Great Start!

We certainly started this year off with a spark. A fire spark, that is.

New Year's Day began quite ordinarily. I cooked the turkey really early in the morning because it was going to be a hot day and I didn't want the oven on heating up the kitchen.

With that all done, we closed the house up and put the air conditioner on. It climbed to 43 degrees Celsius. The previous day was 42 but the heat was clear. This day was overcast and very windy. A really nasty day.

Lunch went off alright with Geoff, Rhys [son], Susan [friend of mine] and I all sitting around having a casual meal. After that we all went our separate ways. Susan went home, Rhys went around to his girlfriend's house and I decided to go outside to take the washing off the line. All very ordinary -- except for the heat.

I walked around the side of the verandah to where the clothes were hanging and the sky suddenly turned a dirty orange colour. Only one thing turns the sky that colour: bush fire.

Smoke enveloped the place and I thought, "This is not good."

I pulled all the clothes off the line and raced inside to close all the doors and windows and put towels down along all the cracks. The wind was blowing in our direction. I couldn't see any fire but I sure could hear it and smell it. It was roaring and causing the wind to heat up even further.

Geoff came home and I asked him if he'd seen where the fire was. He said no. He rang the fire brigade and they told him that there were 5 fires all around us.

We weren't prepared. We have a flood plan, not a bush fire plan.

The next few hours were spent blocking spouting and drains and filling them with water, trying to get all the leaves and debris off the roof. This wasn't possible because the wind kept blowing leaves and twigs from all the nearby trees. But we did what we could.

Rhys, his girlfriend and her brother arrived and helped. We all put on overalls and nearly cooked. Then the power was cut off by the authorities in case the fire burned the power poles, so the inside of the house became an oven. I was worried about the fish tanks. They were heating up. The fish are all tropical, but I don't think they liked being in 40 degree water. I wondered how I'd save Oscar the oscar. I was considering throwing him in a bucket with a lid on it or something. The other fish would have to perish. Not a nice thought but there'd be no time to save them.

I locked the 2 cats in one room so I could grab them and shove them in a basket if I had to. I put the bird's cage where I could grab him too, and tied the dogs up on the verandah within easy reach. Our only hope would be the lagoon at the back of the house which has 20 foot high sides and plenty of water. We could all shelter there if the worst happened. The road would be blocked as the fire was coming from that direction.

We had hoses connected to every tap. Geoff had the fire fighting tank and pump on the back of his truck, and we had sprinklers ready to go on the house roof. We didn't have any tennis balls to block the down pipes so we had to use rags. The old spouting was leaking all over the place. It was nearly hopeless.

There was nothing we could do for the cattle. They would have to get into the river or anywhere, or follow us into the lagoon if they didn't panic and run. There was no time to think about things or belongings, or even clothes, to save. We put our wallets in our pockets and our car keys and that was about it. Saving ourselves and the living creatures was about all we thought about.

The fear was, that this old place is about 100 years old now and all made of wood. I don't know if we could have saved it. Our only hope was to wet the wood down as much as possible to make it hard to burn. The lovely old antiques inside would be lost forever or damaged beyond repair by the heat.

Helicopters and planes were flying about overhead dumping water and fire trucks were all over the town. Nobody could see anything for smoke and it was all very confusing. The wind kept changing direction and nobody knew which way the fires were going to go.

There were reports of sight seers getting in the way of fire trucks and police. There were kids on bikes heading over to have a look and people on foot out everywhere just watching. One policeman on foot was run down by a car. Luckily he wasn't hurt, but I bet he wasn't happy. Silly people. All they were doing was getting in the way and putting themselves and others in danger.

After about 4 hours of hosing the house down from every direction we could, the wind suddenly died and it began to rain a little -- not enough to make a difference, but it did cool down dramatically which helped. Then the smoke began to clear. The fire was under control.

No houses were lost in Wangaratta. What a relief.

We were left happy, but with a very big lesson in what we should have had ready. As I said before, we're all geared up for floods as we have at least two every year. We're very fire conscious, but right here on the edge of town we don't tend to think of bush fires.

We know different now. We will be as prepared as we can be for next time -- pray that there isn't a next time! In the meantime, I'm going out to buy some tennis balls.

Our animals all survived their ordeal and so did all my fish. It took quite a while for their tanks to cool down, but by early the next morning they were all back to their normal 28 degrees.

All in all, a quite exciting start to 2006. Let's hope the rest of the year is a wee bit quieter.