Bushfire season 2011/12 is over

I hope I haven’t jinxed myself but I honestly can’t see how a fire could hit Warrandyte now – the air is crisp and cool, the grass is a vibrant green and you can almost smell autumn in the air…oh wait, that could be alpaca poop.

For those who don’t know, alpacas almost always poop in nice, discrete piles, as if they invented the idea of latrines. This highly civilized way of defecating means that you can walk around outside without having to wear gumboots all the time. Unfortunately it also means that the smell is rather concentrated. There is a pile of poop about 10 metres from my office window so when we have a  north wind blowing I have to seal the office off. Nonetheless I’m  not complaining. How could I when the alpacas have manicured the grass so nicely?

I have about 1/2 an acre out the back and at the moment it is as well cared for as a putting green! Except for the piles of poop of course; they look like small green volcanoes with a black caldera in the middle. The black part is the poop while the green part is the well fertilized grass around the poop. Not surprisingly the alpacas won’t eat the grass that’s too close to their piles. Can’t say I blame them but the green volcanoes do look a little odd.

Alpaca volcanoes aside though I am pleased to say that the alpaca experiment has been a qualified success. They have done a very good job of keeping the grass down directly around the house and their clawed toes are much kinder to the soil than other introduced grazers such as cattle or sheep. The one downside in using them as part of my fire prevention strategy is that they will only eat the native grasses when there is nothing else to munch on. This was partly my fault as I sowed some special alpaca feed* in the flat spots around the house during the last winter of the big drought. These grasses stay green even when the rest of the grass has gone your typical summer brown but with all the rain we’ve had the last couple of years the alpacas have been spoiled for choice and have ignored the brown stuff with disdain. Even so they have kept the area around the house well mowed and that is all I can ask for now. Come winter I am going to try and extend their pasture further downhill. If it doesn’t take because of the steepness of the slope I’ll have to think about putting in a bit more terracing [gah...more work].

So having alpacas is not a magic bullet but they are better than mowing by hand or, as seems to happen a lot in Warrandyte, not mowing at all. I know that everyone is busy and I know that many of the people in Warrandyte are new to the area but removing fuel load is part and parcel of living here. It is NOT an optional extra.

I know it’s not feasible but I’d love to see herds of alpacas wandering along Brogil  creek and keeping us all safe. They might be a bit of a traffic hazard but at least they’d do a better job of reducing the fuel load than Nillumbik Shire.

Yes, I know I’m a grumpy old ratepayer but you’d think that at $656 per quarter our local council could do something a little more practical than  telling us to clear out our gutters. Every time I receive one of their expensive newletters full of hot air and self congratulations I wonder how a shire that let, nay caused so many people to die on Black Saturday can escape all accountability.

-sigh-

I truly do wish that being elected to local council was like being chosen for jury duty – an unpleasant civic responsibility that no-one in their right mind would want to do. Then at least we might get some local government that was truly unbiased, a-political and not driven by ambition or self-interest. Come to think of it that could work at state and federal levels too…

Back to reality. Alpacas are herd animals and need the companionship of two or more of their kind or they get a bit psychotic – much like people in solitary confinement – so having just one is not a good idea. One way around this problem is to join together with your neighbours in owning and caring for them. I am one of a group of three neighbours and our four alpacas keep a total of about 2.5 acres mowed. To make things easier we invested in side gates that link our three properties. We all get on really well and that helps too.

The bottom line though is that Warrandyte is a fire prone area so if you live here then you must find some way of keeping the fuel load down on your own property. The danger may be past for this season but it will return and when the next fire does come through we will all be on our own so it makes sense to do what we can now.

If you don’t believe me do the math : there are three CFA fire stations dotted around Warrandyte, North Warrandyte and Research. As far as I know each of those fire stations has 2 fire trucks. That makes 6 in all yet even if there were twice that many they would not be enough to protect the 7393 people living in Warrandyte [2006 census figure].  So yes, the reality is that when the next bushfire sweeps through Warrandyte we will be on our own so doing things to help ourselves should be as much a part of the culture as enjoying the ‘serenity’ of living among the gum trees.

And with that homage to The Castle,  I’m going to go out amongst my own gum trees to shovel some alpaca poop. At least it makes good compost.

* Note : ordinary lawn seed is NOT good for alpacas as it can make them bloat which is serious!

