BUSHFIRE SKY

And the stars shine on...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

WINTRY

We are in the midst of our Winter here in Melbourne at the moment, but there is much to enjoy both outdoors and indoors.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

SMOKY SKY

Currently in Melbourne, we are experiencing very bad air quality, and there is a choking smell of burning with widespread hazy conditions as the smoke from the devastating East Gippsland bushfires drifts across hundreds of kilometres to reach the City. Here you can see the hazy outline of the city skyline across the Port Phillip Bay.

You can help the thousands of victims who have lost loved ones, property and the roofs over their heads, here.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

BUSHFIRES

One firefighter has died and multiple properties were lost after terrifying bushfires driven by extreme weather conditions swept across four Australian states today. The volunteer firefighter from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service died when a truck rolled near Albury, on the border with Victoria. Two trucks, including the one in which the firefighter died, were overturned by high winds. Two other firefighters suffered burns in the crash. Ten people have now died during one of the worst bushfire seasons in the nation’s history, which have burned through more than 4.6m hectares.

Temperatures reached above 40˚C in all states, including Tasmania, where Hobart recorded 40.8˚C, its hottest December day ever. Several properties were reportedly lost in fires near Fingal in the north of the island state. This evening, 16 emergency-level fires were burning in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales. In South Australia, conditions had been rated catastrophic across much of the state, but it survived the day without feared extensive property losses. Firefighters were bracing for further strong winds, in some places forecast to reach up to 120km an hour, and dry lightning strikes, which are feared to be ruinous after a day of sweltering heat.

About 12 km north of our home, in Bundoora and Mill Park, houses both sides of the Plenty Gorge parklands were threatened by an out-of-control fire that sent burning embers into backyards. At least three homes were damaged and two people were assessed by paramedics in the afternoon.

In our garden today extremely high temperatures (it was 43˚C in the shade) and searing high winds wrought havoc in our garden beds and plants. Roses were shrivelled up as though placed in oven, shadecloths were torn asunder and flew away, many plants were uprooted and a couple of statues fell over from their bases (fortunately they were not damaged). But all of these were minor issues compared to lives and whole properties lost elsewhere in our state.

A cool change came in later this evening and tomorrow's maximum is promised to be just 21˚C with rain. We're counting our blessings and remembering the bravery, self-sacrifice and tirelessness of our firefighters who do battle with massive fires each day.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,

and also part of the Seasons meme.

The name of this rose, 'Firefighter' honours the work our firefighters do here in Australia and as it states on the plant label: “This rose is so named as to remember those men and women who risk their lives daily to protect ours”.

FIERY SUNSET

Much of Victoria sweltered through extreme heat today, with a statewide total fire ban in place along with health alerts. Much of the northwest including Mildura and Horsham reached temperatures around 47˚C, while Melbourne's temperature soared to 44˚C.

Smoke from the New South Wales bushfires and the Gippsland fires – in Victoria's south-east has made its way towards our City, covering the sky and giving Melbourne a taste of the conditions that have been choking Sydney. Smoke extended over Victoria this morning and into the afternoon reducing visibility to about 1km in places.

The sunset was suitably fiery and the heat is persisting into the night, although a cool change was predicted, with a maximum around 22˚C tomorrow.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

MARYSVILLE, VICTORIA

Marysville is a small town, 86 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, in the Shire of Murrindindi in Victoria, Australia. The town, which previously had a population of around 500 people, was devastated by the Murrindindi Mill bushfire on 7 February 2009. On 19 February 2009 the official death toll was 45. Around 90% of the town's buildings were destroyed.

Residents able to leave the town just prior to the fire were directed to a temporary relief centre at Alexandra High School. Others sheltered overnight in Gallipoli Park before being evacuated to Alexandra.  The entire town was declared a crime scene and was effectively closed off while Victorian and Federal police recovered bodies and conducted investigations. It was reopened to the public on 23 March, 2009.

As with all town in bushland settings, Marysville was in constant threat of bushfires. The town came under serious threat during the Black Friday bushfires in 1939, with residents seeing the fire cross from Mt Gorden to Mount Margaret. At that time only one house in Marysville belonging to Stan Postlethwaite was destroyed. The No.1 Mill 5 miles from Marysville was destroyed and the town of Narbethong was wiped out. The Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 also came close to Marysville but burnt around the town and caused no damage to property.

These photos I've taken of the magnificent forests around Marysville were snapped before the last tragic bushfire, which essentially wiped out the town...

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme.

The following photograph is by Gary Ayton, who has recorded the devastating effects of bushfire on the Australian countryside...

BUSHFIRE SKIES IN MELBOURNE

Bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year due to Australia's mostly hot, dry climate. Large areas of land are ravaged every year by bushfires, which also cause property damage and loss of life.

Certain native flora in Australia have evolved to rely on bushfires as a means of reproduction and fire events are an interwoven and an essential part of the ecology of the continent. In some eucalypt and banksia species, for example, fire causes seed pods to open, which allows them to germinate. Fire also encourages the growth of new grassland plants. Other species have adapted to recover quickly from fire.

For many thousands of years, Indigenous Australians people have used fire for a variety of purposes. These included the encouragement of grasslands for hunting purposes and the clearing of tracks through dense vegetation.

Major firestorms that result in severe loss of life are often named based on the day on which they occur, such as Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday. Some of the most intense, extensive and deadly bushfires commonly occur during droughts and heat waves, such as the 2009 Southern Australia heat wave, which precipitated the conditions during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in which 173 people lost their lives.

We have been lucky in the past few years in that we have had cooler, wetter summers and thankfully no major bushfires. These photos are from the summer of 2003 when we were experiencing a severe drought in Victoria and here were numerous bushfires around Melbourne, often swathig our skies in smoke and producing some otherworldly sunsets.

This post is part of Sylvia's Skywatch Friday.