Sydney Bushfires - catastrophic alert

[LeGrandBleu]

Anyone up worried? It is 3.20 am and I can't sleep.

I play it down with my parents in France, but I am starting to worry a bit. My house is surrounded by bush which is lovely as I get wallabies in the garden - well more snakes than wallabies to be honest - but now I don't see the gumtrees with the same eye.

News and fire service keep repeating, they won't call, they won't knock on doors and won't be able to come and save us, so I kept checking the fire app to see if there were any fire near us and gave up on sleep.

It was a strange feeling to pack a box with the foto albums, another with electronics, and a bag with passports next to the door.
Neighbour came round and told me to move garden furniture inside and to not park car in garage in case electricity is cut. She told me they have parked one of their cars with belonging they don't want to lose in one of the shopping malls. Seriously ?

She is probably the cause of my insomnia! I wasn't too worried until she came round! And of course DH is in New Caledonia, so it is me and the kids!

Hope all goes well today.

Thinking of you OP, I hope you and your family stay safe and away from the fires x

I am here on holiday. All a bit worrying but what can you do? We are Pittwater. It's really heating up now.

we are in California - her advice is good - you can't really be too cautious in this regard

Hope your house is safe OP.

What sensible advice about the car in the garage! I wouldn't have thought of that. I hope you're feeling better as the day wears on.

the situation is really grim - I hope you are okay, OP

please do not leave it too late to evacuate or find a safe shelter.

Good luck op. Just been watching the news here in U.K. re the fires. Very worrying.
I too can imagine being organised and not thinking about the garage door issue !

Where are you OP? We’re on the central coast. It’s very smoky but we don’t have any fires nearby.

Have you been told to leave OP? Do you have a plan of where to go if you need to leave?

It is scary. How old are your kids?

Our garage door has a rope on it you can pull in case of emergency btw. I'm in NZ and we are due to get your smoke tomorrow!

We're down the coast but still a bit freaked out. Friends up on the mid north coast are in the thick of it. Have you got the "fires near me" app?

We’re in Sydney. Whereabouts are you OP?

the Guardian has a rolling commentary with minute by minute updates

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2019/nov/12/nsw-fires-qld-bushfires-queensland-australia-new-south-wales-catastrophic-fire-danger-warning-emergency-sydney-illawarra-hunter-shoalhaven

What a crazy day. Computer was only turned on fire websites and news feeds so really didn;t come back on MN.

I was a bit surreal to be honest.
I have the "fires near me" app and it sends notification when there is a fire within a certain distance. I had one small grassfire in my suburb and a bigger bushfire 3 km from my house . Both contained super quickly and representing no danger to anyone, and disappearing from the app in the next hour or two. The fires were just lighting up on the app, one after the other, with the icons changing colours according to severity.
I went to a library and the huge dog park next to it was full of horses that had been relocated! That gave me a sense of security. If it is safe for the horses, it is safe for me.

My garage also has a cord, but it isn't to lift the door. It just disengages the chain from the motor and you have to physically lift the door. Mine is a massive double garage door which weights a ton. and doing all this in the dark is far more difficult than you imagined. I tried. You need to be two because if both extremities don't go up at the same time, the door gets jammed.

Today should be a lot better. The sky had this orange-grey shade yesterday, a mix of sunset in the smoke.

My kids are teens. One of them sent me a text from class that there was smoke and it turned to be a grassfire caused by a cigarette butt.

They are okay about the fires. One is obsessed about the updates and reports what happens on twitter live. Which doesn't help.

We had the "fire discussion" two days ago. There might be a fire. What we will do, how we will do it, when we will leave and where we will go. They all went to bed with their phones next to them (they were very happy about it) so in the event of electricity cuts, they can use their torches on the phone. Went to buy torches but they weren't any left. Ours have been used, lost and destroyed in countless games of spotlight.
Lesson learnt for next time. Have a "fire box"

We know we are not in danger. But for the first time, I experienced some fear about fires and it is not pleasant.

Those poor people with raging fires right now up north. I am in my kitchen, drinking coffee and over there, right now, it is hell.

Yes, the orange & grey sky was surreal. So glad things seem to be settling down today, it’s cooler and the wind has stopped.

They have sprayed the houses pink where we live, it’s a fire retardant material. People were hosing it off today which is a bit stupid, considering the threat is far from over.

Today was such a gorgeous day. Perfect temperature, little wind, such a difference from yesterday! Still some new fires appearing from time to time, but poor people up north. 300 houses lost!

FIL is with the SES and they’ve been warned the back end of the week could be even worse.

The RFS tells people to ‘avoid bush-fire prone areas’ and not to ‘drive through bush-fire prone areas’ but what do you do when that’s where you live??

We can’t go to the MILs as it’s “not convenient”

It’s the distinct lack of support from MIL added to the god awful heat here that pushing us to move back to Europe (or possibly Tassie, but they had bad bushfires last year).

Wow, that's pretty harsh of your in-laws @MaitlandGirl. DS1 works for the RFS as well as volunteering with his local brigade but is seconded to Parks and Wildlife for the Summer as a firefighter so we are in for an anxious fire season. We all live in bushy area - DS and his wife, her family and us within ten minutes of each other - but it's taken for granted that we would all go to the house furthest from danger if it came to it.