The Mulcher!

Ok, apologies to anyone who reads my title and gets all excited at the thought of a horror story. I don’t write horror, don’t read it either so… you’re out of luck. My fellow writer Alex Laibourne does though. Look him up

Now, to the real mulcher. It’s a 2400W thing that looks a bit like an old fashioned meat grinder on the inside. Apparently it works like one too except that this baby is going to be munching up all the branches carpeting my block after the big blow we had recently.

In my own defence I really didn’t race out to buy a new gadget straight away. I did make an effort to pick up those branches but after creating five big piles of KINDLING it suddenly hit me that I’d just spent a lot of effort preparing big bonfires during the worst of the fire season. Clearly I would have to come up with a better plan… but what? I couldn’t bury the stuff – the ground in Warrandyte is just too full of clay and shale, I couldn’t stuff it into the dinky green composting bin provided by Nillumbik shire council – much too small – and I didn’t want to have to hire yet another skip.

And that, my friends, was when inspiration struck [aided by some counting on fingers and toes that proved I could not afford to pay $200 for a skip every time the wind made my eucalypts shed like mangy cats]. So off I went to you-know-where to buy a mulcher.

I am now $319.00 dollars poorer but I figure the new beast will pay for itself before winter… if I can just get it out of the boot.  Two nice men from you-know-where put it in there for me but at 5’3″ [and a bit] I have buckleys chance of getting it out again.  So here I sit, dreaming about my mulcher and wondering which of my neighbours hasn’t had a hernia yet.

Oh well….

Snake? and bad bushfire weather

This weekend has not been fun. It began with the dog bailing something up behind the heating unit outside the back door. I could see a beige looking triangular head just poking out so locked the dog and cat inside and began a furious search for a snake catcher. I finally found one but by the time he arrived the snake or whatever it was had gone.

That little exercise in futility cost me $150 but frankly I’m not complaining. If it had been a snake [as distinct from a lizard] and if it had still been hiding by the back door, I’m sure I would have paid twice as much to get rid of it. As it is I now know that a) snakes can move damned fast, b) they don’t respect boundary fences, c) snake repellers are a complete waste of money and d) snakes love my frog pond as much as my resident frog

After weighing up all of the snake catcher’s advice I’ve decided to keep the pond because getting rid of it is not going to keep my block snake free, it will just make  them thirsty while killing off a wonderful frog habitat. So the pond stays but I am going to do some clearing to make the rest of the block less appealing to snakes.

So that was Saturday. Sunday dawned overcast with little sign of the heat and wind that had been forecast. After the furkids and I did our normal morning inspection of the garden I went inside and checked the CFA website but there was very little activity so I relaxed  and got to work. At about 1:30 pm a friend rang to ask if I’d been listening to the emergency broadcaster on the radio. I hadn’t because I did not think that there would be much fire danger. Wrong Apparently while I had been beavering away being creative a grass fire had broken out to the north and was being hurried along towards Warrandyte by the very strong north wind that had sprung up while I was not paying attention.

I raced out to the pump house and got both pumps going. Raced back and pulled down all the fire resistant shutters. Rang the neighbours. Raced out again and started up all the garden hoses to wet down key parts of the garden. Raced back in again and did what I should have done sooner which was to bring in all the flammable crap on the deck and outside the back door. Then we moved the two cars away from the house – just in case. Decided that it might be a nice idea to test the sprinklers on the roof. Got rather wet turning the valves on but everything worked as designed. Phew. Left the sprinklers running for about five minutes on each zone, especially the north and west zones. Then I turned them off and did something really hard… I waited.

Thankfully the grass fire to the north was downgraded to ‘controlled’ fairly quickly but I continued to keep  watch like a nervous hound dog until the change came through, bringing with it a very welcome downpour.

Did I learn any lessons from Sunday? Oh yeah. I learned that all the safeguards in the world won’t save you if you are not paying attention. And I wasn’t.  Despite being paranoid about bushfires I did what most other residents of Warrandyte must have been doing – I closed the heat out and forgot about the outside world.

Was it complacency? In part, yes but I think ignorance played a bigger role.  I have not personally experienced a bushfire so while my head knows what to do my instincts don’t have a clue.  Having that dress rehearsal on Sunday was the best wake-up call I could have hoped for because it highlighted the fact that we could have been engulfed without even knowing what had hit us.

