heat, wind, smoke and fire.
Looking back over the last few days has been quite interesting, scary and stressful.
Saturday was the hottest day on record in Melbourne 46.4ºc or 115.5ºf. We don’t know hot hot it was where we were located at mum and dads.
We were warned that this day would be a day of high fire danger, and keeping this in mind we tuned into 774 and listened, as they will break (and did so) all normal broadcasting when there was an emergency.
As the situation became more complex we started listening to the CFA and DSE radio frequencies, to see what was happening on the ground.
Also using the BOM site, we were able to see the wind speed and direction.
The fires were fairly close, but were moving away from us, moving in a south easterly direction, but as the day moved on, we were aware that a cool change was moving through.
Unfortunately, with the cool change, the wind change would be unpredictable and could drive the fire which at this point of time were about 10 KiloMetres away from us (six miles approx).
Combined with this, we heard that the CFA were assembling a strike team nearby.
With this information in hand, we decided to evacuate (at this point in time, the horses had been moved.) We had already prepared everything to be ready to go at a minutes notice.
So we left.
In the end, we returned to the next day, as the fire front moved away from mum and dads place.
But in the end, so many were not so lucky.
and thanks to the CFA our country wouldn’t survive without them.
Glad to hear all is well. Hope to hear you on the bands.
Stay safe, both of you.
73, David