Bushfires tear through Sambarland

New Years Eve is supposed to be a happy celebratory occasion, this year was different for many people. I was preparing for a night of celebration when the phone started pinging with warnings. I have the Vic Emergency App on my phone that alerts me to emergency situations within a certain proximity of my house. A quick look showed a bushfire had started to the Northwest of my house, over the course of then evening the alerts turned from watch and act, to prepare to evacuate then to Evacuate immediately. I was fortunate to have someone looking after my house and they messaged me they were wetting down the house and garden in preparation. This was somewhat of a relief but I was still more than a little worried. The mountain behind my house is only 2km away and embers were travelling up to 10km and starting new fires.

View from my house before the fire.

 I was getting regular updates for a while then power to the town was cut and I knew it would be a few days before I could regain contact with my neighbours and probably weeks before power was restored. Oh well its up to the fire fighters and the wind now I thought as I opened a beer "happy New Year" at least the house and vehicles are insured!

The following day I received a short message form my neighbour saying they were safe and all the homes in our street were safe, that was a huge relief as I knew from the weather and wind the fire front was well away from the town now. A message the next day confirmed my freezer was still solid and holding up well with no power and emergency power was expected to be connected to town the following day.  The message also contained a couple of photos of the fire approaching and burning the mountain behind my house.

The following day I received a message from the power company to confirm that emergency power had been restored to town with truck mounted generators, then a message from my neighbour to confirm that power had been restored and everything was ok, however for some strange reason the ice cream in my freezer had " not survived the fire". 

The town was then evacuated of residents as there was no water or sewer services, residents would have to stay away until services were restored. Keeping in contact was a little easier as residents were accommodated in larger regional centres. Over the course of the next week utility crews worked to restore services and residents were allowed to return during daylight hours only, provided they had photo ID as proof of residence. 

Just under 2 weeks after the fire mains power was restored and residents were allowed to return to town to take stock of the damage and begin cleaning up. Cleaning up after this bush fire would not be a pleasant task, there were thousands of  head of dead livestock that would need to be removed, homes and buildings destroyed, the town next to us lost over 20 homes, fortunately no lives were lost when the fire tore through the town, but sadly 2 fire fighters lost their lives in a near by area. 

I will be heading over next month to clean up my house as no doubt it will be smoke affected but that's nothing a heavy clean wont fix. I will also be taking a look at all the area that burned as no doubt quite a few if not all of my cameras were destroyed, and sadly I fear the Deer I have been following for the past few years will most likely have perished, only time will tell there. That brings me to the question of where to from her what next.

Well I have decided to replace my cameras and set some new ones in an effort to record the  miraculous way the bush regenerates from such a devastating event, I want to record the regrowth of the plants and the return of the animals. It's going to be a long project, in excess of 2 years I suspect but it will be fun watching the charred remains of what I love return to it's former beauty.