So the number 1 lesson I have learned is to listen to the damn radio [ABC 774] on any day for which a strong north wind is forecast.  Yes, listening to the cricket in between announcements bores me to tears. Yes, the programming distracts me from my work. And yes, 9 times out of 10 absolutely nothing will happen. But the 10th time is the killer. Literally.

There may be parts of Warrandyte that feel just like suburbia but anyone who thinks it is a safe place to be over summer is delusional. I shudder to think what might have happened if that grass fire had kept on coming. Some of the old timers would have known to take action but like me, most of the residents would have been taken by surprise. Followed by panic. Followed by having nowhere to go…

As I said, it was not a good weekend.

Bushfires – what does ‘leave early’ mean?

I had a look at the new CFA warning video on the Warrandyte area yesterday. It is entitled ‘Don’t wait and see’ and does a good job of explaining why it would be terribly dangerous to try to leave Warrandyte at the last minute. Unfortunately, telling people what not to do is only half the message; the video then goes on to stress that if residents are not well prepared they should ‘leave early’. This is the same tired old message the authorities have been bleating since before Black Friday. It did not work then and it will not work now.

Why not? Because people do not know what leaving early really means. Or if they do know, they choose to ignore it.

For those who do not know, ‘leave early’ means leaving first thing in the morning of a day of high fire danger. Effectively this means packing up your children, your pets and your most precious possessions and going away for the whole day. On Code Red days [days considered to be as dangerous as Black Saturday] leaving early means leaving the night before if at all possible. Even with the patchy weather we’ve had recently, following this advice could see many families leaving home for at least 15 days over summer.

Where exactly is a mother with small children and pets in tow meant to go on these hot days? To friends and family? I imagine that the welcome would wear rather thin by the end of summer. So the reality is that most people do what they consider to be the sensible thing – they wait to see what happens. This is what happened on Black Saturday – despite the warnings before hand – and this is what will happen again when the next fire sweeps through Warrandyte.

I believe the authorities know full well what the reality is but choose to tip toe around the issue with videos that only tell half the story because making a genuine effort to change the other half is just too hard. They cannot force people to evacuate. They cannot force people to retrofit their homes with toughened glass or fire-resistant shutters or sprinkler systems. They cannot advocate for people to have bunkers installed. They cannot change the topography of Warrandyte and regulations forbid them from changing the vegetation. They cannot even find one, single refuge of last resort anywhere in the Warrandyte area.  All they can do is cover themselves against liability and hope that most people will heed the warnings and leave.

I am normally a glass half full person but when I hear friends and neighbours saying that they plan to leave my heart sinks. They may plan to leave but whether they succeed is another matter.

My bushfire pool is great for swimming too!

Ok, I freely admit that I have had a hate-hate relationship with my above ground pool ever since I had it installed last year. Originally I was going to buy a 10,000 litre concrete water tank to supplement my existing fire-fighting tank but then I discovered that I could buy an 18,000 litre above ground pool for the same price as the tank. Even I can do simple arithmetic so the pool went in and my problems began.

I won’t catalogue all the problems I had with the pool but they were many, including two algal attacks. Nonetheless the beast did do one thing right – it stored water very well – so I gritted my teeth and tried to pretend it was not there.

All that changed just before Christmas when I went for my very first swim. Yes, we had had it almost a year and had never swum in it. It was a hot day and after all my efforts the water did look very inviting so I thought, why not try it out?As I climbed the rickety plastic ladder for the first time I did have a moment of doubt but then I threw caution to the winds and jumped in.

Oh my god… I expected the water to be freezing cold as the pool has no heating whatsoever but instead I discovered that it was almost warm! [Metal pool + north facing position = free warmth!] The best part though was the sensuous, silken quality of the water flowing over my skin. No salt to sting the eyes, no rank chlorine smell, nothing but cool, clean, almost drinking quality water thanks to the ionizer. If ever I had had doubts about that ionizer they were all gone. Not only was it giving me water that would not corrode my roof sprinklers, it was giving me the best swim of my life. [Actually it was the best paddle of my life but let's not quibble].

Since that moment No. 1 Daughter has gone for a swim as well and we have both changed our minds about the ugly duckling in the backyard. It is still ugly and it still blocks my view of the lily pond but every time I go for a swim I begin to like it more and more. Just this morning I discovered that the inlet from the filter is almost as good as a ‘swim spa’ [so long as you're not a very good swimmer]. Oh, and did I mention it also gives a great massage?

