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Wollongong Pages by colin_bramso
 colin_bramso's Wollongong Travelogues | | | | Title [Click to view] | Travel Year | Pictures | | BATTLING THE BEAST | - |  7 |
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| Page Views: 365 Last Visit to Wollongong: - | BATTLING THE BEAST by colin_bramso - last update: Nov 22, 2006 |
WRITTEN IN REAL TIME, AS IT HAPPENED. A family's home explodes in flames. Photo by Dean Sewell in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Christmas Eve 2001. Lightning strikes on tinder dry bushland. The result - what Aussies dread - huge bushfires. Christmas Day dawns. Temperature in the high thirties, hot, wild westerly winds. The worst possible weather. With 100 fires raging out of control to the south, west and north the last thing we need is this weather. Firefronts are enormous - walls of flame 20 metres high burning on fronts as long as 30 kilometres. Towns and villages are in their path.
Firefighters have been rushed into position, facing an impossible task. People were away from home visiting family for Christmas. Those living in threatened areas rushed home...only for 150 families to find their homes totally destroyed. On Christmas Day.
Outside the cities we have volunteer rural fire services, ordinary people on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They saved many hundreds of houses and in the following days as the weather cooled a little, built massive containment lines of firebreaks to try to keep the fires away from residential areas. The weather turned nasty again, hot westerly winds pushing fires across the containment lines and more homes were lost, estimates up to perhaps twenty. Not just houses, many businesses have been destroyed. And outbuildings, cars, trucks. |
|  | The fires are in a ring around Sydney, to the north, west and south - east being the ocean.
One of the nice things about Sydney is the natural bushland we have all around us, with leafy suburbs going right to the centre of the city. There's even a golf course only 1 kilometre from the northern end of the Harbour Bridge! The problem with all this greenery is that bushfires can rage through these areas. The map of the fire that hit the northern suburbs shows the problem. The residential areas are built right up to the bushland, which is quite wild with steep gulleys and rock-faces. The fires roar along the gullies and firefighters have to try to defend the properties.
Adding to the problem is the fact that almost all the trees are eucalypts, our famous gum trees. The oil in them is highly flammable, and the trees explode as they catch fire. Sometimes there is "cresting" when the fire simply races through the treetops burning the oil-filled leaves but not burning lower down. People experiencing the fires talk about a noise they'll never forget as the fire roars through the trees. |
| | A firefront threatens homes in Sydney's northern suburbs.
Photo by Penny Bradfield in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The fires burned on huge fronts, many kilometres long. Strong winds blow sparks and set spot fires ahead of the main firefront. Spot fires started beyond firebreak lines, with residents and firefighters rushing to put them out before they could develop. In several areas, whole townships were threatened, the entire populations evacuated.
Investigators believe up to 40 of the fires were deliberately started. To date, 33 people have been arrested. Many are kids who have started grass fires, fortunately with little damage as a result...but about a third are teenagers and adults. They know full-well what they are doing. The Premier is promising to introduce new, tougher penalties. A popular move. Other fires were caused by people but not deliberately lit - cigarettes thrown out of car windows for example. You'd think people would have more sense!
There have been some close calls. Firefighters caught in firestorms caused by sudden wind change have been saved by helicopters water-bombing the fires. Only minor injuries so far. |
| | A resident battles to protect his home from the fire which is at his fence. Photo by Adam Hollingworth in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The worst day so far was the first, Christmas Day. Several townships were hit. People lost not only the house, the furniture, the jewellery but their memories...wedding certificates, birth certificates, photos of their children growing up. Some had pets in the house...
The weather cooled a little for a few days. Firefighters poured in, water bombing aircraft were operating. People in danger areas prepared their houses as best they could - clear the leaves from gutters, clear the area around the house, make sure garden hoses are in place...and pack a box of irreplaceable items ready to take if you have to flee.
The fires were mainly kept within containment lines for the next week as the weather was less severe. Christmas Day there were 5,000 firefighters, then volunteers came from every State around Australia, giving up the holiday with their loved ones to come and risk their lives for total strangers. At the height of the crisis we had about 15,000 fighting the fires, another 5,000 assisting with logistics. It's a mammoth task. People being evacuated need somewhere to shelter, all 20,000 need to be fed and need a place to rest.
At the beginning of the New Year we had hotter, windier weather and the fires flared again. To the south, the sleepy tourist area of Sussex Inlet had fire racing towards it on three sides, the only road in or out impassable. The entire 5,000 residents and visitors were evacuated to two clubs in open areas of the town while some others made it to the beach. People needing medical treatment were brought out by boat. A group of 26 residents in another area were trapped by the fire but were brought out by helicopter.
The Emergency Services Minister reported on radio that areas he has visited are totally burnt and black except for small green patches around each house where firefighters had fought house-to-house to save them. Residents and firefighters alike have fought the fires raging literally at the fence of the properties.
