In the map above, I have underlined our suburb in red. The pink dot I have added is where the fired started. The wind was blowing the fire towards us...
This is what it looked like from my backdoor. All we could see was plumes of smoke rising into the air.
We were lucky, the wind changed and blew it back the other way. But if you look at the burn pattern and size.... If the wind hadn't changed direction - that fire would have engulfed our suburb.
We have friends in other parts of the state, namely The Blue Mountains area where they are on high alert and have been warned that they need to be prepared to evacuate.
Some of these fires were lit by hot and windy conditions where power lines arced. However, unfortunately other fires were lit by firebugs. The fire in our area was lit by a 26 year old male who was charged with arson, he confessed to lighting 21 other fires. He was also part of the Rural Fire Service! The fire was under control for a period of time, then two 16 year old males were charged with arson after they re-lit the area....
In another part of Sydney a 12 year old girl and a 13 year old girl were also charged with arson after being caught trying to light a fire in a public nature reserve.
There isn't any rain predicted for a while, and tomorrow is supposed to be hotter with more windy conditions. I can't believe that we are experiencing such fires so early. It's true that Australia has some shocking fires every year due to the large amount of bush land that we have. However, most of our fires occur in Summer..... It's only the start of Spring and we've already had days that have broken temperature records..... I don't want to think about what Summer may bring.
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