Suburban bush fires

Every country has its natural catastrophic events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornado and cyclones. For Perth, it is bush fires, but this is not a rural area - this is Perth suburbia.

I was at work yesterday and phone calls were coming hard and fast, some of my workmates had to leave to get home to defend their properties. I walked outside of the office and viewed the smoke billowing into the air, fortunately for me, I live in the other direction and didn't suffer the problems of road blocks, fire trucks and smoke.

I had heard fire trucks driving past earlier in the day with their sirens screaming and lights flashing, I didn't think much of it as it is a pretty normal event here in summer. Perth has a large professional fire fighting force complete with water bombers, helicopters, command structures and a sizable volunteer bush fire brigade. 

Together, these guys worked through the night bringing the fire under control in high temperatures and strong winds. Today, another 37 degree Celsius day is forecast so it was important to get this fire under control as soon as possible. The fire was caused by a flare up of a fire that started on Sunday, as the winds increase during the day, this fire could be out of control threatening homes again.

What makes this fire personal is the number of my colleagues affected, last year, the hills fires last year burnt down peoples homes, another hills bush fire a few weeks back destroyed countless properties, sometimes the number of homes destroyed is in its hundreds. It is amazing, the embers flying through the air land on houses setting them alight but sparing the property next door, in some ways, it is a bit of a lottery.

Last Tuesday, I was taking my university examination with the rumbling of low flying helicopters dropping water on the nearby fire, the sound of sirens from fire trucks was not overshadowed by the rattling glass and boom of the turbine of the low flying water bombers.

As we started the 2 hour, 15 minute exam - we had evacuation plans in place. As we sat there at our desks prior to the exam start, the exam supervisor called the faculty to determine if we were to proceed - as I had taken a day off work to attend, I wanted to stay no matter what the distractions. 

For me, this was a mild inconvenience, sure I had spent a trimester studying the unit but apart from time invested, I had nothing to lose. Here, peoples lives and houses are on the line, yesterday there was six homes damaged and no lives lost - a pretty good outcome really.