February Dragon

[hnpcc]

It's the title of a Colin Thiele book, in case you were wondering.

I woke up to thunder claps, a brief rain shower - and the news reporting 25 confirmed dead, including 6 in one car at Kinglake.

Oh God.

Estimates are up to 40 dead.

At this stage.

When I went to bed they hadn't been able to get near Labertouche. I don't know if they have yet either. There's still an imminent threat warning going. It's been going for 3 days now.

I used to play tennis there.

There are still uncontrolled fires going, it feels like all over the state.

The town of Marysville has been pretty much wiped off the map as far as having buildings goes.

There are 14 people reported dead in the Wandong fire. shnetti, I hope your family's safe and well. Dean's parents - and the town - were dead lucky. Kinglake not so much.

The Bunyip fire is heading towards Noojee, which is somewhere I would not want to be trapped in a fire. It's a beautiful little town, surrounded by bush and steep hills. Similar to Marysville. There is an oval (there's always an oval). At least this time, unlike 1939, there's information available about the fire, about the fire's direction, about what to do and where to go and when to go. In 1939 people were boiled alive up there trying to escape the fires in their water tanks, in creeks. This time the logging crews will have been pulled out already for starters.

Thank God this day didn't come at the end of the heatwave last week.

Comments

[undergroundsea.livejournal.com]

Came online to check if you had posted about the fires. Woke up to the news and hoped you and all your family were okay.

[valamelmeo.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear your family is all okay. I've been listening to the ABC stream for a little while and I have to say I'm impressed, if a bit momentarily confused by the station identification (because we have our own ABC [American Broadcasting Corp] over here). The coverage seems very thorough, for what it's worth coming from someone who can't picture how to spell most of the place names.

[hnpcc]

It was fantastic coverage yesterday - as essjay said one of the amazing things about it was that all the local ABC stations were integrated - we were getting updates for all over the state, as well as local coverage.

The news footage from Marysville is just shocking though - I've just watched the ABC news coverage.

And they're starting to report bodies from Gippsland.

coming from someone who can't picture how to spell most of the place names

Heh, I spent half of yesterday getting irritated at some of the pronunciations of place names! Basically I say them with the local accent, and the announcers (from Melbourne) were saying them with their accents and the emphasis differed and it was really annoying! (Yeah, I know, focus on the trivial in the midst of all else - I'll be the person whinging about the inability of people to pronounce the world-ending comet's name right on the radio, OK?)

It's LAB-er-touche, not Lay-ber-TOUCHE dammit.

[valamelmeo.livejournal.com]

I finally stopped knitting long enough to take a look at google maps to see where all these places were, and I don't think I'd trust myself to pronounce half the place names in the country! Also, it's rather staggering to see just how widespread the fire is, which is something I couldn't get from the broadcast.

Also surprised at how populated the area is. Wildfires here in the US generally don't affect areas that are quite so heavily populated.

[essjayeff.livejournal.com]

Shnetti posted on FB that here parents were OK last night, and had packed, but not evacuated. Watching and waiting.

[hnpcc]

Haven't bothered with FB (obviously!) - too busy trying not to overload the CFA and newspaper servers.

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

I'm only just reading about all of this now - I'm so, so glad that you and your family are ok. But it's horrible news, I really hope that there are no more casualties as a result of this.

[shnetti.livejournal.com]

Got your message this morning -- thanks anyway but I am staying put! I wouldn't be able to do anything anyway and I'm in phone contact with the folks.

Glad to hear yours and Dean's families are okay as well.

I'd also like to add, I'm glad this didn't come at the *start* of the heatwave last week. The current fires are so bad, but at least the weather conditions are easing over the next few days -- how inconceivably worse could this inferno have gotten with further 40-degree windy days to feed it?

[hnpcc]

Oh God yeah, I've been being thankful for that all day. I was half-expecting a similar thing to happen during the heatwave - have been so grateful that the cool change came, even without rain, even with variable wind patterns, even with lightning strikes. If today had been even 37oC I think things would be a lot worse.

[hnpcc]

And very glad your family's OK. We don't think we'd have been able to get there anyway looking at road closures.