What more could you possibly ask of a fire-fighting tank?

2012 – practical tips to protect life and property from bushfires

I live in an outer suburb of Melbourne [Australia] called Warrandyte. It is an urban fringe suburb and proudly part of what’s called the Green Wedge, a huge area of national parks and small communities that extends almost into the heart of Melbourne. Even fringe suburbs like Warrandyte are heavily treed. This is what I see when I look out over my 1.6 acre property.

Looking northeast from my back deck

There are houses nestled in amongst all those trees but you can’t see them. And therein lies a great danger because all those trees are eucalypts and eucalypts have evolved to burn. In fact if the fire is hot enough they don’t just burn, their canopies explode, flinging fire in all directions.

Thanks to these eucalypts and the hilly terrain, Warrandyte has always been a bushfire prone area but the radical conservationist policies of state and local governments over the last 20 odd years have exacerbated the problem enormously.

To give you some idea of how draconian these policies were [more on that later] all those living in the Green Wedge were forbidden, by law, to cut down any trees without a permit and I can tell you that getting a permit was and is on a par with winning the lottery. Worse still, we were ‘encouraged’ to allow native bush [which also burns merrily] to grow right up to our houses. The nett effect was to embed those houses in the middle of a bonfire and wait for someone to light a match.

Since the Black Saturday fires that killed 173 men, women and children not to mention pets, domesticated animals and indigenous animals, these policies have been revised … a little. We are now allowed to cut down trees without a permit so long as they are within a 10 metre radius of the house. I can tell you though that 10 metres is not a lot. My block was a horse paddock for about fifty years so it is more open than most in this area and I am lucky enough to have an average of 15 metres of cleared land between the house and the trees but even that feels horribly close when everything is dry as dust and there is a smell of smoke in the air. Those living in bushfire prone areas are now also allowed to clear bush and scrub within a 50 metre radius of the house but local councils would prefer you didn’t as clearing destroys habitat.

So, was Warrandyte burned by the 2009 bushfires? No, it wasn’t. A change came through late in the day so we were spared that horror but it was damned close. I did not realise how close until the day after Black Saturday when I learned that Warrandyte had been just 10 minutes…minutes…from ember attack when the wind changed and blew the fire away from us.

For those who do not know much about bushfires in Victoria, the worst fire conditions go hand in hand with strong north winds and the cool changes that usually follow. It is these cool changes that usually do the most damage because the change in wind direction can turn a narrow,  many kilometre long fire into a huge, many kilometre wide inferno. Before the wind change on Black Saturday the hot north wind was pushing the fire directly towards Warrandyte. After the change the wind came from the west and pushed the whole line of the fire towards the west, destroying the communities in its path.

I don’t know how many people might have lived had the authorities not been so criminally insane as to put theories and property above human life but I’m sure the death toll would have been less than 173. In all fairness,  the drought, the record temperatures, the Stay or Go policy and the sheer incompetence of those supposedly co-ordinating the fire-fighting effort all played their parts as well but the restrictions on clearing created a massive fuel load on the ground that made a bad fire even worse.

Sadly the fuel load in Warrandyte has only increased since Black Saturday so when our turn comes even a ‘normal’ bushfire is going to do an enormous amount of damage – both to property and to life. Which brings me to the purpose of this post – some practical tips on how not to burn when the next fire comes along.

First and foremost – use the new laws to their maximum. Because I am paranoid I have landscaped the area directly around my house as a rock garden so when those burning embers come flying in they will find very little to burn. Apart from the rocks, pebbles and granitic sand used to create the ‘garden’ this strategy is high on manual labour [mine] and low on cost. The following suggestions are ordered in terms of cost from lowest to highest.

Smoke Seals : putting smoke seals around every external door is not only a good way to keep smoke out of your house, it is also a good way of keeping the heat in during winter and at least some of the heat out during summer. I consider smoke seals to be mandatory if you are serious about trying to protect yourself. Trust me, wet towels may work in a teensy weensy fire but they won’t keep the smoke out in a big one and smoke inhalation can kill just as effectively as flames.

Gutter Guard : protecting your guttering not only makes sense from a bushfire perspective, it also saves you, the home owner, from having to climb up onto your roof every year to remove the leaves and twigs that eucalypts love to shed year round. I’m scared of heights so for me gutter guard is a must.

