We had some drama in our neighbourhood today!
A fire started just to the back of our farm and was on a neighbouring farm – if you’re a regular visitor, you’ve probably seen me write about my friend Gill who is the world’s most amazing cook! This fire photo is what fronted her and her family today.
Having fought in a couple of fires early in our farming career, I know the intensity of the heat and smothering feeling that the smoke sends out. It’s frightening, no matter how seasoned at fighting fires you are. Having kids now, I don’t venture out to the fire front any more, but the photo of the smoke is what I could see from my side!
The flaming photo was taken by Anthony on his mobile phone and portrays the danger, much better than any of my smoke photos.
Thankfully today was cool even though the wind was a bit stronger than what we would have like to fight this fire which gave the blokes a few scary moments.
One of the best thing about living in a farming community is the way people respond to calls for help. Men jumped off headers and were at the fire within minutes and four hours later things were looking decidedly better. There will be guys that watch fire all night, in case there are flare-up’s, but as of now, listening to the bushfire radio, it sounds like all is ‘under control’.
We had a fire at our block a few weeks ago. I wasn’t there to see it but about 2 weeks later we went and took some pictures of it all. It wiped out most of our barely crop there and all that is left is the heads on the ground with a few battle scars! Not a sign of the stalks, just the barley heads. We were lucky there weren’t any sheep on the block at the time and no one got hurt so it isn’t too bad.