Briefly updating events…
A great big thank you to everyone who rang or SMSed us over the weekend to see if we were okay. We are fine, well away from danger and really appreciate your thoughts and concern.
So far, authorities have confirmed that 402 houses have been totally destroyed. Over half of those houses were in the suburb of Duffy which at last count had lost 219 houses. Many more homes are estimated to have been damaged in some way.
The latest word about my friend in Duffy – it turns out his house survived the fire storm although many other houses in his street were not so lucky, nor was the BP petrol station that was on the corner of his street.
Canberra, famous for complaining about nothing and everything, is living up to its reputation. There have been murmurings in the media about the emergency services being ill prepared and dropping the ball on this. Similar sentiments have been echoed around the office today. Personally, I think it is possible that everyone was under prepared, and it is also entirely possible that someone, somewhere, fucked up big time. However, I also think that this fire storm would have wreaked a hell of a lot of havoc anyway. The events of the weekend to me illustrate the price you must be prepared to pay if you want to surround and permeate your urban areas with bush land. If nothing else, Canberra will be a lot better prepared next time and I would be surprised if something like this ever happened again.
Apart from all of that, there are fires still burning around the ACT, although everything is apparently under control. Once again, the smoke cover is quite heavy and I’m not enjoying the prospect of walking home from work soon.
If anyone is curious and wants to see what else is happening with the bush fires, visit the Emergency Services Bureau ACT Bushfire Status page. It’s updated several times a day at the moment, but obviously that will drop off as the fires slowly die off.
Monday, January 20, 2003
Saturday, January 18, 2003
The power is surging every now and then. The air is thick, burnt and nearly unbreathable at times. The sun has been blood red for days. Today things got much, much worse. Canberra is burning.
When we drove into Canberra down the Barton Highway on Sunday afternoon, we noticed plumes of smoke rising from the hills surrounding the ACT. I wasn't too concerned. After all, bush fires are around this area every summer. Apparently, the week before, there had been some severe electrical storms. The plumes of smoke indicated the aftermath of the occasional lightning strike. The last 12 or so months have been very dry in this area of the country. Like much of the rest of the country, there has been unseasonably low rainfall. Unlike Brisbane, Canberra generally has quite low levels of humidity. Add the two together and you've got a tinder box just waiting to be struck.
The plumes of smoke got bigger and by Monday afternoon large parts of the city were covered with a blanket of oppressive smoke as the fires in the Namadgi National Park raged on. Every wind change seemed to bring more smoke. We were pretty lucky, we thought, because the smoke was so thick that it settled like fog below our third story unit near the centre of Canberra.
Over the course of the rest of the week, the smoke got thicker and more pervasive. A rare change in the direction of the wind would bless the region with some brief respite from the lung clogging gunk that floated in the air.
The garden city, the "Bush Capital", has been it's worst enemy today. Embers, floating in the strong winds, have been drifting on to all the high points in the south and west of Canberra. These high points are largely in small tracts of parkland, surrounded by suburbia - houses, schools, hospitals, playgrounds, small suburban shopping strips - the daily bump and grind. Suburbs in the outer-south west literally back on to bush land. This afternoon and this evening, those suburbs are much smaller than they used to be as houses are burnt to the ground and the fire-front storms it's way towards the Woden valley area and the Inner South (where we live in our comfortable middle-class unit, smack bang in the middle of two of the finest restaurant districts in the nation's capital), following a path laid out for it by parks and nature reserves.
When I was buying some beer this afternoon from the local bottleo, I bumped into a friend with his partner. They were looking a bit worn out and stunned. I'd heard reports that the fire was somewhere past the outskirts of Canberra and they looked as stressed as I thought they should be. Turns out they had just left home, taking only what they were wearing and leaving one car behind. It had been raining coals and embers and was pitch black when they left. They are now staying at another friend's place a couple of blocks down the road (which was where they were heading). Their suburb, Duffy, was right in the line of fire. Dozens of houses in Duffy have burnt to the ground. My friend's place was only two or three blocks from bushland. No one is expecting their house to be there when they go back tomorrow. Everything gone.
Suburbs only 10-15 minutes drive from here are burning. As I type, I'm blowing ash of my keyboard as white flecks sneak through the fly wire in my window. Suburbs in the north-west area of Canberra are also threatened, with dozens more homes nothing but shells. Areas to the north and south of Canberra are threatened with towns like Cooma and (the nearly in Canberra) Queanbeyan face long nights of waiting and hoping.
