Bush fire season

It's bush fire season here. My friends have been telling me that last year there was a lot of rain, so the fire risk was minimal. We didn't see any fires last year. This year, though, there's been scant rainfall and the fire risk is high. Well sure enough, we watched the hills south of Hobart, on one side of us, burn the night before last. And, last night, the hills on the other side of the river burned off. It was the first day of really warm temps and very high winds. The oily gum trees apparently can spontaneously combust in these conditions, no spark is even necessary, just from the heat.

Well, you should have seen Liz and I standing on our balcony with our chins on the floor, pointing here and there, as we noticed new hot spots. We never felt that we were in danger, though. Click on the post title to see the Wikipedia entry on bush fires. Apparently, Tasmanians have learned a lot about fire management after a particularly hazardous one in 1967. The fires of the past few days have been controlled enough to divert the flames from populated areas through cutting firebreaks between the bush and the houses. I guess it's best to just let the bush burn off to minimize the risk of even bigger fires. It's just something that needs to happen. The eucalyptus trees are fairly fire tolerant, so you see evidence of fires like charred trunks on perfectly healthy trees. In some cases, the charring will eat out the center of the trunk and the tree just keeps alive through what's left around the hollow trunk. Here's a very large trunk that we saw on our Mt. Wellington hike a few weeks ago. It's not just dark inside. It looked like it was plastered with charcoal briquettes on every surface inside there.



I wish the title of this post could be Fire Bush Season. Politics aside, here's some photos to the south of Hobart from our apartment roof. First, from a distance.





Then, some zooming in with the lens.





The next day, you can see the charred area. During the fires, we could see emergency vehicles using the road that is visible in this photo. Out of the frame, I could see that the road itself formed a fire break between the bush and the buildings. People were gathered road side watching the fires advance.



To the eastern shore of the Derwent River on the following day, where the fires were more intense.



I was thankful that there was a good breeze blowing the smoke out to sea and not into my apartment.



So, the bush fires are the #1 topic of conversation today. How close is your house? Do you have an evacuation plan? Is your car packed? What would you take if you had to leave quick? Many activities were slowed down or cancelled because roads were closed or people had to stay near their homes in case they had to fight fires. The road to the airport was closed, causing folks to have to drive the long way around. My art class today used Friday the 13th and Fire as themes for inspiration. All in all, it seems that folks here take the bush fires as a seasonal fact, the way we might prepare for hurricanes or snow storms. Just heard on the news that the fire service is fighting 20-something fires across the state at this time. Not to worry. We are safe in our concrete apartment building.

tick tock

FYI, today we've moved to daylight savings time here.

That makes it a 3 hour ratio of difference into the next day: 10am here = 7pm yesterday by you. When you 'fall back', it will be a 4 hour difference: 10am here will be 6pm by you.