This is a photo of Melbourne at 4pm yesterday. Melbourne, the capital of the state, is a 8 hour or more drive away (at full freeway speed) from the devastating fires to the very east of our state.
It was blanketed in smoke, dimming the view. This picture does not adequately show how dense the smoke was. There are skyscrapers in the distance - which cannot be seen. Some people in the street were wearing masks to breathe clearly. My eyes and skin felt gritty after a couple of hours visiting a friend for lunch. Returning to my home town of Frankston, the smoke was just as thick, despite the sea breezes which normally keep the temperatures down and clear the air.
The evening before, I knew the sunset would be spectacular. The intensity of colour of the sun as it lowered into the horizon is not captured in these photos. The sadness is we all know why we had a red sunset. This is smoke haze from the fires which are devastating my country. Due to the nature of the landscape, this will not be over for weeks, if not months. Our bushfire season started in September in NSW - that is 4 months of fighting fires along an ever expanding front. This cataclysmic event has decimated townships, accelerated the extinction of many native animals, birds and insects. The ground is scorched, baked hard and it will take 20 years before we see the like of the bushland again. Farmlands have been impacted. Prices of food will skyrocket. Will bees survive? In the meantime, I feel compelled to continue to organise my sewing space, in the hope that by maintaining the normality of life, I will be able to assist others. I may only be able to offer a few quilts to some communities, if they will take them, I will add some non-perishable goods to my shopping and leave them at food banks. My spare change will be funneled towards bushfire relief.
We are Aussies and we will rally and recover and reclaim our land. Let us not be too proud to accept any offer of assistance.
3 comments:
Dear Bronny...
We in Western Canada have sent you some of our fire-fighters, thankful that you in Australia have shared yours with us in other years. I believe more are on their way.
Hang in there... we are with you, thinking of you, praying for you.
Try to stay inside as much as possible and guard your lungs when outside. Long-term effects of all that smoke and ash are insidious, especially when you consider all the toxic chemicals released by the fires as they rage.
Fires and tragedy in this extreme are devastating. Year after year the climate seems to worsen - severe fire risk has spread to more areas, occurring more often than before.
Years after our disasters at Fort McMurray, Slave Lake and dozens of communities across southern British Columbia insurance companies still haggle with people who lost everything and had to leave with nothing. The feeling of security once held in one's home disappears and life is lived in a new way, with always an eye on the weather, paying attention to news alerts that were formerly shrugged off as not really applying to us.
We truly understand your heart when you say that this is like your 911.
When whole towns are suddenly evacuated (Our Fort Mac. evacuated almost 80,000 people)and everyone runs away with little or nothing the infrastructure of helps is stretched beyond all limits and even years later we are all changed.
Not all the changes are bad - we found a new belief in and respect for each other. We opened our hearts, and reached out with whatever we could spare. We worked together, found ways to help one another. We found compassion for each other's grief, loss and heart-break. In the end we are amazed that our commitment to our fellow citizens was stronger than we ever dreamed. That we are all stronger than we ever dreamed. That those who lost so much are the strongest of us all.
We were absolutely gob-smacked that people around the world noticed our difficulty and reached out to us.
We will continue to follow your trials on our evening news and send you our love and whatever help we can.
Maggie Jackson, Alberta, Canada
I am very guilty of not watching the news, so I had no idea this was happening in your beautiful country...I will pray for you and your nation.
It's so important to keep sharing these photos and the ones of the maps so the rest of the world can understand the scale of the devastation.
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