Toughened Glass : if money is really tight then only putting toughened glass into the north facing doors and windows is better than nothing but please remember that windows and glass doors are the weak points in your house. Once they break you are up the proverbial creek without a paddle because your curtains and carpets, furniture and fittings are all tinder dry so the house will burn from the inside out. The more glass you have the greater the likelihood that something will shatter and let the fire in, so toughened glass is an investment in your life as well as your house. In my house I had toughened glass installed in the upstairs windows until I could afford to have fire resistant shutters installed [see next tip].

Fire Resistant Shutters : if you have the money for shutters be sure to ask for documentation that they really are fire-resistant. The ones I had installed have been fire tested by the CSIRO so I know exactly what they are capable of. I also know their limitations. Proper fire resistant shutters will protect not only your doors and windows, they will also protect your door and window frames. This is important because you do not want burning embers to collect on wooden surfaces right next to glass.

Good shutters will keep both heat and direct flame away from the glass but they are not built to withstand the furnace-like temperatures of Black Saturday. In truth it’s hard to imagine anything that could withstand those temperatures. It terms of ‘ordinary’ bushfires though the shutters will do their job for about twenty minutes but will work much better – and last much longer – if you keep all flammable vegetation away from the windows and shutters in the first place.

One thing though – resist the temptation to get electronic openers for your shutters. Go for manual winders instead. Manual winders may not look pretty or be something cool to show off to your friends but they will allow you to close your all important shutters even when the power is cut! No point having shutters you can’t close because the power lines are down.

So… are fire resistant shutters worth investing approximately $900 per door or floor length window? For me the answer is an emphatic yes. Not only will they protect the most vulnerable parts of my house during a fire but they are already starting to pay for themselves in lower heating and cooling costs.

Fire-fighting sprinklers/roof sprinklers : these are by far the most expensive investment to make because there is no point wasting money on a cheap system that may or may not work when you need it the most. A new car that breaks down is a disappointment. A fire fighting system that breaks down during a fire is death.

The system I have includes all of the following :

- Hydraulics calculated for my specific house and roof. Without this careful design step your system may fail when put under the pressure of a real-life bushfire emergency. And one size does NOT fit all. I do not know how to stress this enough. The person designing your system has to be able to calculate how much water must go through those pipes and sprinklers for them to work at their optimum level. This really does have to be done by an expert.

- Galvanized steel pipe. The pipes carrying the water to your sprinklers have to withstand massive temperatures during a bushfire so if anyone tells you that plastic or copper ‘will do’ they are idiots who should be jailed for criminal ignorance. My advice : use that nice cheap quote to wipe up doggy doo!

- Pumps. Yes, plural pumps. I have two of them to be sure that in an emergency water will get where it is needed. Plus it’s nice to know that if one fails for whatever reason I still have a spare. When my sprinkler system was at the design stage I was given the option of going with petrol pumps or diesel. Because of the cost difference I stupidly chose petrol. My petrol pumps are located in their own pump housing with metal mesh doors for protection but I have now had an earth berm built in front of them for added protection. Nonetheless I know that those pumps are the weak links in my system.

If you are thinking of putting in fire-fighting sprinklers I strongly recommend going with diesel for the peace of mind. Another consideration is that if you want to install some kind of remote activation down the track then you will need diesel pumps not petrol. Whatever you do, please do NOT choose electric pumps. One of the first things that goes during a bushfire is the electricity so a fire fighting system run by electric pumps is a tragedy waiting to happen.

- Water. Having dedicated fire fighting water tanks is an absolute necessity because if there is a fire in your area then the bulk of the mains water will be going to the CFA not you. This is a reality that is often overlooked. The size of the tank will depend on the hydraulics calculations but the type of tank you choose should be concrete and preferably in-ground so the water, as well as the connections etc are protected. Quite simply there is no point having a plastic or metal tank because neither will be able to withstand the ferocious temperatures of a bushfire. My system has an in-ground concrete water tank that is supplemented by approximately 18,000 litres of water in my above ground swimming pool. All up I have close to 50,000 litres of water for the sprinklers and some of that will be re-circulated back into the fire fighting tank but I would still like more.

