A Massive Shock!

So....our Sunday morning started lazily with a leisurely breakfast and no plans for the day.

Ros was having her breakfast and I was unpacking the X-Box and Playstation, that we will probably never have enough power to use and Will was looking for crocheting books on the bookcase when he said 

"What's that noise?"

It was a crackling sound that I immediately thought sounded like fire but quickly discounted it as very unlikely and decided it was more like water rapidly dripping onto something metallic.

Will was out of the door and running up the drive and I followed after to find him running back shouting,

"It's a fire!"

Sure enough I could see flames and smoke just on the other side of the dam. I have thought about bushfires and worried about them but I never for one minute expected to encounter one so soon.

We all went into 'Headless Chicken' mode. Will and Ros grabbed buckets and started filling them with water and I grabbed the nearest flat whacking thing, having seen firefighters beat fires out. I chose the only likely thing, a plastic rake and rushed off to the fire.

There were a few small flames in various places which were crackling loudly at the tinder dry grass and branches. I beat at the flames with the rake and they were out by the time that Ros and Will arrived with four buckets of water. We doused the ground around an old decaying log and the ground was so hot around the log that the water actually boiled! The log must have been smouldering for quite some time.

With no flames about we finally had time to gather our thoughts and take in the situation. There was a large burnt patch of ground nearby, about 5 square metres but between it and the patch we had just extinguished there was a swathe of unburnt undergrowth. The large burnt patch was not smouldering at all and had gone out itself.

"Someone must have started it deliberately" I said.

The patch we had poured water on was still smouldering so we fetched more water. We did about four water trips, 16 bucket loads, before we were finally sure we had properly doused it. We found another burnt patch close by again that had extinguished itself, which was incredible considering the amount of dry tinder and timber lying about.

"I think it is a lightning strike" said Will, " and it has been smouldering from yesterday and the rain has put these other patches out."

"That tree up there looks shattered," I said pointing up the hill through the trees. We wandered up passing more burnt areas and found the devastation on the ridge.

A large gum tree had literally exploded scattering bark and branches and wooden shards for 30 feet or more. There were more patches of burnt ground roundabout and then Will realised more of what had happened. Lying twisted through the undergrowth were the remnants of the old electric fence that Will had used to keep his cow, Pansy from straying too far. The lightning bolt had obviously travelled along this old wire and sparked the fires in the different and isolated areas across the ridge.

All this had happened while we had been walking and swimming in Girraween yesterday and when we had come home we did not notice the burnt areas or see any smoke but that old log down near the dam must have been smouldering all night and burst back into flames this morning.

It is quite sobering and frightening to realise how close we came to complete disaster and devastation and how lucky we were that the rain extinguished the flames, and judging by some of the charred areas, the fires were quite intense. It has literally been a massive shock!

We need to collect up that old electric fence and quick.