hey guys,
I hope that all our NSW members are safe
I have been watching the fire news and must admit having gone through the fires in my suburbs a few years ago - I am feeling a bit anxious
keep safe guys
xx Robbie :heart:
I concur and if anyone is in trouble, don't be afraid to let us know.
Williamtown Maccas from Facebook:
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just arrived back from deepest darkest africa on friday night for the cabbie to fill us in on the 80+ homes burnt to the ground the previous day at winmalee just 5 km as the crow flies from our place !! its devastating
its in these times when people pitch in and help those in need..
Quote from: 'duggee27' pid='31510' dateline='1382160657'just arrived back from deepest darkest africa on friday night for the cabbie to fill us in on the 80+ homes burnt to the ground the previous day at winmalee just 5 km as the crow flies from our place !! its devastating
its in these times when people pitch in and help those in need..
You must be close by Duggee. Mount Riverview (Blaxland) here.
Quote from: 'Possie Ron' pid='31513' dateline='1382161389'Quote from: 'duggee27' pid='31510' dateline='1382160657'just arrived back from deepest darkest africa on friday night for the cabbie to fill us in on the 80+ homes burnt to the ground the previous day at winmalee just 5 km as the crow flies from our place !! its devastating
its in these times when people pitch in and help those in need..
You must be close by Duggee. Mount Riverview (Blaxland) here.
sure am
i had worked out you are in the area
did you get th call to evacuate, if so, what coin did you grab ! and the missus of course
Quote from: 'duggee27' pid='31514' dateline='1382161722'Quote from: 'Possie Ron' pid='31513' dateline='1382161389'Quote from: 'duggee27' pid='31510' dateline='1382160657'just arrived back from deepest darkest africa on friday night for the cabbie to fill us in on the 80+ homes burnt to the ground the previous day at winmalee just 5 km as the crow flies from our place !! its devastating
its in these times when people pitch in and help those in need..
You must be close by Duggee. Mount Riverview (Blaxland) here.
sure am
i had worked out you are in the area
did you get th call to evacuate, if so, what coin did you grab ! and the missus of course
Heaps of Evacuation calls, And saved all of the coins and the missus to carry them.
sure am
i had worked out you are in the area
did you get th call to evacuate, if so, what coin did you grab ! and the missus of course
[/quote]
Heaps of Evacuation calls, And saved all of the coins and the missus to carry them.
[/quote]
now thats a plan :angel:
when things get back to normal PM me and we can have our own show and tell
Stay safe you Mob and if it comes to the crunch then bugger the coins .
Look after your family , After all they are FAR more important and irreplaceable .
If you loose your coins IT is sad , But if you loose your family it will be devastating :ok:
IF they tell you to evacuate chuck the missus and kids in the car and put the pedal to the metal and "Get out of Dallas".
If it is God's will then all will be there when you can return safely, IF not then everything else is replaceable .
Your loved ones aren't :ok:
we did that with the fires here
just grabbed the dog, medications and my mother's engagement ring and spent a few days in an evacuation centre helping out those who had lost everything
the place was still here when we got back but houses just up the road a bit (apx 1 k) were gone gone gone - they have only finished the rebuild in recent years ; it seems to take forever and the place stinks of burnt embers for years
esp if people are under-insured , they seem to have to sell the land and set up house elsewhere
one of my sons had quite a few school mates leave as the families could not afford the rebuild, so not only did we lose half of our suburbs but the kids lost close contact their pals as well
although, he is 26 now and one lad still comes here or he goes to see him in Wollongong so friendships weren't totally lost
my boss lost her home and couldn't rebuild due to under-insurance
rob de castella lives up from us and his kids went to my kids primary school (rob and I had done stalls together at the school fete)
he lost everything but not his family as they were all out of town
I feel for your suburbs and the road to recovery is heartbreaking, dusty, dirty & messy and not at all easy - I wish all the best and hope that it is smooth as possible for those who will have to rebuild
the patchwork club here will be busy sewing as after the fires here (500 homes lost), Canberra received hundreds of patchwork quilts from Australian clubs and American clubs - so for sure the ladies will get the machines out and send through patchwork care packages to our NSW friends
Quote from: 'robbiegal' pid='31534' dateline='1382180250'they seem to have to sell the land and set up house elsewhere
Mmmmm... more to it than that though.
