Mt Lubra Fire

Only 10 days since the last post but what a ten days. Since the fire in the Grampians broke out at Mt Lubra we have watched it go from around 200 ha in size on day one to over 120,000 ha on day seven (quite a lot of which is in the park) and it is still going.

But first things first. Matt has had his operation on his elbow and is now starting to use his arm again, albeit a bit tentatively. This afternoon he was going to have the full leg cast replaced by a shorter cast that he can walk on. So he won't look quite so incapacitated when he starts work next Wednesday, although I'm not sure if the nice new trousers will fit over the walking cast, boot thingie.



Secondly, as you can see from this I'm alive and well, as is Frank, and not at all singed, although we are a bit tired. I'm back in Melbourne taking the compulsory rest days after working 11 days straight (about 90 hours in the last week). My job was sitting in the car with the Division/Sector Commander logging all the information that came across on the radios. His job is to direct all the firefighters to the fire areas he considered to be best to help contain the fire. Basically he was in charge of directing the troops.




Frank was very busy from Tuesday to Thursday helping to organise food and drinks etc. for all the fire fighting crews. I think he might find it hard to cook for any less that 24 now (the average size of a fire crew). He has made lots of new friends and now knows the names of more Halls Gap residents than I probably ever will.



It's rather sad to see so much of the park burn so fiercely but we are all optimistic that it will regenerate better than ever. I just hope for the sake of all the local businesses that the fire doesn't impact too severely upon their livlihoods, although its hard to see tourists wanting to visit for a while. Lots of the businesses in Halls Gap have been so great donating a wide range of goods from chocolate mud cakes, to ice creams, ice, bread, eggs, bacon, steak etc. etc. to feed the fire crews when food wasn't getting through.



It was very upsetting to hear that friends had lost sheds, livestock etc. and in one case house and all, but again we're optimistic that the community will rally around and that things in the end will be better than ever before. But it must be so very hard for people to lose their homes and possessions which cannot be replaced like family photos and the like.

As for the place I am renting, when we went back to sleep there on Tuesday night the fire was accross the road. The house is about 30 metres from the road and the fire about 50 metres into the bush. It wasn't raging - just "trickling" along so we were pretty safe. The fire hadn't really got any closer by the morning but when we came back Wednesday night the fire was right along the road and the crews were watering it to make sure it stopped there.