Sandra

The difficulty is being in attendance is that not all employers can support your need to be at home. I am lucky I have that opportunity to work from home - and after last Nov, I fully intend to work at home if the awful times happen again and the fires are in and around our suburbs. The other thing to do would be fly my mother our for firewatching duty again .

The fire advice here is to stay with your property where possible and douse down etc, seemed mad to us risking loss of life but many houses in suburbs which are quite built up can be saved this way and the firemen here are brilliant but cannot possibly be in all places at once.

hevs

Scary stuff, cheers for the advice guys. Silly question of the day, but do they have them in south Victoria? Just so i'm prepared.:scared:

Megalania

Is the Deli Lama Buddhist?

bondipom

Is that your local food shop?

Megalania

They serve very good Kitty Kat Suttee I'll have you know. Been personally graced by the Dalai Lama on his last visit. Expect him this bush fire season also.

bondipom

Just reviving the thread

Pollyana

Doing a lot of reviving tonight Bondipom? Not a sneaky way of getting your number of posts higher is it?? If so, I shall follow your example!

bondipom

Please feel welcome.

Pollyana

Thanks mate!
Another good idea from Down Under.... oh no, that was one of last night's threads, wasn't it...!

bondipom

Do you want to revive or shall I?

Ceri

Update….
Got home.. Our street was full of smoke; apparently the very end house was at risk. They managed to put the fire out around 6pm .

The smoke was billowing out from the reserve.. I walked down to have a nose… seems the whole street had the same idea too.. There was one woman standing on her front lawn watering down her garden and yelling at her husband “oh my god, Oh my god�… silly sod .. Her house was nowhere near it. She’s not backing onto the bush… hubby decided to get hose pipe out too, any excuse to play with water!… and we stood and gazed at this little trickle of water…and wondered how on earth this was going to help us… lol . Picture below of our back garden (pic taken from our dining room.. when we were building) … as you can see our land is covered with huge trees which run back into the reserve. So a little paddling pool or a stupid hosepipe would be no good if that went up. I thought right b*gger this.. I’m loading up the car with my albums and documents just in case it spreads down our end of the street… hubby seemed to find this amusing and said he was going fishing… arrggh you can’t go fishing you berk! . Anyway< I loaded up the car… It took me 5 minutes… too long!! Must come up with a better plan in case of an emergency I think.

Cheers

P.S most people who are killed here are not going back for cats.. It’s people who stay too long trying to protect their houses and possessions. No house is worth your life. There’s a time to stay and there’s a time to leave. And we don’t have pine trees .. It’s a bush… tall eucalyptus trees

bondipom

The idea is to put out any spot fires. There is a theory that staying inside when the firestorm passes is the best idea and then put out any fires. The reasoning is that they firestorms do not radiate enough heat to burn the house. The main cause of the house ignition is all the burning leaves falling and igniting bushes, mulch, leaves in gutters and other tinder like materials close to or next to the house. These mini fires can be controlled if caught early.

The exception would be if the bush is so close that the radiation will ignite your house. No idea what is too close. The other problem is the water pressure drops because the whole neighbourhood is dousing their property.

Not every property can be saved and the risks must be assessed all the time.

Megalania

That'll yearn yer t' build inside a bonfire to be. Now for anyone not so stupid ... anyone there?

Ceri

I knew the risks when we bought the land.. It's price you pay for living next to nature. I'd rather be surrounded by bush than stuck in an overcrowded bare estate, listening to my neighbours fart. Unlike some.. I do not care two hoots for bricks and mortar. Yes I'd probably be a bit gutted if went up in flames, but it is not the end of the world. I certainly would not stay to protect my home if there was a fire raging out of control, like you see some people doing. Standing on roofs hosing down while flames are close to the house/land... you've got to be kidding.. I'd be out of there pronto with hubby, cats and photo albums... the rest can burn for all I care

Megalania

Then you are neither equiped for a bush fire nor for giving advice on same and probably have no other direct experience to relate than a few puffs of smoke which had you all a bluster. So ram that in yer pipe and smoke it.