Bushfire closing in

This is what confronted me on my way home from work today.....
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My wife range me to say she had already bailed out when I was about 7 minutes from home. Said she had grabbed all the photos and for me to grab the remainder and any other stuff that could not be replaced.

So you dodge a a couple of fire trucks into your street and see the bush well alight behind neighbours houses across the street. What do you do?

Race in and grab some axes and start loading up the car then head back in again to load some more axes and then grab remainder of the photos.

Here is a shot of directly across the street after loading up the car...
Attachment 21741

Went and spoke with a few neighbours across the road who said it took firies 40 minutes to respond and that it came right up to their back fences and that garden hoses did nothing to halt progress.

By this stage things had died down a bit and rang the missus to say all good to come home again but good thing we have cars loaded in case it springs up again through the night.

Proceeded to do what any Queenslander would do at this point....crack open a stubby and settle down to watch the Bronco's beat the Dragons.

Still plenty of smoke around as I post this and not out of the woods yet. At least the car is loaded with all the good stuff ready for a fast getaway if required.

Never would have thought living in suburbia near the bush would this exciting!!!

Scary stuff Waz take care


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Dude scary stuff

Thanks Ponch.

The crazy thing is the fire was coming from south west and we live in north eastern corner of the estate. Somehow embers have landed and caught alight about 4km's ahead of the fire front!!!

Fires unpredictability

Yep. All the way home I was wondering what the insurance would cover hence why I grabbed axes and left amps behind as they are usually much easier to replace.

And it's not even summer!

Glad you and your house are OK, Waz.

take care Waz, the wind is really whipping up down here, doesn't take much to get embers going again

Scary stuff Waz, hope it has ended well for you and yours.

Seems you have your priorities in order! Stay safe.

Whoa!! Scary indeed. Hope you managed to dodge this one.

Hang the guitars...I'd a left the lot...
Can always live the obsession all over again :)

cheers, Mark.

Good to hear all's well Waz - hope it stays that way.

Well done Waz! The missus did the sensible thing and got out while the going was good and grabbed the irreplaceable stuff.:) Leaving too late and not being able to get away is NOT the sensible thing. Tapping on the window of an abandoned car after a fire has gone through to see what may, or may not, be in there is not for the faint hearted!

Hi Guys, thanks for all your concerns.

Had to go to work today but looking across in daylight at that spot where the fire was in the photo and you could barely see any trace of damage, it went through so quick.

Quite unexpected as we live in the north eastern most part of the estate and at the time our patch went up the main fire front was about 4 - 6 km's away to the south west, presumably caused from embers carried with the strong breeze.

Whilst packing the car I was thinking about poor Gavin Turner and what he has been through which caused me to prioritise which axes were to be left behind. For the record they were a Yamaha Pacifica, Epiphone Slash AFD Les Paul, Artist P Bass Fretless conversion, and the Non PBG Flame Top Tele as I could only pick one Tele and the obvious choice was Swampy as that finish took forever and not sure I could replicate another one.

In the end none were sacrificed but at times like that you only have moments to grab what you can and get out quick.

Reflecting on things today has reminded me of the need to prepare an evacuation kit filled with more important things such as documents that cannot be replaced or hard to replace like passports and other forms of ID. Time to take photos of everything as receipts would have gone up in smoke and with that goes your proof of purchase, value and ownership of all valuable items. Good clear photos or digital copies of photos backed up onto a portable external hard drive is now on the to do list amongst other things.

Best of all, no loss of property to anyone from this fire but unfortunately 3 houses were lost in another fire up at Noosa some 55km north of here. And yes, it is still officially winter here but the upside is that it is the wake up call we all needed to do more controlled burning to be better prepared for a long hot summer where the fire risk increases.

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Originally Posted by wazkelly

Reflecting on things today has reminded me of the need to prepare an evacuation kit filled with more important things such as documents that cannot be replaced or hard to replace like passports and other forms of ID.

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I'm hearing you on this Waz, we live on the high side of the valley backing onto the bush in a western red cedar house and we've had no back burning on our side of the valley since we moved in back in 1990.

It is tinder dry here and we are about to head off to Europe for 5 weeks so the important stuff will be farmed out to friends and family who aren't in as vulnerable position as us.

Race car goes to the MILs place and guitars to the daughters along with our pics, all of our music is now on hard drives in three widely separated locations across Sydney.

