It's like it's happening on another planet.

[catsidhe]

Ah, fuck.

I know everyone and their dog is posting about this, but... fuck.

Marysville and Kinglake are simply gone.

65 76 84 dead at last count, Brian Naylor (for non-Melbournians, he was the evening news presenter here for decades) is missing, and his wife are among that number.

The flames are encroaching on Bendigo and Beechworth.



And here we are in suburban Melbourne, putting on jackets. After yesterday — the hottest day in the city on record — today is cold and rainy. And past the hills, dozens of people are dead, and entire towns are vanished.



I just... Fuck.

And bushfire season is just beginning.

Comments

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Oh no..how horrible...

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

Bushfire season actually began a couple of months ago. It varies from area to area but tends to run from October to March.

A hollow, gutted 'Fuck...' about describes it. I have family in the areas, and so much family history in Western Gippsland. As far as my parents and I know all the living are safe, although some have certainly been close to fronts. If anywhere is 'my' country, western Gippsland is it.

I'm waiting to see if St. Jambulance down here will be coming north to relieve Victorian crews. I'm on the shortlist to go. Dad's been working solidly at 3SJ as a comms operator and will be spending a large chunk of the week there I think.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

Yes, but we haven't had very much to this point where usually you at least see something through January, and then, all at once...

The biggest fire still burning started spitting distance south of Beechworth, skirted around the edge, and is heading in the general direction of Yackandandah.

I know it's small of me, but I'm praying to who'll listen that Beechworth, Yack, Stanley, and that area don't get the holocaust (and I mean that in all literalness) that happened to Marysville and Kinglake. I know Beechworth and Yack, they're a small part of me.

The stories coming out of there are that people didn't even know that they were in danger until there were 40 foot flames at the back door, and then it was too late.

131 dead now, and they've just begun to look.

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I think both bushfires I've been to (years ago in the Grampians and then in Gippsland in 2006) were before Christmas. I know we're not used to thinking of it that way because it's not until January that we really begin to bake, and hot weather = fires to most people, but it's more dependent on moist fuel drying out toward the tail-end of Spring and humidity dropping.

Chris Carson would have known more and explained it better than me; him being the fire educator and all. I miss him a lot, but think perhaps it's good that he isn't here for this. The sense of failure would be... ugly.

Dad says the death toll will top 200...

Jindi Cheese factory burned down...

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

That's my point: normally there have been fires here and there, off and on for months by now. This season, nothing for months, then, as if it had been stored up...

Like I say in my next post: this was not a failure of planning. By the time people knew to run, it was far too late. And hiding did no good when houses were literally exploding into flame.

There was no time to run, and no place to hide.

You can't plan for that.

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

Not saying that anyone has failed... simply that for the Community Fire Educators and all others involved will probably have varying degrees of that feeling. Undeserved, but insidious, I suspect.

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

I used to cycle through St Andrews every week, and every now and again make it up to Kinglake. And there's a 15% chance that any individual that served me at the bakery is now dead, and almost a 100% chance that they are now homeless. Little personal connections like these just make you want to... cry?

I read a post from one of my cycling aquaintances who was staying at a friends house up there, lived through the house burning down around him, and made a dash for it at just the right time (fire front had passed, a line of trees that would have stopped him had already burned to let him through, house hadn't yet been destroyed around him), only to drive through another wall of flames to help out a mate down the road, and helped save his place.

Brian Told Me

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know anyone personally who died in the fires, but I know of Brian Naylor. I grew up watching him read the news, and I've never found anyone else with the skill and capacity to do it so well.

They repeated on the radio this morning his final news bulletin sign off, something like: "and for the last time, may your news be good news, goodnight and farewell". I find it so sad hearing that (I can remember watching his final news bulletin and him saying that, professional to the end).

Perhaps more saddening was a recount of one his neighbours shown on the tv last night. The neighbour recalling how he spoke to Brian just prior to the fires coming through, saying something like: "Now Brian, you're not staying are you, tell me your not staying Brian". The bloke was crying as he recalled. Horribly sad decision to stay. But who was to know the fire would be so ferocious?

There's an almost sad looking photo, given the context, of Brian at his farm in this news article:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/tributes-for-newsman-brian-naylor-and-wife-20090209-81bt.html

For me, that photo summed it all up. RIP.

-- mpp