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Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 4:36 pm
by billbarbas
good to hear your all well. Just got a text from muppet man asking about you Steve.

I was listening to 3aw all afternoon, Kinglake fire sprang up about 4.30, it was the fastest fire of the day from the info on the radio.
Time for you and Cj to cash in and buy JK's!!!

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 4:39 pm
by greyghost
good to hear that you and Seonaid are all right.


hoping that your property is OK......

give us a yell if you need anything.

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 6:53 pm
by gwagensteve
billbarbas wrote:Time for you and Cj to cash in and buy JK's!!!
I won't make the obvious crack about jeeps Bill. Far too soon. :D ;)

An (small) update. After contacting the Bushfire info line, we were given the OK to travel to Kinglake to confirm the condition of our property.

We were given the OK to travel on the Heidelberg Kinglake road to get access, but we were stopped in St Andrews- the Police have the road closed to carry out "rescue work" so we'll try again tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

Steve.

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 8:35 pm
by cj!
The more I've been hearing, the luckier I think we were no matter what the shed outcome is. I'm still thinking about the speed of the change yesterday and it was pretty wild really.

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 8:39 pm
by gwagensteve
I agree totally Chris.

If we'd had another beer and been another 1/2 and hour later, things would have been radically different.

Likewise, I was only a couple of minutes off of making it back to town from Mt Slide.

The speed the fire moved is impossible to understand.

Steve.

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 8:57 pm
by andrew_wale
gwagensteve wrote:I agree totally Chris.

If we'd had another beer and been another 1/2 and hour later, things would have been radically different.

Likewise, I was only a couple of minutes off of making it back to town from Mt Slide.

The speed the fire moved is impossible to understand.

Steve.

Steve

Good to hear you are both O.K

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 9:07 pm
by greyghost
seems to be a common thing on the news, "how FAST the fires came through"



just heard the the toll is over 110 people.

Re: The fires

Posted: Sun 08 Feb, 2009 9:24 pm
by gwagensteve
I'm not surprised. There's going to be a lot of people caught in houses.

Our next door neighbours were sitting on their back verandah at 5.00pm pretty unfussed - they're locals who have all the inside goss from the CFA etc and they didn't seem bothered at all - back in '06 they were all over it. That's the story all over - there was just no precedent for the speed or the reach of the spot fires. If we'd still been at home we would have had literally minutes

There's so many poor people who live up there that don't have cars etc and will have had no capacity to get even to the CFA station. It's heartbreaking. That's the thing with Kinglake - there's lots of people up there who have so few resources. Many people who live behind town don't have cars and many will be uninsured.

Once again - thanks to all of your messages of support and offers of assistance. We'll keep you posted.

Steve.

Re: The fires

Posted: Mon 09 Feb, 2009 6:24 pm
by andrew_wale
Just listening to the news on TV.

Now a Royal Commission into the fires to find out how to minimize this happening again.
What a waste of tax payers money. (at least I think so)

Is'nt this like telling the CFA etc how to suck eggs..
I wish the government would allow the CFA to back burn regularly.

The hot weather would not have helped.

Re: The fires Deans house.

Posted: Mon 09 Feb, 2009 6:43 pm
by Lloyd
I was at Suzi World today talking to Mick and while i was there he had conformation that Dean his mechanic has lost his house at Kinglake.I think Dean is staying at Craigieburn.