It is pretty hard to imagine just how fast and hard this thing struck. With a hurricane you have some specific warnings. The beast itself travels at a slow speed and you can plot its likely direction over the next day or two, even if it can get capricious at times. The fires here on Feb 7 weren't like that.We did, indeed, have warnings that this was likely to be the worst fire day ever in our very bushfire prone state, but no-one knew where or when they would hit.
Late on the day I was getting calls from friends in St Andrews a few kilometres away worried about the fire's approach from what they thought was 20 kilometres away when it had already howled past them a couple of miles to the north of them killing some of their friends and mine.
The wind speeds generated by the fires were incredible. Over 200kph up the escarpments. Temperatures were insane. The fire front itself melted the mag wheels on cars, and fused ceramic pottery together at temps higher than those found in kilns. Over 1200ºC. The diesel and petrol fire pumps of many people trying to defend their houses failed because the oxygen simply got sucked and burnt out of the air around them.
Somehow, though the images of the aftermath bear more than a passing resemblance to those that you see after hurricanes.
You picked a worthy "winner". This was certainly a "perfect firestorm". I've lived in bushfire prone areas most of my 56 years of life, and seen planty of them, but I've never seen anything like this.
It is going to take a long, long time for the people of my little neck of the woods to get over this, despite exemplary aid and support from the community and the government. I'm in the middle of moving out of my little self contained "cottage" office in St Andrews, a hamlet where 22 people died, to let a family who lost their house make use of it for a few months. An elderly dutch photographer mate of mine is coming to terms with having lost a lifetimes worth of photos, negatives and antique cameras in Kinglake. He watched his own house burn down while sheltering with a hundred others at the local fire-station. Another friend of mine and his family survived in Kinglake West though they lost their house, but all of his local friends and neighbours , including his children's best mates, all were killed. He feels guilty about being alive himself.
Good to know people in other places have been thinking of us.
Rod (lives in Hurstbridge, office in St Andrews, friends all over Strathewen, Kinglake and St Andrews where much of the worst happened )
PS - Those who might not consider a bushfire a "storm" might want to consider the weather on the day. We had the highest temps ever experienced in Victoria, coupled with winds of up to a hundred kilometres an hour even where the fires weren't burning. We had the lowest humidity on record, after a month in which we had had the lowest rainfall ever recorded (less than one millimetre, compared to an average of around 50 mls). Yes, as one person notes, some of the fires may have involved arson, but the one that killed around 100 people near me wasn't. This was, indeed, weather at its most diabolical. As for its duration, we spent the next three weeks living with the fires on our doorsteps, without any rain, with the fires still burning near us, with the bush tinder dry, with new discoveries of bodies of dead friends all the time, with smoke, new outbreaks and fire warnings every day and with equally dire weather forecast, though thank goodness it never quite eventuated. Not much matches the destructive fury of a major hurricane, but these fires certainly did.
