Tuesday morning

Worst is over - we hope. The fire finally arrived above us and the cfa backburned into it as is came down to the containment line (sorry - they're not called firebreaks any more - they're containment lines). This morning the smoke is horribly thick, but there's no fires anywhere close, it's all burnt (still smoldering and burning in patches of course, as it will be for a week or two). The dangerous patch along the road has burnt right along between the river and the road and shouldn't present any more problems. The entire mountain above us to the east has burnt, as have the slopes above us to the west, and Mt Mary to the south. So there's generally a feeling of relief all round that even if we do get bad weather we're fairly well protected now. There's still the problem of spotting in high winds and that'll go on for a week or two, but that feeling of impending danger seems to have passed for our immediate area. And a good thing too!

4am. The fire finally reaches the containment line about 100mtrs above the house. You can just see the CFA truck against the flames.


A detail from the latest map. We're at the end of the little blue arrow.