is to deliver a property in a certain condition, and he would need to use any insurance money to build a property in a like condition to deliver.

I think that's enough for today. I still have stories to tell, but they can wait. I know I ramble a bit in these posts, and my thoughts do not flow as smoothly as they usually do, but there is so much to say. The fires are dominating our radios, dictating our conversations and controlling our thoughts. Bear with me while I unleash these thoughts over the next few posts.

The reality is sinking in..

Over 130 confirmed dead.

Over 700 homes destroyed.

At least two towns wiped off the map forever.

It is already Australia's worst natural disaster in history, with the death toll expected to more than double (and perhaps triple) that experienced during the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, and still 31 fires rage on.

There are three incredible bushfires currently happening in my state. The smoke from one of these has plagued my town since Saturday. Talking to different people, some are concerned. Some are confident we will be okay. Almost everyone has a bag by the door in case we are told to leave (I don't, but perhaps I should. But I have insurance, I'll run with just my phone and my wallet if I have to.)

I woke up this morning thinking it's ridiculous to think the fires would ever reach us. There are bushfires around here every year, and they are all controlled before they get too serious. It's part of living in rural Australia, these things happen. I was joking about it, laughing it off. I think my Facebook status still reads "is worried he isn't worried enough. Or maybe everyone else is too worried. Yes, it's everyone else who's wrong"

I didn't realise how much worse this fire was than any of the others I have seen.

It is concerning to look at the "Statewide Current Incident" report and see the number of fires which have no fire trucks on the scene. They can't be there. Resources are stretched to the limit controlling the three major blazes. In fact, when I went to bed last night, there were four major blazes, two of which were near here and one of which was heading this way. Sometime today one of the blazes switched direction and joined up with the other fire, which now covers some 93,000 hectares.

We've been told that if the fire comes here, we can't expect any support from the fire department.

We already had American firefighters in the country (apparently we do a bit of a trade with them, some of them come over here during their winter and some of ours go over there during their winter), we have any spare firefighters available coming in from other states, and we have 100 firefighters in New Zealand on standby. The conditions they have to deal with are amazing, as you can see in the picture above.

Anyone who isn't here is concerned about those who are. All day at work people's phones were actively ringing, another loved one seeing if we're okay and if we've decided to leave town. I have a friend with a sister in town (long time readers of this blog might recall) and she was messaging us both on Facebook most of the day. She told me her sister was deciding to leave (a quick review of her wall revealed she never had any such intentions) and I had a friend messaging me most of yesterday saying "Shouldn't you get the fuck out of there?"

But those of us who are here laugh off the concern. At the moment we are safe. There were a few alerts issued last night and this morning, but never a warning. The outskirts of the fire are still over twenty kilometres away, and at the moment the wind is on our side.

The radio was flooded with stories today as they broadcast from the shelters set up for those who have lost their homes. Some tragic, some heroic.

Three sisters were preparing to leave town and sent their three husbands to check on their parents and handicapped brother nearby. The brothers got their to find the car in the driveway, the keys in the ignition, clothes in back and three corpses inside.

A teenager ran through a burning paddock and managed to save the lives of his sister and eight other children who had been sheltering in a nearby home, after hearing his sisters call for help to a local radio station.

But what really made me sick to my stomach was after hearing the same warning all day, "Residents are warned if you live in any of these areas are warned that if you're going to leave, leave when you see the smoke, if you leave when you see the flames it's too late and you will have to stay and fight", there was a new message just before five o'clock. "If you're still in the following areas, it's now too late, you will not get out and you will have to stay and fight"

I just hope that's not the message I hear when I wake up tomorrow morning. I know when I'm awake I'm ok, I can monitor, I can leave. I don't think I'll sleep tonight.

But don't worry about me pets. I try not to make a habit of being engulfed in flames. And I promise you that if I am, I certainly won't let it happen again.

Also, I cut my hand at work today when a shelf I was moving fell apart. You'd think with all the warnings about bushfires they could spare 5 minutes of radio time to warn me about breaking shelves.

** UPDATE ** There was a missed call on my answering machine from a stranger telling me most of the houses in their street survived, and they're okay. I don't know who they are, but it's nice to know.