Bushfires

[ErrolFlynn]

A few years ago I was building a steel and concrete retaining wall. I had the angle grinder out and was cutting off and grinding smooth a flat bar I had welded to the UC uprights. A support while the concrete was being poured.

Anyway, I’m focused on what I’m doing and over the noise of the grinder I hear something different. A weird crackling sound. I heard it through my earmuffs. Curious, I stopped what I was doing. The crackling sound was coming from the grass around me that was on fire. I was almost in the middle of it. I suspect wearing overalls kept the heat away, and firies had described Warrandyte (where I was at the time) as a bushfire hot spot.

It was only a little patch of flame but stamping on it wasn’t doing much. I ran for the hose. Not there. But there was a bucket nearby. Do you know how long it takes to fill a bucket when you’re in a hurry? I ran back and the spread of the fire was about 3-4 times the area when I left it only a couple of minutes earlier. Not enough water. Splashing water is a nearly useless method of putting a fire out. More mad dashes to the tap, it got bigger before I began to win, and I got it out.

Some beautiful little wildflowers came up in that spot later, and the grass seemed a different colour from the surroundings. A reminder of what could have happened.

It was a work area. There were piles of dirt all over the place, the grass that was there had been well and truly trampled, there was not a blade of grass standing upright, and it looked like nothing would catch fire, but it did.

Be careful this summer if you’re working outside. This year might be a scorcher according to the weather bureau.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Yep, when conditions are right it can seem like all it takes is a glint of sun off a roo's eye for a fire to catch.

When working away from the house I like to have either a backpack spray or a beater somewhere close to hand. My backpack lives in the back of the ute and has probably seen more use as a jerry can than anything, but still. (Which reminds me... I gotta buy a new one this year as the oldie has sprung a leak from bouncing around in the back for so many years. )

[419]

I did much the same as Errol Flynn some years ago, with a metal cut off saw firing a stream of sparks onto my safe gravel driveway. And, as it turned out, not visibly through the wire fence onto our neighbour's property with scrappy short dry grass on baked ground. Fortunately a hose already connected to a tap was close at hand, although not as fire preparation but just good luck as I thought I'd set up a very fire safe work space firing sparks onto gravel.

Also fortunately my neighbour was busy having a BBQ on the other side of his house and never knew what happened as he rarely came around our fence side of his house. We got on well, but it would have tested the relationship if I burnt his weatherboard house down.

I'm close to Warrandyte where Errol had his event. The CFA, which kindly provided me with a careful and free bushfire assessment of our property a few years before this event as we're very fire aware, keeps telling us we're in one of the worst areas in the world for bushfires, so I thought I was being careful with the cut off wheel.

Then and now I have a 20,000 litre tank attached to a fire pump and a couple of 40 metre proper fire - not garden - hoses and various other preparations to defend our house and ourselves down to towels in water filled metal garbage bins to cover ourselves in as a last resort in a spot where we're not directly exposed to radiant heat when everything else fails.

I was then highly aware of bushfire causes, risks and defences. But I still stuffed up on one of the simplest and most easily avoidable ways to start a fire that is regularly mentioned in bushfire warnings.

Lesson learnt: Even if you think you're being careful, if you're thinking about doing anything the bushfire ads warn you not to do during high risk days: Don't do it!

[ian]

My story is a fair bit older -- like mid 1970s

It involves a new car being driven from Casino to Grafton.
Driver stops to have take a pee -- hot exhaust from car starts a grass fire. It wasn't even a Total Fire Ban day!
Most embarrassing for the car driver.

[ErrolFlynn]

An irony about my experience was that about a month ago I was at my weekender hut. It was so cold we needed to light the wood stove quick smart. There was plenty of kindling but not a single match. Rubbing sticks together is not by preference for such things. Then I remembered the above experience. I had a little angle grinder with me. So, I found some scrap metal, placed some paper and dead leaves below it and got to work making lots of sparks. And, blow me down, it did nothing except make the dead leaves red and not a single flame came from them. No fire that night and I went to bed cold.

