Blaze in Blue VI: Rain and Reflections

The skies are grey today because of rain clouds rather than smoke haze.


It is not enough rain to make a dent in the bushfires in the Blue Mountains, and hopefully it doesn't hamper backburning efforts either.

The photo shows the hills to Lithgow's north-east, around where the fires first flared on Wednesday 16 October 2013.

The building ruin has not been fire-damaged; it is the site of the Lithgow Blast Furnace Park, set up in 1875.


These hills are blackened now, with only grey ghosts of Eucalyptus trees left standing.

There is a bit of a false sense of an alternate normality descending. As though it is normal to have very little traffic on main roads, no trucks, and lots of fireys' vehicles (frequently with sirens going), and with lots of helicopters flying frequently overhead. But the truth is that the worst may well be yet to come.

Tomorrow, Wednesday 23 October 2013, promises the worst kinds of fire conditions in the Blue Mountains, with heat and blustering winds. People have been advised to not come into the Mountains if they can help it, to leave early and go elsewhere if they can, to have their bushfire plans ready to be activated, to be prepared to evacuate... All the schools in the Blue Mountains area will be closed.

Hoping, hoping, hoping for the best.


ReeDaBee