What we saw in Cockatoo was the vast majority couldn't handle the memories, the losses, the risk and so on, and got out of Dodge soon after. Within a couple of years the town was full of new faces. And of course it changed the feel of the place completely, especially since the rubbernecks decided to buy in and brought suburbia with them. Crime went through the roof, the place went to the dogs, and I'd be very surprised if there's anyone left now. We had friends who ran away as far as Nimbin and the Gold Coast. And the new mob have no idea of what's in store when it happens again.
The heartbreaking thing is that no matter how often the cycle of destruction repeats itself, we keep putting back exactly what was destroyed, completely failing to comprehend that fire is as natural and necessary a part of the Australian bush as you could get. Its never a question of WILL it burn, but simply WHEN.
We were discussing this fire season over lunch today, and the considered opinion of everyone present, including fire survivors and firefighters, was that with all the wet weather we've just had and the perfect growing conditions, Jan/Feb may well see a rerun of Ash Wednesday across Victoria and South Australia.
Its not over by a longshot.. just beginning really. :(
You are most probably correct Fulvio but I pray you will be wrong.........
Always feel for the people affected by the fires. My parent lost the family home 7 or 8 years ago now (including some coins). Takes a long time to rebuild....years. The number of houses lost in devastating, however such large number makes the government and public take notice and the money/support starts flowing quickly. In my parents case they were 1 of 9 houses lost I think. Barely even got a mention after a couple of days on the news and therefore only a little support (financial/emotional).
They were well insured but people don't allow for extra costs after a fire. For example, a higher demand for builders means you often need to pay more, new fire ratings for the new houses, new/updated septic tank regulations for new houses (an extra $10K alone), etc etc.
However, I do have a problem with greatly under-insured or those with no insurance getting extra money/support etc compared to those with insurance (this happened). My parents are pensioners and often have to pay the insurance bill on the credit card to make sure they are covered and it takes the whole year to pay it. I just find it unfair! I just think there should be consistency!
Good luck to all those in the fire areas, be safe!
yeah
over here the builders and tradies had a field day
all jobs were well well over twice the usual price
and house prices doubled within weeks post fires
it was just crazy
we certainly checked our insurance and realised that we didn't have enough to replace everything and we didn't even own the house at that time - just contents
Quote from: 'b_j_w_79' pid='31702' dateline='1382348820'The number of houses lost in devastating
Even ONE is devastating. More so if its yours.
We really need to get our heads around this problem though, and stop building suburbia in the bush. What works in a concrete jungle is completely inappropriate in a totally flammable environment that WANTS to explode violently at regular intervals.
An attempt was made in Cockatoo.. a half hearted attempt. They designed and built the "Bushfire House", which was first a concept display house, then a community centre, and eventually sold off I believe. Where it is is in the middle of what we called "Fireball Alley", and the walls were designed to deflect fireballs, and not provide any point of entry for flying embers. The design was so good that you would think the whole town would have been rebuilt to that design, right? Nup. Standard issue suburban brick veneers or timber kit homes. A few of us built in mud brick, but even then most didn't make any real effort to fireproof the place. If Ash Wednesday happened again next week, I reckon there'd be lucky to be twenty houses still standing afterwards.
And I'll bet its the same story in every other fire-affected community in the country. Which is the real tragedy in all this. We just don't learn from past mistakes. :(
QuoteWe just don't learn from past mistakes.
YES we do.
After Cyclone Tracy Darwin and the North West of Aus built to Cyclone standards and got their act together with warnings and procedures and NOW these places are FAR safer to live and work in.
I agree that after "Ash Wednesday" there should have been building standards (Enforced) and procedures in place to prevent the loss of life and property.
Alas this hasn't happened in the Eastern States and is just plain stupid and dangerous.
I have always said that the authorities can make all the regulations that they like but to enforce those rules and regulations is another thing.
I live in an outer western suburb in Melbourne and we have a lot of mixed cultures, many different languages etc and many, many illegal additions to houses and buildings.
Until we have sufficient law enforcement and rule enforcement officers, then illegal buildings will continue to be built here in suburbs and in the bush.
Why, cant a law be passed that all buildings built in the bush or bushfire areas be fitted with water sprinklers that when turned on, put up a water screen to stop embers from settling on the building. Why do we persist in putting up wooden fences when steel fences will slow a fire up. Just look at the recent Canberra fires when they lost an almost entire suburb from bushfires but when the helicopter flew over head and took the film of the damage, all the swimming pools were still full of water but no house.