[Bushmiller]

Well EF, your thread had come at a most appropriate time. I was going to start a separate thread before I saw yours and now I am going to piggy back onto this one if that is Ok with you.

In a way the story began back in about 2007. We had just bought our current house which is on a larger block in town and had been used by the previous owners for breeding horses. There was a small concrete slab for washing down the animals and it had a steel hitching rail. I decided to cut off the steel posts at ground level with an angle grinder. I am sure you can imagine what happened. The problem was aggravated because at that time I was about six months off having both hips replaced and not very mobile. I had observed the grass on fire and was carrying a bucket of water to the circle of grass on fire. Each time I went for water the fire had increased a little more and I just couldn't get on top of it.

A young girl who lived next door saw the problem and came to assist and then Kev, a neighbour from two doors away, arrived with a 20L drum of water on his gopher! This elderly gentleman recently passed away and I recounted in the eulogy this first meeting with him and how it is still the only known occasion that a gopher has been used as a fire engine. Those 20L saved the day.

However, this incident has alerted me to the dangers of using an angle grinder outside during dry times. Up our way it has indeed been quite dry of late. I have been cutting down a couple of steel frames that I purchased as scrap from work to make into a shed for my sister. I have had water to hand and put out several small fires just with the aforementioned watering can.

Yesterday I was cutting at the top of the frame and I detected that familiar smell of something burning. I turned around on the ladder to see this:

P1090061.jpgP1090062.jpg

About four meters behind me the sparks had landed in the stump of a Tipuana tree we cut down about ten years back. Up this way we call them "Racehorse" trees because they grow so fast. The stump is well rotten and was dry with the inside being virtually sawdust. Clearly it was not that big an issue as I took the time to rush into the house and grab the camera so I could capture the moment. I had water on hand (two watering cans ). Actually I was surrounded by water tanks (about 100,000L ) and in fact there is a 1000L bulky bin right next to the stump. Also I was mentally prepared for such an incident, which is probably the most important aspect.

P1090063.jpg

This was after the stump was doused from the watering can.

P1090064.jpg

It is another warning of how something quite innocuous can escalate given the right circumstances.

Thanks for posting the thread EF.

Stay safe.

Regards
Paul

[ErrolFlynn]

Burning stumps can be surprisingly vicious.

One winter, a pile of garden woody twigs and branches was being burned off. (That was before we bought the mulching machine.) This was one of Ms EF’s pastimes. They’re just the thing with a glass of wine in your hand and maybe with a few spuds rolled into the coals.

Anyway, the fire was close to an old stump that was essentially a hollow pipe. The base must have caught and worked its way through to the hollow. When the material in the hollow caught that stump blew ash and flames high into the air like it was being fed by an oxygen supply and the roar of the thing was startling. We thought it was about to blow up. It continued for about a minute until the ‘chimney’ gave out and it became part of the bonfire.

[ErrolFlynn]

This is a very useful site. Though, I lament that it only shows NSW. Where is the national map? There is none. Too bad if you live near a state border.

Fires Near Me

The fire in the Bega Valley (that's the one flagged in red) is marked as out of control. I was checking the same site (NSW RFS) for fire bans (there's a link), and was surprised to see that the same area where there's a fire running wild has been flagged as having a 'moderate' fire risk (green). I've put an arrow roughly where the fire is. I'm inclined to think that's mad. And I don't care about any rain that's forecast. My view: if there's a bushfire then there should be a total fire ban in the area.

Fire.jpg

[Boringgeoff]

This is the map I use, it extends to NZ.
Bushfire.io | The Natural Disaster Map

Cheers,
Geoff.

[ErrolFlynn]

Thank you.

There's a lot of information there. And it's about time a national bushfire map was available. Though, I can't see the point of plotting aircraft movements, but as a layer on the map, so easy to switch off. Much obliged to you.