Fire

I was sitting in my lounge, miles away in my mind (probably watching something mindless on television), and suddenly became aware of the sound of aircraft over my house. I remember my first thought was: “I’m not under the airport flight path”. I do very occasionally get planes flying over the house, late at night, but not often. This was unusual. I went outside to see what was going on and realised that it wasn’t planes, but helicopters. The fire fighting helicopters than dump water on fires.

Of course, I got out my camera and started taking photos of the helicopters coming over the house. After a time, I realised that the smoke was getting bigger and bigger and that the fire wasn’t just something in the hills, miles away, but was actually quite close to me.

Put on some shoes, probably some decent clothes as well, and went for a walk with my camera. Well, the fire was just, literally around the corner from my house. I stayed for a while, had a chat with other onlookers, including a woman in a three wheeled bike, with four or five little dogs in the carrier at the back.

This is what I saw

It was peak hour, everyone coming home from work, and I live on a major road. It was really interesting to watch people trying to get home, ignoring the fact that there was a large fire in front of them, fire trucks all over the place, and they just wanted to get past and get home.

Finally the police arrived at the corner, and started to redirect the traffic

And gradually get things under control.

At one stage, I went home, but kept wondering how close the fire was and whether it was heading in my direction. I was wondering what I would take with me if it came to the crunch. The animals of course. My money and stuff. I didn’t have Lara the Laptop at that stage so figured I would lose all my stuff so figured I would grab the external hard drive which has heaps of personal stuff on it.

Eventually I couldn’t stand the suspense and went back down the road. Watching the fire meant I knew what was going on, I knew if there was any immediate danger. I don’t like fire.

So I started watching the helicopters. I got the series of shots I put on Photobucket. I also got shots of the helicopters dumping the water on the fire. I must have taken hundreds of photos, just to get the few great shots.

Gradually the fire moved away from my house and further into the bush. I took a few final shots of the surrounds, as the onlookers also moved away and moved their cars.

Life headed back to normal. I’m left with lots and lots of photos, and a memory of helicopters, smoke, and relief that nothing major happened. We didn’t even make the news.

Madeleine

Sunday, 23 March 2008