Fires - written by MTLH

MTLH wants to give everyone an update on the fires and so I thought I'd let her tell you herself. Here she is....

Hi!
Thanks to everyone who has been asking if we are safe! Just thought I'd let you all know what is happening at the moment.

As you can see from the map, the main fire is in Blackheath. This fire started on the 13th of November, 2006. This fire is bad for us if there are north-westerly winds, which there were on Wednesday. Our house backs onto a valley which is about two away from the Grose Valley, which is where the Blackheath fire is. On Wednesday there were NW winds which reached 100kms an hour. This sparked a few spot fires, which are quite close to our house (circled in red below!).


At the moment, the fire fighters are still trying to stop the fires, they are using water bombing helicopters as the fire is in inaccessible areas. At the moment we are safe, but if the winds change anything could happen. There is hot weather predicted again for tomorrow so we are crossing our fingers and waiting. Sometimes fires will burn in this area for ages without moving, at other times, like on Wednesday, they can move 1km in 5 mins.

If you want to know what is happening you can find emergency information, photos and weather for the area on the Blue Mountains Rural Fire Service's website.

Liz

Photos taken from the back of our house on Wednesday
- they are darker than it actually was... but it was still dark!