If I ever had a swimming pool in my back yard, I would certainly connect a sprinkler system on the house that would/could use the swimming pool water in an emergence.
People want to live in the bush should take care to preserve property but with certain groups of people arguing that one can't cut down that tree, what else do we expect.
Quote from: 'Goldseeker' pid='31774' dateline='1382399140'to enforce those rules and regulations is another thing.
This is a multi-layered issue.
First you have regulations. Lack thereof, inappropriateness, and enforcement.
Example: Before the fires you couldn't chop down a twig in the hills, because of course trees are sacrosanct to greenies. Immediately after the fires though, the roar of chainsaws was deafening. Bit late for the destroyed properties, but it undoubtedly saved further grief for a couple of years. But now of course its all back the way it was, setting the stage for the next disaster.
Then you have cost. There seems to be systemic profiteering around most things which are beneficial. What's good for you, be it food or clothing or safety or whatever, always seems to be much more expensive. And most people aren't rich. So they make do with what they can afford. They eat junk food, they wear clothes from sweatshops, they don't change batteries in fire alarms, and they don't install features that could save their lives.
And of course you have peer pressure. If everybody lives in a timber box, people will build timber boxes, not earth-covered fireproof dwellings with automatic sprinklers. Drive around any community anywhere in the world and there is a sameness to the structures, and an overwhelming resistance to any development that doesn't "fit in". Which may be fine in safe areas, but inappropriate where the landscape wants to kill you.
There ARE things that can be done, and cheaply. We used mud bricks, which are not only far safer but much much cheaper and stronger. We used single lengths of Colourbond to go up and over a low-pitched roof, so as to have no ridge cap for embers to get in. We had four-foot eaves for the same reason. We had skinny, wide windows high up under the eaves on the end wall facing down fireball alley, and double-glazed them with stained glass. We had sprinklers. We used massive external hardwood timbers. We removed flammable trees and replaced them with fire-retardant ones. And we cut into the hillside to expose as little house as possible. The next time the town burns I guarantee this will be one of the houses that will survive. But all the immediate neighbours are wooden boxes on stilts with crap stored underneath. Why? Because that's the norm of course.
Changes
must start with the way people think. Every disaster presents the opportunity for change. Sometimes that happens, more often it doesn't.
in Canberra
Elivis came in and emptied almost every available pool
my friend's son was on the roof of their house with a hose piddling out a trickle
the house next door and across the road were in flames
Elvis flys over then ahead
comes down - empties the neighbours pool
then flys off
where to - they were dousing the Aust Fed Police ammunitions stores just up the road - smack in suburbs and just up from a primary school - mind you
not a single home was doused with water that I know of
everyone left to burn in what many have described to me as Hell on Earth
and ys, the rebuild doesn't look as if the homes are much different in their designs besides being 'more modern'
i'd love a pm with pictures of the house or plan ideas
we have tiled roof, trees, wooden fence on one side - all fire ball magnets
Quote from: 'robbiegal' pid='31883' dateline='1382431794'i'd love a pm with pictures of the house or plan ideas
This was back in the days before digital, and sadly, she got all the pictures. I literally have nothing from those years.
Still, if you google-map 17 belgrave-gembrook rd cockatoo, you can see where it is. The fireballs came up the valley from the north-west, between Caroline Ave and the main road. I see the new owner has built a bloody great fence along the front, but if you go into streetview you can glimpse the house through the open gate. Its basically a box on a slab, with big Jarrah posts and railway sleepers supporting the roof and mud brick and glass between them. the internal layout isn't very exciting I'm afraid.
The bushfire house was, IIRC, 4 Caroline Ave, which appears to now be well and truly overgrown and probably not a very safe place to be anymore.
You're right about those things being magnets.. and there's not a lot you can do about it. Replacing a roof is expensive, and sealing it is a temporary fix. Besides, concrete tiles explode if they get hot enough. Trees are likely to be impossible to remove in most areas thanks to the way councils think, and fences involve neighbours so that's going to be impossible as well. But then again, you're in suburbia, and I would think the Canberra fires were enough of a wakeup call that the emergency services will be better prepared next time.
The best things you can do are probably a roof sprinkler system, and double-glazing or shuttering the windows, which produce other benefits besides fire protection. And of course keep the area clear of as much flammable material as possible.
thanks mate
will have a look
ps google earth is one heck of a head spin!!