Fires then floods in Oz

[sandgroper]

A picture says a thousand words they reckon, these pics were taken in the same place 4 weeks apart.

[Tyrone]

Was up in the wheatbelt for work this week. Absolutely bone dry. Farm dams empty with a crust of salt at the bottom. Nothing green anywhere except the native vegetation where it has been left to grow but it’s more of a blue grey green, not a real green. Nothing in the paddocks. Temps in the 30s with humidity around 20%.

Was heading home and saw a puff of smoke in the distance. That’s something you don’t want to see in these conditions. My immediate thought was that I hoped it was just dust from some earth works. As we approached a small town we realised that it was coming from someone’s front yard. So we drove in to investigate and saw 8-10 ft high flames right next to a wooden house coming from the fence line. My thoughts were now that some idiot was burning off and left it unattended. The neighbour had come out into the road and he told us it was an unoccupied house and he had called the fire brigade. The water was switched off so we had nothing to fight it with except two shovels and a couple of drink containers that basically did nothing as the rubbish was well alit. Luckily the shire turned up with a tip truck and dumped a load of dirt on it and mostly extinguished it. But what amazed me was a green Hakea laurina that went up like a petrol soaked rag. I was trying to smash the fire out on it with a shovel and it only made the thing ignite more!

Eventually the shire dragged the dirt and debris and fence out onto the verge and mashed it up and the fire brigade came and dumped about 4000L of water on it. Luckily it wasn’t windy and the shire workers were quick thinking or that house and surrounding bushland and possibly the town could have gone up.

That Hakea burning like it did just amazed me. The native vegetation just wants to explode into flames. Australia is one huge tinder box ready to explode. I would never plant native vegetation near my house. Yet that’s what the authorities are telling us to plant so we all have “waterwise” gardens. No thanks. I’ll plant palms and subtropical rainforest plants instead.