And finally a word about bunkers. I believe that bunkers should be mandatory for every house in a bushfire prone area because they are the cheapest way to save lives. Unfortunately the authorities are still not sufficiently focused on saving lives versus property. That is why we still do not have a standard for the construction of bunkers and that means very few people can legally own them. It also means that those who install bunkers on the quiet have no guarantee that their bunker will work as advertised. If you are thinking about getting a bunker as the most cost effective option of last resort – i.e. you didn’t leave in time, your house is burning and you need to take shelter somewhere – then look for a bunker that has the following features as a bare minimum :

- can be dug into the side of a hill so the earth itself provides insulation against the heat. During Black Saturday the earth was scorched down to a level of half a metre in places. Avoid the bunkers that are dug down into the ground with a trap-door entrance at the top as falling trees and debris could make it impossible to open the trap-door once the fire has passed. Suffocation anyone?

- has a fire-rated door that seals air into the bunker and keeps smoke and noxious gases out.

- is large enough to hold enough ordinary air for at least an hour. Beware of oxygen bottles etc. They can be dangerous.

- has a furnace glass peep-hole so you can see when it is safe to come out.

- is made of reinforced concrete that is water sealed on the inside otherwise you will be bailing water out of the bunker during the winter.

- is situated far enough from the house to avoid falling debris if the house burns but close enough so that you can make a dash for safety if things go fatally pear-shaped.

While I believe bunkers will be the way of the future I don’t think they or the regulations governing them are there yet so be very careful and remember – if you get a deal that’s too good to be true then it probably isn’t.

If you’ve followed me thus far then you’re probably thinking that I’ve spent an awful lot of money trying to fire proof my house. I have. Part of my motivation was pure fear but most was necessity. When I began this journey I was responsible for my aged father who was living with us. Dad had mild dementia and did not cope well with changes to his routine so packing him into the car and leaving on high fire danger days was just not possible [I suspect many mothers of young children will be in the same boat] so I was forced to protect him by protecting the house. Dad died almost two years ago but I’m hoping the house will now protect me in my twilight years.

“But why don’t you just sell up and move somewhere safer? And cheaper?”

Trust me, I’ve thought about it. In fact I think about it at the start of every summer but every year I decide to stay because fire or no I love this place. I love the morning sun filtering down through the trees in autumn and I love the quiet, especially late at night when the stars glitter in the frosty air. I love the green of winter and the connection to life that you just don’t get in the real suburbs. I love looking out of my office window and seeing an echidna slowly snuffling its way up the fence line. I love the roos and wallabies that use my backyard as a shortcut to somewhere else and I have a special place in my heart for the family of magpies who use my compost heap as a smorgasbord. And I love the people here. There is a community spirit in Warrandyte that I have found nowhere else. Neighbours look out for each other and even the shopkeepers are friends. So I stay because this is home and I don’t want to leave but I do know the risks.

Talk to any of the old time locals and they will all tell you that Warrandyte is overdue for a burn. The last big one was in 1969. The next big one could well be in the summer of 2011/12 thanks to all the rain we have had. Water and warmth provide the perfect growing conditions for plants and we have had a lot of both. At the moment the ground is still very wet but by late January, early February all that lovely new growth will have dried out and then we could be in trouble. So if, like me, you live in a bushfire prone area please don’t be complacent. Slash the grass and cut back the scrub, clean your gutters and if you can afford to do so, put in at least some of the protections I’ve listed because the best laid plans can and do go wrong.

So many people I’ve spoken to say their plan is to leave but I always wonder how realistic those plans are. We are told it’s best to leave the night before or first thing in the morning on a day of high fire danger but where exactly are you meant to go? Where does a mother take her young children? Friends? Family? That’s probably fine once or twice during summer but it becomes a lot less appealing when you have to do it every time it gets seriously hot. And unfortunately that’s when human nature kicks in and people start to think that they’ll just wait and see what happens but all too often you won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late to do anything about it.

On Black Saturday no-one knew what was going on and warnings did not go out. I sat here, constantly refreshing the CFA website and listening to 774 all day and I can tell you that the only real information on the fire came from ordinary people ringing in with warnings.

I hope that things will be better next time round but I’m not wildly optimistic. Fire  will come again and so will the confusion and the panic so I’m urging everyone in Warrandyte  [as well as other bushfire prone areas] to invest some time, effort and money into protecting their houses because leaving may not always be an option.