Busy day

[Ric]

Yesterday turned out to be quite a busy day for our brigade.

On Satuday evening a large storm rolled through our area and a number of grass fires broke out as a result of the lightning strikes which kept a lot of crews busy throughout the night.

On sunday morning our crew were out assisting in the mopping up and blacking out the area of a large fire in our zone, that took most of the day.

While returning back to the station we were then called to another fire in our area which turned out to be opposite the fire station. We ended up with 3 unit from our station plus another 3 unit from the ACT so we were able to get it under control and blacked out before it got away.

All in all, it was quite a busy day. I think I did about 13 hours straight so I slept well last night.

Tomorrow is looking like another nasty day with 39ºc and up to 50kph winds out of the north so I'll be back at the station all day as quick response should anything ocour.

Hopefully it will be a quiet non eventful day.

[Kunama]

Hey Ric,
Its a fantastic effort you guys put in each year.
I know from having done it myself years ago, how totally exhausting it is to go for hours breathing smoke and then coughing it out when you get home.
The soot seeps into every pore on your skin.

Hoping for a cool change and rain,

Matt

[Ric]

Cheers Matt

Yep we were all quite blacked out ourselves by the end of the day.

I suppose one bonus was that my beard was black as well instead of it's usual white.

[Ric]

Well it's starting to turn to custard out our way. There is a TOBAN as of midnight tonight

I hope everyone in their respective areas have recieved their SMS and phone call warnings from the RFS. For the Southern Tablelands we will be at catastophic rating.

We have been busy enacting our bush fire survival plan, hoses are ready, fire fighting pumps are ready and the car is packed ready to go.

I'm going to to be ready as first response at the station. My wife Kee will be at home with the pumps should anything happen. She's good and I have total confidence in her.

The forecast is for 38ºc, winds gusting to 105kph and bugger all humidty. It's going to be a bugger of a day tomorrow, hopefully nothing will happen and we will get to the other side.

Best wishes to any other fire fighter out there tomorrow, we're going to need it.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Fingers crossed for you guys over there .... News looks really bad from what we are seeing. I beleive we are sending some firefighters over to assist tomorrow. Stay safe all of you.

[Ric]

Well it looks like our area got through the day without incident.

Our brigade ended up being called to the Sandhills fire East of Bungendore, we arrived to a uncontrolled fire burning along a 3 km front and getting pushed along by big winds.

Our job was to get ahead of the front and protect any properties under threat, I'm happy to say that not one house was lost as far as I know.
At one stage there were around 60 units from NSW and the ACT fighting this fire as well as helicopter support.

The fire is now being controlled but at last check it had taken out around a 1000 hectares. The job now is to contain it before the conditions turn bad again by the weekend.

Through the smoke and flame the sun was a eerie blood red, couple that with flames, smoke and choppers in the air with water buckets it presented a very surreal and dangerous environment.

Yesterday our unit ended up doing around 12 hours on the fireground. with more to come as we start the blacking out operations.

[gary]

Well done Ric! You must have amazing stamina. It must have been very exhausting.

Thank you for the job you do!

Good luck with keeping the upper hand on it.

[Ric]

Not sure about the stamina Gary, I think the adrenalin or something like that just cuts in and off you go. The time really does pass quite quickly.

At the end of the shift you are really glad to get out of the fire ground and breathe some fresh air, we usually drive back to the station with all the appliance windows to get some cool fresh air in your face.

And back at the station a cold beer never tasted so good, believe me.