Hell has ravaged victoria

heres hoping that it will stop. the country's all over the place; fires in vic and nsw, floods in cairns, heatwave in act, vic and sa, the place is nuts at the moment.

 

OMG - I haven't heard about that. Horrible!

 

There are massive fires in Camperdown, which is about an hour from my house. The wind has blown the smoke ages and ages in every direction and every time you walk out side the house - you can smell it the smoke and the sun's been orange all day through the smoke.

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who is in danger from the fires. My mother's friend lives right in one of the fire hot spots and we haven't heard from her - so we are all very worried about her.

 

It's pretty bad, Last night we were driving back from Melbourne, and our trip was delayed 2 hours because we had to drive around a fire zone.
We were in Seymour at one point and the smoke was everywhere

 

It's been awful!
Although I'm somewhat surprised that Western Victoria escaped for the majority unharmed, which is extremely lucky. One of my friends was out there for the weekend and I was kind of worried about her.

 

I'm so lucky to be in the suburbs, a fair way away from the fires. It's so terrible to see how many people have lost everything. I've donated some money to the CFA, and am also going to donate blood when I can, they've put out a call for blood donors to help those who've been badly burnt and need treatment.

 

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25024407-661,00.html

66 confirmed dead, over 650 homes destroyed, 3733 people registered with the Red Cross as homeless and well over 330,000ha of destruction from the fires in Melbourne's hottest recorded day in history.

Entire towns have been destroyed and wiped off the map, such as Marysville.

There's a few minor fires around my area (I'm from Narre Warren North) in Narre Warren South (about 8km away from me), Berwick (about 15km from me) and last night there was a fire in Narre Warren North pretty close but still far enough which has burnt out.

So thankfully I'm still safe, but I really feel for those who have lost their homes and who are in danger.

There are still about 26 large (but still truckloads of small) fires burning right now, and the deathtoll is going to rise dramatically as the police and the Coroner's Court survey the wreckage.

And sadly there's going to be gale-force winds tomorrow which will no doubt cause more problems... The fires aren't expected to be controlled for weeks.

Being dubbed as "Black Saturday" the fires have far surpassed the ramifications of Ash Wednesday, another horrid series of bushfires to plague the south-east of Australia.


Here's a list of all the current burning fires:
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/incidents/incident_summary.htm

And here's a list of updates and alerts from the CFA:
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/incidents/incident_updates.htm


If you're in rurual Victoria or the outer suburbs of Melbourne which are in danger PLEASE be careful and continually check the CFA to make sure you're in the clear.


Also, I'm worried about a member from here, Tez (Defender). He's from one of the areas in South-Eastern Melbourne which has completely gone up in flames...

 

Ok I lie, there is a fire in Narre Warren North.. Another one stated up a bit over an hour ago. It's about 2KM from me but it's only a small fire so it should be ok.

 

Oh my god this is horrible, i had no clue.

Keep us foreigners updated, and i REALLY hope everyone from that area on EC is ok!

 

We're fine, but my sister's best friend is ready to evacuate, and if she does, she'll be staying at our place for a while. She's really scared for her pets.

 

The death toll is now being reported by the ABC as 76 dead. I believe that now makes it officially Australia's worst bushfire disaster.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/08/2485648.htm
(There are numerous relevant reports/pics/vid links listed in the above report).

Two townships north of Melbourne, Marysville and Kinglake, have been just about totally obliterated. The fire that took them out is still out of control - last I heard that firefront was reported to be "around 80kms". Multiple fires are raging in Victoria, also in NSW & South Australia.

Meanwhile, parts of North Queensland and Western Australia are being ravaged by floods. A five year old boy is thought to have been taken by a crocodile in floodwater in North Queensland. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/08/2485589.htm

Oh - and parts of Western Australia (according to someone I know who lives in the South West) are also on bushfire alert (he has had one burning within a few km of his home).

And some people STILL deny that global warming is real - and responsible for the increasingly extreme weather conditions?

 

Oh dear. My thoughts go out to you guys.
Be strong and I hope everyone is alright.

 

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25025493-661,00.html

Deathtoll has hit 84..

Australia's worst bushfire and the worst natural distaster in Victoria's history.

 

According to TEN News the amount of homes destroyed has gone over 700 now..

 

That is awful. As I was reading this thread I saw it on the news. May all of you guys be safe! My thoughts are with you. (&&&)(&&&)

 

Oh my god-that's awful.
My thoughts are with them.

 

Saturday was a very scary day indeed.
I live in Bendigo, we had our own little blaze, and it just so happened to be right by my place.
We were evacuated and by that point there were fires covering 3/4 of the area a few hundred meters, at most, from my place.
According from what I've heard 50+ homes and 2 lives in and around my area were lost.
One home being that of a close friend and when I eventually did see it I was devastated to find it completely burn to the ground. There was nothing left but a gas outlet shooting flames like a stationary flamethrower.

We went home late Saturday evening, although we probably shouldn't have, but no one could sleep. We got our electricity back sunday afternoon after having lost it before being evacuated.
I was scared to go to sleep, no more than 100 meters from my place was yet another burning gas outlet, this one 3 times as large as any I had seen throughout the day.
I checked out the area around my street and was shocked to find that the flames had made it right to the edge of the road one street over.
Which is where an uncle lives and only 4 houses behind mine.

This fire tops the tornado that swept through our town some years back, another close friend lost half of his home, including the roof, while he was home.
I was outside that night, my family were all out buying candles and such, and I heard the warning but had no idea what it meant.
That tornado went right by my place too so it seems that we're a very lucky family.

My thoughts are with the people and families that have lost so much these past two days.
It's feared that there are over one hundred deaths, but that can't be confirmed for some time yet.
It's hard not to get teary eyed just thinking about the devastation that occurred throughout Victoria.

 

I'm from Bendigo too. I'm on the other side of town but I have two mates out on the side that had the main blaze. As far as I know one of my mate's houses is OK (narrowly avoided by a very timely change of wind) but I'm not so sure about my other mate...

I also have a friend whose cousin perished in a house caught fire due to the blaze last night. Wheelchair bound and unable to escape... horrifyingly terrible.

A different mate of mine lost his house to the tornado a few years back. That was one of the weirder days that I've lived - disturbingly quiet after a huge storm... It felt wrong.

We have so much bushland surrounding us that is just full of scrub and twigs, I'm surprised we haven't had a fire sooner. Bush fires for Australia are a regular natural occurrence, but the longer they don't happen, the bigger they are when they do. There's still a whole side of town full of this sort of scrub that will go up in a very big way when it finally does.

 

OMG! Thats horrible! I hope everyone stays safe!