Friday 14Nov14 was hot. Very hot. 40+ degrees with winds. A bushfire started in the lower Blue Mountains (Warrimoo).
At 3:30, I received a call from a fellow-Mountains-residing work colleague letting me know about the bushfire, and also that the highway was either closed or partly closed. I passed on the message to all my fellow Mountains residents in my building, and there was an early mass departure that had nothing to do with it being a Friday.
The highway is the main road in and out of the Mountains, and for the most part, the railway lines align with the highway so trains were also affected.
A lovely friend gave me a lift on the only alternate road up the Mountains (dotted line), which joined the back onto the highway above the fires, at Springwood.
From the alternate route, we could see the smoke from the fires rising impossibly thick and high, with two helicopters looking like tiny mosquitos as they hovered above.
We saw first hand, that the police had blocked off the highway at Springwood, funnelling a large backlog of drivers onto the alternate route to either continue their journey or to do a u-ey (Aussie expression for a u-turn).
There were hundreds at the Springwood train station, unable to go any further down the Mountains. I can only imagine similar numbers were waiting at Glenbrook (at the bottom of the Mountains) on the other side of the fire.
A train was waiting as though just for me. You'll appreciate of course that the regular timetables had been thrown into chaos. But anyway, the warning whistle went as I got onto the platform and I dived inelegantly for the nearest door. The train which left immediately and we slid smoothly towards the Upper Mountains.
So thanks to a lovely friend who gave me a lift, and the perfectly-timed train, I wasn't at all affected by the bushfire, and count myself as enormously fortunate.
I'm happy to say also that, within a couple of hours, the amazing firies had done enough to keep the fire away from the highway and train lines to allow them to be re-opened. Hopefully everyone would have gotten home with only a couple of hours' delay - which, under chaotic and unpredictable bushfire circumstances - is amazing.
Thoughts are with those in the Warrimoo and Blaxland areas, who had to be temporarily evacuated, but who were allowed back within a day. Hopefully the bushfire will remain contained and will peter out...
