There are blazes I remember

Although I've not been blogging regularly here, I thought perhaps I should post to say that the bushfires that are making international news are nowhere near me or my family. Most of the fire is in Victoria, which is quite a way from us---although we'll be driving around it when we go to the Australian Romance Readers Convention in a couple of weeks. As you can imagine, I'm somewhat apprehensive about this, but The Boy reassures me that he's looked at the travel route and it's going to be okay. It remains to be seen if this will still be the case closer to our trip as these fires can be pretty unpredictable.

I hadn't actually realised that these fires were raging until the weekend. Last week, my mum rang my dad to come home from his Friday night mahjong game because she could see smoke and thought there was a chance that they'd have to evacuate. My parents live quite close to a national park and so we're a little paranoid about bushfires. Luckily, that fire was quickly doused.

What pisses me off is that the fire was started by an arsonist. Fucker. Sadly, this is a common story. Some fires start off from random sparks or lightning strikes, but from memory, the vast majority are started by firebugs.

I've lived in two suburbs that, while not bushfire prone, have been close enough to major bushfires to be put on alert. I remember one year when we'd find burnt leaves in the backyard, blown across by the wind. We'd go out to the yard and the sky would be dense with smoke. Even though it was unlikely that the fire would jump to us, it was sobering to think that some kilometres away people's homes and lives were being devastated.

The other big bushfire year that I remember was when I lived in the house that my parents are in now. Roads less than 10 minutes away were being closed due to fires. Looking back, I don't think we were even close to being evacuated, but I remember the stress of living in uncertainty. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be for people who have to decide whether to stay and defend their homes or evacuate with nothing more than a carload of their most precious possessions.

Because I'm a total wuss and I have absolutely no idea how to defend a house against a bushfire, I'm quick to say that I'll evacuate as soon as it even becomes a topic for discussion. In reality, it's not that simple. It's easy enough to talk yourself out of the danger and act in a riskier way that you may realise. It's also easy to misjudge the danger simply because bushfires spread on the whim of the wind and, as this year's victims found out, even 5 minutes could mean the difference between surviving and perishing.

As of this morning, the death toll stands at 173. That's a huge number when you consider that the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983, previously touted the worst in Australia, claimed 75 lives. When you watch and listen to interviews, you can hear the shock and anguish of ordinary people who have not only escaped within minutes, but who know people who are missing or have died, some who survived but whose spouses or children didn't. I've heard stories of people who were found near fully loaded cars, just about to leave when they were engulfed by the fire.

It rained here yesterday, though I'm not sure if any of it reached the bushfire areas. At the very least, we can only hope that the winds will die down long enough for firefighters to contain the remaining fires. The wind is the unknown factor and poses the greatest danger at the moment.

For anyone who wants to help, you can donate to the bushfire relief fund via the Red Cross (1800 811 700) or donate via your local bank. The blood bank is also urging people to come in and donate urgently needed blood.

And in case you didn't know, North Queensland is dealing with flood, which is just mind-boggling. They, too, need help and have suffered casualties. You can help by donating via the Salvos.