Fires in Australia - 1st Person Account - Chapter 1

By Guest Blogger Adrianne Newman who lives in the south of Australia, in the Australian state of Victoria. This is near Melbourne. Ms. Newman is an American who has lived in Australia for about 30 years. Glenys and Ms. Newman are partners.

This was date marked as 2/10 @ 4:30 am.:

Hey

We haven't quite been ourselves and should have reported in before

this as I can see many of you are concerned.  But we've been glued to

the ABC Emergency Services radio listening vigilently for alert

warnings to leave.



Saturday was a day out of Hell...it was 47 degrees here, 117 degrees

F, and there were gale force winds blowing.  I made a comment in an

email to someone that if you lit a match today and dropped it, it

would burn all the way to the coast.  Little did I realise how

prescient that statement would be.



Glenys worked until 1 pm but then came home and we walked out back and

saw these huge smoke columns that were on the distant hills that

seemed to be coming towards us.  [Stupid me had been sitting in the

house with the aircon on and the blinds drawn and wasn't monitoring

events.]  We went in and through the house and got the essentials and

packed the cars and got the dog ready to leave.  If you have never

done that, it is a very interesting exercise about what doesn't matter

in your life. [And if you have never felt 117 degree heat in gale

force, I can't explain that to you either.]



Went back out as we heard that it was spotting in Doreen, which is

about 20 minnies from where we live, and Glenys said "can you feel it

- I feel the cool change."  I told her she was having a menopause

moment and that it was evaporation but then I felt it as well.  So the

wind had swapped from North, which brings the hot air down from

Central Australia..[.and who the fuck would live there, I ask you, if

that's their weather], to Southerly and dropped about 10 degrees C in

5 minutes.



We turned to look at the smoke clouds to see them now drifting in the

opposite direction and then looked at each other, started crying and

realised that our fortune was someone elses misfortune.  And God what

misfortune that has turned out to be.



If you go to www.theage.com.au you can see and read about what has

happened since then.



I'm going to work just to be with people because I'm not coping with

the fact that a wonderful woman who has groomed Chloe for the last 11

years, and who I could always depend on for a natter before and after

the drop off, is listed as missing and presumed dead.  I keep going

down to the shop to see if there is any word but we all just stand

there shell shocked, crying and shaking because even her Mother has

given her up for dead.  She last spoke to her on Saturday at 4 pm and

Tanya was oblivious to the fact that there was a fire....it wasn't on

the internet.  Tanya has put a face to this devastation for us.



Eye witnesses who were in Kinglake, where Tanya lived, said they went

out to a ridge to look at a fire that was 20 kilometres away and all

of a sudden were burned by the trees that erupted into flame beside

them.  Fireballs travelled 14 to 20 kilometres before the fires on the

winds, setting new ones, so it is no wonder that survivors are saying

that they had no warning.  Only consolation for me is that it

evidently was a quick kill so says a man who managed to survive from a

drain pipe because the fire rolled over the houses, they exploded, the

roofs came down and entombed the people.   Whole towns are like that

now and 181 people are dead tonight.



And the fires have only waxed and waned since then although the

temperatures have gotten way cooler....today was 21C, or 70 F, and

Glenys and I are cold after all the warm weather.  [We had had 3 days

of 43,44 and 45 the week before.]



Firefighters are trying to get blazes under control in this cooler

weather but they must be absolutely exhausted.   Go the fireys, we're

all saying, and we're putting them ALL up for Queen's Honours next

year....well I am!



However we were warned tonight that February is our worst fire month

and that it is only the 10th so don't think that this is over by any

means.



And the thing that I cannot get my head around is that some of these

fires were deliberately lit on Saturday.  I want them caught,

handcuffed, put against a wall and shot on national television because

they are no different from terrorists, or as the Prime Minister called

them, mass murderers.  Not only of people but of flora and fauna.



However if you do the prayer thing, can you please remember us over

here.....all of us.

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