Black saturday anniversary

[NissanGQ4.2]

This is an Aerial vision from the NSW RFS helicopter of the Londonderry Fire in western Sydney on the 13 November 2016, While Londonderry is semi rural it is surrounded by built up suburbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6AlwhjF9pU

[AB]

The Canberra fires that Kris mentioned before.

This is a 45 min vid but if you're bored and want to truly know what our firerys deal with at times then this is a great video of the risks they take and most are voluntary...

There's a lot of hectic moments here!

https://youtu.be/qPpOXH0ADSg


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[NissanGQ4.2]

@AB Malcolm and Ichabod are the air cranes based in VIC this fire season

[jack]

We currently have a Blackhawk helicopter stationed in Ballarat, fastest firefighting helicopter in Australia. Has a 3,400 litre multi drop bucket, meaning it can drops loads on different locations.
Today is also the 40th anniversary of the fires that devastated the western district, lucky loss of life was minimal but it was devastating on stock losses. We spent the day protecting my sisters farm but a grass fire is almost unstoppable. These sights will stay with me forever, our former home and about ten neighbouring houses were destroyed in Creswick. Streatham was wiped off the map and never recovered.

[MB]

I may be wrong Toddstar, but do believe AB is suggesting none of us should be heroes on Extreme days as such. We were vigilant as always on the day but to be honest, dead set lucky with wind changes in the end. Our old mans 'Ash Wednesday' training as kids could never meet that days chaos!

[NissanGQ4.2]

Hey mate nah I don't remember that but would be keen to read it.

@AB What I was referring 2 earlier in this thread is from a book called Kinglake 350 by Adrian Hyland

Extract from the book:

An example of wider thinking that offers a promising lesson for the future comes from a small community near Castella, in the heavy timbered eastern part of the Kingslake Rangers.

By rights, the 20 or so houses near Castella shouldn't still be standing. They were struck by fire as intense as most other places in the ranges, and yet they survived. How did they avoid the general destruction?

In the first place, the DSE had carries out carefully targeted burns, totaling around 450 hectares, in the years before Black Saturday. But just as importantly, the community was actively involved in its own defense. There was a strong fireguard group, so the residents where there to inform and support each other. When the fire came they fought collectively, as a community, and they won.

[Sprock]

@AB I just watched the link you put up on the 1st page of this thread - goes for an hr & 40 mins ( or so ) I was a gibbering wreck by the end of it , the story of the grand parents who lost their grand kids & 2 girls that lived down the rd that were all sheltering in their home was horrific - as were the other stories . Towns being obliterated & with the only knowledge that there was fires about was from the thick smoke - the cfa systems collapsed & people who were monitoring the cfa website & 774 radio were unaware of any danger until it was to late . Thankfully the closest these fires got to us was Traralgon Sth ( half hr away ) a few years before this the fires came at Heyfield from 3 different sides over a few days each time the wind changed getting to within 1km of our house - that was bad enough but these poor people lost everything . Bloody sad .

[BSRT.Beast]

Black Saturday my 35th birthday.
What I remember most was the aftermath,at the time I was working for a heavy haulage company and from first thing Monday we were being sent into the fire zones with Machinery alot of Generators it was absolutely devastating gut wrenching and real eerie.

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[Sprock]

Even driving through Kinglake etc now is eerie - knowing what happened there & how many lives were lost but also the fact that EVERYTHING is brand new - houses , shops , halls etc brings home the level of devastation there .