Saturday 18 January 2003
a bloody hot day, around 40C by 10am and a howling westerly wind. Some smoke in the air but nothing particularly alarming. Being a Saturday, I took refuge in the lounge room with the TV on the Australian Open Tennis - one of the Williams sisters was playing. I filled the evaporative air conditioner and set it on high. It dropped the temperature by 2 degrees. Some time after 2pm a mate dropped in and we watched the tennis together for half an hour, then he said he had to pick his Mum up from the bus. I saw him to the door.

The sky was orange. He said it has not been that way when he had arrived. Just then the sirens started. I went down to Hindmarsh Drive and looked west. Black smoke was rising - it was houses and shops burning. Fire engines and ambulances were racing west. Most other traffic was heading east. Helicopters trailing huge buckets of water passed to the north.

Burnt gum leaves and grass began to fall, fortunately none of it was still burning. I grabbed the garden hoses and wet down everything I could, then went next door to do the same for the neighbour who had gone away for the weekend. Their water pressure was pitiful, mine was good.

I got the ladder out to check that there was not too much leaf rubbish in the house gutters. I'd cleared them several weeks before but with three eucalyptus trees in the yard which drop leaves continously it does not take long to build up again. The wind nearly blew me off the ladder as I came over the gutter level. The leaves were not too bad, so I sprayed the roof with water and got down.

The people across the street were packing their car, and I thought of the man on the corner whose car had diplomatic plates and was still there. I knocked on the door and he had no idea of the fire to the west.

Then to the south west I saw Mt. Taylor burning, just 2.5 kilometres away.

So things went on until 4.30pm when the electricity went off. Half an hour later the wind dropped. For five minutes or so it was very still, then it blew steadily from the south east. The temperature dropped 10 degrees in as many minutes and after 20 the sky was clear, not a trace of smoke and it was a cool summer evening.

The toll - four killed, 492 injured, more than 450 houses and business premises destroyed or damaged.

The area burned was virtually identical to that burned in 1939, recorded by H G. Wells who was in Canberra at the time.

These scenes were shot less than 5km to the NW of my house.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW4ItqEkuWQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlovOPanNKU&feature=related


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Canberra_bushfires
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Fri 15 Jun 2012, 5:14, 5 replies)

Canberra was reduced to a barren wasteland.
Although I'm not sure how they could tell.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 15 Jun 2012, 9:40, closed)

That's a lucky escape
You must have been bricking it, I would have been.
(SpangoTheWonderBadger is brewing beer, Fri 15 Jun 2012, 9:44, closed)

Blimey..
You were a bit lucky.
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Fri 15 Jun 2012, 10:57, closed)

Sod all these posts about Zombies...
That looks truly terrifying. I can't imagine how I would feel if anyone I knew was in that area, let alone myself. How close were you to legging it?
( SauronWibble I'll hold it, you lick it..., Fri 15 Jun 2012, 12:50, closed)

not very close, but i did chuck a few things in a suitcase

(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Fri 15 Jun 2012, 22:17, closed)