Two fires causing the most concern were the one around the tourist area around Sussex Inlet and a vast firefront in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney which threatened several towns. The Blue Mountains get their name from the blue haze in the air from eucalyptus oil. The whole enormous area is covered with eucalyptus trees, so fires there are very intense. |
| | A young Ringtail Possum, found singed but not badly burned, being cared for by a Wildlife volunteer.
Photo by Peter Morris in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Firefighters have had something of a break as we've had two or three cooler days, high twenties, and thankfully, winds were not too strong. Sussex Inlet lost some houses and businesses but most were saved. Still three fires are giving great concern, running towards population areas, one each to south, west and north. A 20 kilometre firefront still threatened several towns in the Blue Mountains.
With over one million acres having burned so far, tens of thousands of native animals will have perished, many more will have been injured. Police are warning motorists to be aware of animals seeking shelter from the fires on the roads, the only fire-free strips available to them. People are finding animals in their gardens, many more birds are being reported in built-up areas as they escape the devastation of their normal habitat. There are reports of birds falling from the sky, presumably affected by smoke and heat.
Farm animals are also being caught in the fires - thousands of sheep, cattle and horses have been killed. No human casualties so far, but the animals haven't been as lucky. |
| | I've talked to people overseas who can't understand why they've seen on tv news reports the firefighters actually lighting fires in the midst of the emergency.
They don't understand the size of the fires or the inaccessibility of much of the land. We had firefronts 30 kilometres long, the flames higher than the trees, perhaps 30 metres. Some fires joined up with each other, and we had a total fire front of well over 3,000 kilometres. So far, well over 500,000 hectares (over one million acres) have been burnt. They are so big and so intense that many have created their own weather conditions, the huge updraught creating unpredictable winds. Most of the fires are in wild National Park areas, inaccessible on the ground.
It's not possible to actually fight the fires, so the priority is to protect lives, protect property, contain the fires. Existing firebreaks such as rivers, roads and dams are used as defensive lines and where these aren't available firebreaks are built. This involves - when the weather conditions permit - burning the bush in front of the fire, hoping that when it reaches the area it will have no fuel to burn so it will turn on itself.
We owe a huge debt to the firefighters. Putting in 12 hour shifts in life-threatening conditions. Working in extremely high temperatures wearing heavy protective clothing. Facing walls of fire twenty metres high. Breathing smoke. Backbreaking work. It's not just the fire they face either. Over 20 have been injured, one bitten by a dog, another by a snake. Others have been overcome by heat exhaustion, carbon monoxide poisoning, dehydration.
We have the full-time Fire Brigade and the volunteer bush fire brigades. Some have been here from interstate for well over a week, leaving their families at Christmas. Today they have been asked to stay on because the danger is far from over.
Full-time or volunteer, every one of them is a hero. |
| | Photo by Dean Sewell in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Tuesday Jan 8. The weather outlook was bleak. Hot and windy for the next few days. No rain for at least a week. Wrong! Thankfully we had some thunderstorms over some of the fires Sunday night. Not enough rain to put them out totally, but those rained on are now much smaller. In the south, though, evacuations have just been announced for about 40 homesteads around Sussex Inlet. The town seems to be safe, but the outlying properties are being threatened. Would you believe that in Orange, in the State's central west, homes were flooded by torrential rain. In one place houses threatened by fire, in other areas they're being flooded!
UPDATE
Now Jan 16 and it's raining over most of the fires. It doesn't completely put them out, but it dampens them down enough for firefighters to get in and attack them. There are still around 80 fires smouldering. The lightning that came with the storms started two new fires, but firefighters say they were quickly onto them and they are under control. The danger now is that as the ground dries out again, wind can fan the embers and re-start the fires.
January 17
The crisis has been officially declared over today, after more than three weeks. Some fires continue to burn, but within containment lines and in remote bushland. Huge thunderstorms across much of New South Wales have done the trick. Some areas around the border between New South Wales and Queensland had fierce hailstorms with hailstones reportedly as large as tennis balls in some areas. A lot of damage to property has been caused...but that's another story from this land of extremes! |
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| colin_bramso's Wollongong Travelogues | | | | Title [Click to view] | Travel Year | Pictures | | BATTLING THE BEAST | - | 7 |
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 Comments for colin_bramso about Wollongong | | | | |
Doctor38 Wed Oct 31, 2007 23:17 UTC
Wollongong!!as in Wollongong University!! I always thought that it was a name of some rich Asian Aussie how founded the University. Nice info. What is the meaning of Wollongong | cassiejoy42 Mon Dec 5, 2005 09:32 UTC
Colin spine tingling story and comments - I remember the black wednesday fires when I was small - surrounded by smoke all around our farm. Many people died inside or beside their cars - fire is our enemy! | aussirose Fri Sep 3, 2004 11:30 UTC
Hi Colin. Yes, it's definately worth telling everyone about. This is a real danger for us all to be aware of here in Oz. Great coverage Colin. Ann. | LoveItAll Tue Jan 27, 2004 08:13 UTC
So scary indeed. All those who stay there must know in advance all the escape routes, like when you stay in a hotel. |
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