It's bizarre that a major city, the nation's capital of 330,000 people, is facing the prospect of losing entire suburbs, with a handful more well in from the edges suffering considerable damage. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm freaking out just a little bit. This is something you see on the news, happening to Sydney or Adelaide or somewhere else. It's not something where you sit all afternoon, listening to local AM radio, waiting for constant updates and desperately hoping that friends and work-mates are okay and that no one is seriously hurt. It's unsettling to say the very least.
In case anyone is wondering, we're alright where we are. We're quite central in Canberra and there is very little parkland or nature reserves near us. What little there is is right next to Lake Burley-Griffin, which means there is no shortage of water or manpower if the unthinkable should happen.
If only everyone else could say the same.
When we drove into Canberra down the Barton Highway on Sunday afternoon, we noticed plumes of smoke rising from the hills surrounding the ACT. I wasn't too concerned. After all, bush fires are around this area every summer. Apparently, the week before, there had been some severe electrical storms. The plumes of smoke indicated the aftermath of the occasional lightning strike. The last 12 or so months have been very dry in this area of the country. Like much of the rest of the country, there has been unseasonably low rainfall. Unlike Brisbane, Canberra generally has quite low levels of humidity. Add the two together and you've got a tinder box just waiting to be struck.
The plumes of smoke got bigger and by Monday afternoon large parts of the city were covered with a blanket of oppressive smoke as the fires in the Namadgi National Park raged on. Every wind change seemed to bring more smoke. We were pretty lucky, we thought, because the smoke was so thick that it settled like fog below our third story unit near the centre of Canberra.
Over the course of the rest of the week, the smoke got thicker and more pervasive. A rare change in the direction of the wind would bless the region with some brief respite from the lung clogging gunk that floated in the air.
The garden city, the "Bush Capital", has been it's worst enemy today. Embers, floating in the strong winds, have been drifting on to all the high points in the south and west of Canberra. These high points are largely in small tracts of parkland, surrounded by suburbia - houses, schools, hospitals, playgrounds, small suburban shopping strips - the daily bump and grind. Suburbs in the outer-south west literally back on to bush land. This afternoon and this evening, those suburbs are much smaller than they used to be as houses are burnt to the ground and the fire-front storms it's way towards the Woden valley area and the Inner South (where we live in our comfortable middle-class unit, smack bang in the middle of two of the finest restaurant districts in the nation's capital), following a path laid out for it by parks and nature reserves.
When I was buying some beer this afternoon from the local bottleo, I bumped into a friend with his partner. They were looking a bit worn out and stunned. I'd heard reports that the fire was somewhere past the outskirts of Canberra and they looked as stressed as I thought they should be. Turns out they had just left home, taking only what they were wearing and leaving one car behind. It had been raining coals and embers and was pitch black when they left. They are now staying at another friend's place a couple of blocks down the road (which was where they were heading). Their suburb, Duffy, was right in the line of fire. Dozens of houses in Duffy have burnt to the ground. My friend's place was only two or three blocks from bushland. No one is expecting their house to be there when they go back tomorrow. Everything gone.
Suburbs only 10-15 minutes drive from here are burning. As I type, I'm blowing ash of my keyboard as white flecks sneak through the fly wire in my window. Suburbs in the north-west area of Canberra are also threatened, with dozens more homes nothing but shells. Areas to the north and south of Canberra are threatened with towns like Cooma and (the nearly in Canberra) Queanbeyan face long nights of waiting and hoping.
It's bizarre that a major city, the nation's capital of 330,000 people, is facing the prospect of losing entire suburbs, with a handful more well in from the edges suffering considerable damage. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm freaking out just a little bit. This is something you see on the news, happening to Sydney or Adelaide or somewhere else. It's not something where you sit all afternoon, listening to local AM radio, waiting for constant updates and desperately hoping that friends and work-mates are okay and that no one is seriously hurt. It's unsettling to say the very least.
In case anyone is wondering, we're alright where we are. We're quite central in Canberra and there is very little parkland or nature reserves near us. What little there is is right next to Lake Burley-Griffin, which means there is no shortage of water or manpower if the unthinkable should happen.
If only everyone else could say the same.
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