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I suppose most have heard that we have had a couple of fires over here in the West, one just south of Margaret River destroying thousands of hectares of majestic Karri forrest :C , the other one was in the national park across the dirt road from us,just south of Yalllingup with the most northerly stand of Karris in the world ,a few hundred hectares.
Anyhow the fire started on a property near us ,a house (an electrical fault , so they say) it jumped from their property into the national park and with a gusty north easterly, started heading our way. The conditions were no where near what happened over east last year but we have had no rain for 2 months and things were drying out in the forest.
We had our plan in action and planned to stay as we also have an underground bunker if the proverbial hit the fan. It was a tense day with helicopters and planes going all day some shaking the house as they passed over , the sound of bull dozers up in the forest and the crashing of huge trees falling as the fire raged on. Night came and conditions eased considerably, light winds cool temps and higher humidity.
We were in constant contact with the firies either they would come in and see how we were or we would go out and see how they were doing and they would let us know the situation as it was happening, they were fantastic, a lot of them had already been down fighting the Margaret River fire.The decision was made thursday night to start edgeburning just across the road from our place as they were expecting strong sea breezes the next day.
Come friday things seem to be under control but the fire was still burning away in the middle of the forest where they couldn`t access.Around 2 o`clock we decided to walk thru our bush to where they were still edgeburning, the sea breeze had come in and we were a bit concerned , we were about 50 meters from them when we were met by flames on our place an ember had jumped :o They hadn`t noticed as the bush was thick and they were concentrating on the fire in front of them , I think they heard us before they saw us, within seconds there was 2 light truck units bushbashing to the edge of the fire and in 15 mins two planes dropped retardant and the helicopters were dropping water, after that they brought in a D6 dozer to put a ring around the burnt area.
If we hadn`t walked thru the bush at that moment things could have been a disaster instead of a 50 meter square patch.Back to the main fire, that late afternoon they lit a huge backburn using incendiaries dropped from a helicopter to meet the main blaze, it burnt all night the whole ridge glowing and more trees falling.
Saturday still a lot of activity but things were under control, Sunday all the heavy machinery gone but still patroling, Monday still smouldering in some places and patrols.A big thankyou to those guys and gals.
