Busmechanic stay safe

thanks john

very sad unfortunate loss of life for some and a lot of heart broken property owners/farmers

my family is all good, nothing important lost, due to quite a bit of luck, i can't believe we have 7 sheds 14 "machines" 6 bikes and a pile of tyres and none of them burnt .. the fire just went around them .. insane .

house needed help but i have a good setup for fire inc diesel pumps, fire units, shitloads of water and a bunker.. very nice a bunker everyone needs one of those, went in to sit out the front and didn't want to go back up! beats sitting in a fire truck in a paddock trying not to get fried

landscape looks like the moon except for the sheds, 99% of everything living is torched as far as you can see

i have videos and pics will upload later

Glad to hear you and yours are OK.

Indeed, happy you are ok. Sorry to read about the devastation of your community.

Ooooo! That was a close one!
What a relief to hear you are OK, my nerd-mechanic brother!

I've been out riding the Vicco High Country and off line. Just back last night and heard about the fires. Glad to hear you're OK Bushie, bush fires, bastards of things

Why am I not surprised that you have a bunker. I've always wanted a bunker.

Glad that you and your family are okay. I watched the news the other night and wondered if that was in your neighborhood.

ha yes steve they are annoying

this particular fire started sunday lunchtime, i had a job that really needed to be finished so i was late to ride out to it, but even so 2pm i stood beside an easy to control slow moving fire not more than 1km long and 200m wide at the front, gentle south east wind straight off the ocean, low temps. half of the front was headed toward a lake . .would have been easy and quick to control.

i rang 2 people i know further up in the brigades and told them where it was size etc and how to get a dozer in and since i ride through there 3 times a week i know where it is possible to put the breaks. they in turn rang more people further up who should have been able to make a dozer and a backburn happen.

this fire was easily controllable within about 2 hours of actual work and fully extinguished in 24 - 36 hours. tuesday was forecast to be 35deg and strong NW winds with a westerly change at about 2pm ..

what happened instead of dozers and loaders was a lot of volunteer trucks did all they could by driving up and down in a nearby paddock. the dozers just didn't happen till monday night. they put a break in a long way away from the fire and finished work at about 9pm and although it was "planned" no backburn was done.

im not sure what was done on tuesday morning becasue i was very busy at my place getting ready. in any case it didnt happen till after 9am and didn't work.

on the westerly change the front that came through here was over 6km wide, temp in the nearby town was 42 and wind speeds 44km/hr gusting to 83km/hr

today it is still not contained and now headed toward the town of esperance

almost exactly the same thing happened 10 years ago but the change was SW and at an easier time of year. it missed me that time.

5 years ago it started in the same place, same thing happened about the dozers but fortunately due to condition's, lake and timing i was able to put out the edges with my lunchbox, it took 4-5 hours but was not too difficult.

i know organizing resources is not easy for those responsible and there were other fires in the region but basically to prevent this happening again the neighbors and I need to get a D6 and put it out ourselves.

i was very surprised how little damage the front actually did as it came through, how fast it moved past without really having time to set fire to big timbers and how quickly the temps dropped after it went. its very different to how fire behaves in the eastern states

i did not need a bunker or sprinklers or any more than 2000L of water and a small 6hp pump in order to save what i did. just physically being there, having a full face firefighting mask, some water and 70m clearing was more than enough.

the fire that came through here was relatively small, only 15 000 ha. the ones further inland were insanely big and fast.

the most unfortunate part of the day was that due to current bean counter designed "proper procedure" there were people driving around in the smoke and heat just before the wind change trying to evacuate the area. to my knowledge the only houses lost were those left unattended or very close to bushland and the lives lost were as a result of relatively late evacuation activity.

hoosaberg if you build a bunker, give me a ring first, my next one will be different to the first, there are csiro guidelines for sizing/capacity and a draft "official" document for basic construction guidelines and then what i would do in addition.

Wow, good luck and best wishes to you from the other side of the globe. Fire is a terrible thing.

Hi! Glad you and your family are well. Terrible experience, but luckily you were prepared to fight it back. Hopefully you don't have to experience that again.

thanks lads ..it will happen again that is for sure, i estimate in about 5 years it will be back but it really isnt all that bad if you are slightly prepared and don't panic

it creates a lot of work to be done .. rebuilding infrastructure etc but thats good for character building !

bushmechanic said:

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the most unfortunate part of the day was that due to current bean counter designed "proper procedure" there were people driving around in the smoke and heat just before the wind change trying to evacuate the area. to my knowledge the only houses lost were those left unattended and the lives lost were as a result of relatively late evacuation activity.
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I dunno the history of bush fire fighting organisations in WA, but here in NSW its a bit BTTF, or Back to the Future. As an active volunteer fire fighter here in my local community for 30 odd years, I, and a few other locals have just about disowned the bureauocracy and are setting up our own response capability. They've lost the plot. I developed a theory some years ago that bureauocracys become organisms and develop defense mechanisms to protect themselves, and our NSW RFS is a classic example of that. I've threatened them with expertise, and.........

Glad you came out OK.

im from NSW steve so i know a bit about what you're struggling with

its a good theory the bureauocracy organism, perfectly evolved to cover their collective arses and apease the media with big words strung together in such a way that it means absolutely nothing.

it used to be good here .. we could do whatever we wanted wherever "we" wanted to without paperwork UNLESS a bigwig got involved. its changing now in many ways ... im not sure what went went wrong this time with the chain of command and its collective impotence but we will find out eventually.

one of the best and most efficiently dealt with fires recently was in a sensitive area ... somehow the dozer driver was un-contactable till the break was in.

we are doing the same as you .. some earthmoving equipment and 3-4 private trucks, nice simple old fashioned diesels that don't try and burn off their particulate filter in the middle of a dry wheat crop or have the engine cut out when using digital radios...

glad to hear you are ok

Glad it missed you Bushie. I like the community coming together with your own solution. I find it is often more efficient to ask forgiveness than permission.

yes its the only way .. fire headed toward town need new breaks ... check this

Esperance Fires.
DFES have decided to send a couple of bulldozers and graders all the way from Perth yet the very same machinery is in Esperance. They will take at least twenty four hours to get there while the Esperance equipment lays idle because DFES in Perth refuse to permit the local machines from being used.
Please, please share particularly if you have a line to our Premier.
It's an absolute nonsense.

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Glad to hear you're safe Bushie. It's not even summer yet.

OMG ..... Just read this .... Glad ya still kicking bushie ...

Know ya feeling ..... Had close call here few yrs ago ....Scamander (Tas) Garden hose & beer other hand will put her out ....:giggle::giggle:
Good to hear ya safe & sound .....(unable insert funny pic) ?????
Haven't been on here for awhile ....
Be safe & ride smart & same to bergs crews ...