The best plan is to have a plan and hope it's never needed.

Smart moves DK.

When do you head off? 5 weeks should be loads of fun.

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Originally Posted by wazkelly

Smart moves DK.

When do you head off? 5 weeks should be loads of fun.

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30th Waz, London - Bruges - Lakes Districk & Cornwall - Greek Islands - Venice - Cote d'azur - river cruise to Paris - Sydney.

When we get to London we are staying on Russell Square which is only a short stagger from Denmark St, no guitars stray or otherwise are permitted to follow me home but I'm sure I can find something acceptable

Sounds like a fun trip. Dave. You're going to some really nice places. Russell Square is only about 400m away from where my office is/was, so we could have met up if I was still working. A shame. Denmark Street is OK, but I never found it particularly nice to shop there. OK if you knew what you wanted, but too cramped and busy for relaxed browsing. Vintage and Rare guitars was the best shop by far, and also fairly relaxed inside, but that shut several years ago and moved down to Bath.

Just remember that the shops can arrange to courier items back for you, so no-one need suspect you've bought anything and upset the holiday atmosphere. I once did this with an amp when I was away on holiday in Norfolk, and got them to delay sending it until I was home again. :)

Damn, good to hear everything is ok Waz. Nature sure knows how play with us!

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Just remember that the shops can arrange to courier items back for you, so no-one need suspect you've bought anything and upset the holiday atmosphere.

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It's not the holiday atmosphere simply a management decree that I don't need another guitar and in reality that is probably pretty close to the mark.

The only ones I would like are all unobtanium class Fenders with a minimum spend of around A$9K and up to over $20K, apart from a Custom Shop Tuff Dog that I'm doing the tribute for anyway all the rest are things I shouldn't have let go in my youth.

If I can get a set of the correct Pearliod Klusons for a reasonably price I'll be happy but the world won't end if I can't because I have found them online.

As for getting things home that is the least of my worries, my son in law is a director of an import / export company who just brought some Subaru formula 1 engines and associated spares in from Europe for one of my mates. (Tony is now trying to buy one of the cars)

thats frightening.
hope all is well mate

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Originally Posted by OliSam

thats frightening.
hope all is well mate

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Thanks Oli.

Checked everything out in daylight yesterday and amazed not more damage was done. Firies must have arrived in the nick of time.

The business I closed up last year was heavily into Survival stuff and my forum always stressed that every member of the family had a bug out bag. A pre-packed back with a change of clothes, a few changes of underwear and socks, long life food for 3 or 4 days and few little things like a emergency blanket or swag, swiss army knife and torch and a bic lighter. Also copy all your important documents ( birth cert,passport, bank and motgage and INSURANCE papers) and put it on a memory stick in the bag. Flood , fire, earthquake , zombies, you just never know when the stuff is going to hit the fan. Emergency services will be pretty pleased if you turn up at a shelter with your own food and blankets.
Doesn't cost much and can make a big difference in tough times.

Spot on Deddy. Up here we see it on TV all the time as each storm season rolls around to prepare an evacuation kit and devise an evacuation plan but become so desensitised after a while that apathy takes over and nothing happens.

Best wake up call for myself and taking steps to be better prepared for any drop stuff and leave event.

Got a note in the mailbox today advising that back burning of our dangerous stuff is about to start.

Race car is in holiday camp and the other stuff will go next week before we leave for hols

Sorry Waz, I missed this. Everything ok?

Hi Andy, all good.

Flames came within 60m - 70m of our front door and they were about 3m - 5m off the back fences of neighbours across the street. Didn't panic or waste time to take it all in, just flicked the logical switch inside the brain to assess what was most the important bits to get out first. Once that was done reassessed the situation which had died down a fair bit in those 5 minutes it took loading up the car. Ended up sticking around as the worst of it was roaring away from us up the hill behind neighbours houses, heading towards the getaway exit out of the estate anyways. Staying put just seemed to make more sense at that stage but kept going out checking on things every half hour or so over a five hour period before going to bed.

Damn scary

Living out in Bellbowrie, how close are you to scrub or bushy areas?

Hey Waz, I missed this one too. Glad everything turned out OK. Scary stuff indeed.

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Originally Posted by robin

Hey Waz, I missed this one too. Glad everything turned out OK. Scary stuff indeed.

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Thanks Rob.