the last few years were uncharacteristically wet: la nina brought lower temperatures and more than the usual amount of rain. so far so good. this made plants grow faster and more luscious, and nature as a whole prospered … which is sort of where the good news ends. scientists claim that, among other things, this leads to an increased fuel load on the ground, which, with the dryer period we are looking forward to, may lead to more and more intense bush fires.
not really what you want to hear when you have just built your dream home in amongst the highly flammable eucalypts and tee trees. we always knew that this was going to be the key risk for us, which is why we built to a bal29 standard, with all the latest knowledge and experience in mind, and with a suitably sized fire management zone around the house.
we are also aware that bush fires are not something that one can really plan for, and the best preparation for a bush fire is … to prepare oneself to lock the door, walk away and come back once the fire has passed. sounds like a hard choice? houses can be replaced, rebuilt, dead people on the other hand …
until the day we wait to watch on tv to find out whether or not our house may still be standing we have a plan we are working to put in place that will not prevent a fire from getting close to our house, but may make the difference between a very hot fire getting far too close, and one that may just pass quickly enough to not test the fire defences of our home too thoroughly.
we are trying to remove as much as possible of the highly flammable kunzea from near the house. we’ll leave enough standing a bit further away, the animals really like it for shelter, and frankly we would never be able to get on top of it with our little machine anyway. we also would like to get rid of the last big pile of rubbish some previous owner left us as an unpleasant surprise in the bush. as soon as i carved a big enough fire break around it we’ll light it up.