Calissa

Noting here for closure that the Orroral Valley Fire was declared out yesterday. Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve is safe. I think I'm going to have to schedule a visit sometime soon.

So, yesterday proved to be a bit exciting. The fire generating the smoke plume pictured in my last entry got quite a bit closer. Within about 10km, actually. I had a clear view as it came over the ridges around 5pm yesterday.

( Photo below the cut )

No official order was given to evacuate, but there are a couple of traffic choke points that can make getting out of the area difficult when there are a lot of people on the road. We also wanted to make sure we got the dogs to safety. So we left early and headed to the in-laws, a few suburbs away. They'd just made dinner and had enough for us too, bless them. Sahaquiel and I had been too busy packing up to have a proper meal.

We stayed the night. By this morning, the alert had been downgraded from Emergency to Watch and Act. So, we've headed home again for the time being, Sahaquiel staying home from work. When we went to pack up the car at the in-laws place, we found it had a light dusting of ash. We found burnt leaves in the yard and on the stoop when we got home.

First off, I'm safe.

Bush fires have been burning around the area for weeks. None have been an immediate threat to me. That said, I'm keeping an eye on one burning about 35km away in the national park--there's not a lot between me and it except forest and farm land.

The south coast has fared badly. It's about a two-hour drive from here and is where Sahaquiel and I go when we want to go to the beach. Bateman's Bay is one of the bigger towns in the region and the most direct drive from here. I'm told (via secondhand reports from a friend who got stuck there) most of it is intact, albeit without electricity. So, the cramped little cafe that serves the best vegetarian lasagne I've ever eaten is probably okay.

I also heard the Mogo Zoo was saved, though they were scrambling for generators afterwards. Mogo is a short distance inland from Bateman's Bay, and is a hippy tourist town surrounded by forest. Along its main street, it has a cottage with the most beautifully overgrown garden that makes me think of witches. I think that was saved, along with one of the ice cream shops (Mogo is where we always stop for ice cream). But I don't know about the charming second-hand bookshop (my last purchases there were China Mountain Zhang and The Ocean at the End of the Lane). The newspaper reports much of the town was razed, including the tea shop, a couple of churches and at least one art gallery.

While Canberra is not directly in the firing line, air quality has been a big issue. Even before Christmas, smoke from the fires was starting to make itself felt. But on New Year's Eve it rolled in so thick I could barely see the other side of the street. Since then, Canberra has often had the worst air quality in the world, being on occasion two or three times worse than the next worst city (often somewhere in Pakistan, India or China). We've done our best to keep the house shut up, but it leaks in anyway. Sunday was so bad we resorted to covering up the bathroom skylight by taping our laminated gaming maps to the ceiling (which worked surprisingly well) and covering the vents with plastic wrap. As the day wore on, we started wearing our P2 masks inside.

The photo above was taken on Sunday (admittedly through a somewhat dirty window). It doesn't do justice to how yellow the light was.

This morning was clear enough to open the house up for a short time and take the dogs on a long walk. However, the smoke is starting to blow in again and things are expected to get pretty bad again in the early hours of tomorrow morning. This is basically going to be the reality we have to live with until the fires are put out, which could be months away. We've had a few showers, but last I heard the Bureau of Meteorology wasn't expecting significant rainfall until April.

I'm doing my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The house still needs to be cleaned and meals still need to be made. And, of course, books still need to be read.