Lullabelle
Midlands, England
We're forecast 43°C or 44°C for this week. Not looking forward to it. I've told hubby today that he has to have to BBQ up and running by the end of today so that I can cook outside in the morning. All our meals this week are cold soups. I don't think either of us fancies anything even vaguely warm.
I had no idea it could be seen that far away. Sydney is totally surrounded by fires. Most of the Blue Mountains are badly burnt to the west and north of Sydney and the only other side, south, are 'our' fires.
The one close to where we used to live is nearly under control. All they could do was create an area already burnt to prevent the bush fire from burning any further. Now it is a case of waiting for it to run out of things to burn!
The one on the coast is still out of control but the coastal road is open again (as in getting to the coast rather than the one that runs along the coast). That at least means the main towns now have fuel and food again. They were running out of both but ironically had a mountain of fresh fruit and veg (but masses of 1 thing) that was going bad because it was growing and still being picked but they couldn't get it out. The road to the coast is very windy and steep. The sort of thing that lorries crawl up and cyclists go faster than the lorries (though we've yet to meet any cyclists on it it is the sort of road we cycled when cycling around the world and yes, we've overtaken (or rather undertaken) lorries going up hill before now on our expedition bikes when we were super fit). It's not the best road to drive and certainly not one you drive tired. The first time we drove it we passed a fatal road accident. Most are fatal because if you go over the edge, well there is nothing there to catch you until you hit the tops of the trees below.
But yeah, these fires are really bad. But the up side is that once all of this has burnt off, the place will be a lot safer because there will be nothing to burn for some years to come and many species of plants need the fires in order to self seed or for those seeds to germinate and regenerate the natural bush. It appears to be similar to what happened to Canberra a while back only this time it is Sydney that has the problem.
There haven't been any fires south of Canberra in the Snowy Mountains that were devastated all those years ago and they have had just as little water. It leaves you wondering/pondering the wisdom in preventing bush fires and not having areas that have been pre-burnt in winter to give barriers to massive fires like these. Back burning used to be common and created natural fire breaks that stopped the spread of massive bush fires like this.
Sadly there will only be more to come this season as we have barely started the bush for season yet.
so much devastation
is going to express anything other than horror at that temperature.