No flames near us, but plenty of smoke and ash.
After the hottest day on record for Victoria, and an unsettled night with little sleep, we were woken early this morning with a phone call from America. "How are you coping?"
They had seen news reports of the fires, and reports being released this morning of 25 confirmed dead, possibly 40.
In the summer of 2006 the fires were right on our doorstep. This year, they are still in Gippsland, but quite a distance away at this point. We turned on the news this morning to see images of other parts of Victoria, in particular, Kinglake engulfed in fire. Our hearts sank with reports of major loss of property and deaths. Friends had left here last year for a new life in Kinglake. Mad scramble to find our phones.
Do we still have their mobile number. No, I only have their landline from when they lived here.Mr X finds a mobile number - emotions are raw. What do we do. Ring, SMS, wait? What if we ring and no-one answers. What if we ring and they have bad news to report? What if . . . I remember when we had floods and I was fielding many phone calls every day. While it was nice to know people were thinking of us in time of crisis, it was exhausting re-telling things every few minutes. So I sent our friends an SMS - "R U guys OK?"
A few minutes later we get an SMS reply with photos - obviously they have been inundated with calls - and had set up a little photo message to send people. They and their two girls are OK. Their house survived too. Relief. Then tears.
This morning, our eyes are red and our floors are black. When the wind changed direction at about 10pm last night, it bought with it thick black clouds of ash. Mr X ran outside and undid all the downpipes, so the ash couldnt' get into our water tanks and taint the supply. The wind was cooler, so we opened the windows to cool down and try to get some sleep. But it bought the smoke and ash inside. Our house smells like a smokey campsite now, and the floors (actually every surface) are covered with a fine black film of soot.
The pets are scatty, the kangaroos are scoffing down water from the trough we've set up for them, there's a yellow tinge in the sky - but relief is in sight.
Yesterday was 46.1C (115F). Today it's 22.
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Update: the death toll of these fires is rising every hour - currently at 132 people. As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on the news today, "the arsonists are mass murderers".
