It’s blowing a gale in Warrandyte!

I haven’t been checking the Bureau of Meterology website so I can’t tell you how fast the wind has been blowing, but some of the big gusts have been… scary.

I’ve actually had to close the fire resistant shutters on the north side of the house [wind direction] to protect the French doors from flying junk. Not so paranoid when you see the huge tree branch that landed in my fish pond. I dragged it out to save the fish, and so I could take some photos of it.

 

I stuck my foot in the next photo to give you some perspective.

 

I don’t have a Yeti sized foot, but that is still a thick bloody branch. The length is 5 and a bit metres, and it came from the top third of a gum tree.

When I built this house, I chose a spot that was lightly treed. After the 30/10* ruling came out I only had to chop down two trees, both within just 8 metres of the house.  Now I have close to 15 metres of defensible space around most of the house. That is one reason why that massive tree branch only made a mess of the fishpond.

Had that branch hit the house, it would have done some damage. Broken windows would have been the least of my worries. Something that big could have damaged the sprinkler system on the roof…

Had that branch hit the house during a bushfire, I doubt the house would still be standing. It’s simple really. The shell of a house can withstand quite a lot of fire… until something breaches its integrity – i.e. a broken window or a smashed roof. Once the embers can get inside it’s all over, because everything inside the house is going to be paper dry. Woosh!

And now to end on a happier note, I can finally show you that photo of an emu I took with my mobile phone.

 

* after Black Saturday, and while the threat of further bushfires was still acute, the then Brumby government decreed that residents of fire prone areas would be entitled to cut down trees within 10 metres of the house. And clear scrub within 30 metres of the house. Without having to apply for and get a permit from their local Council. In Nillumbik, getting a permit to cut down a single tree is as likely as winning the lottery. I know, I’ve tried.

Eltham Gateway Deathtrap – important bushfire information.

I don’t think it will surprise any of you to know I’m paranoid about bushfire. What you may not know is that even I can be surprised. In a bad way.

The link below will take you to a very well thought out, well researched document about the extreme bushfire danger threatening not just the Warrandyte area, but also the far more built up suburbs to the west and north of Warrandyte. I’m talking Eltham, Research, Diamond Creek etc.

http://www.elthamsdeathtrap.com/

The reason these areas are in such danger was illustrated not long ago when an out of control grass fire threatened new housing estates in Epping, a northern suburb of Melbourne.  Epping and surrounding areas are poorly serviced by through roads. When the bushfire alerts went out, the roads leading away from the path of the fire became gridlocked. Not only could residents not evacuate safely, the fire services were having trouble getting to the fire. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

In my area, the danger is complicated by the fact that the Yarra River literally cuts us off from the suburbs to the south, and there are just two narrow bridges crossing the river. One bridge chokes the north-south exit from Eltham,  while the other is 13 kms to the east at Warrandyte. My bridge chokes the east-west exit.

As I live in Warrandyte, I have known about the danger posed by that east-west bridge for years, but it was not until I read the Eltham Gateway document that I realised we were pincered between two bridges and the river. Have a close look at the CFA map if you don’t believe me.

The worst fires always come from the northwest. That means people have to evacuate to the south. But the river is in the way. Can you imagine the chaos, and loss of life, if a bushfire like Black Saturday forced us to flee across either of those bridges?

I can, and the image of mangled, burnt out cars lining the roads to these bridges scares me to death.

Even if you think you know all about the possible dangers, please, PLEASE read this document. It is quite long but worth reading, especially for those who plan to evacuate in case of danger. Leaving at the last minute may not be possible, and even leaving early-ish may be more dangerous than you know.

Stay safe

Meeks

 

 

Update to the Firebug post.

I recently wrote a rather angry post about a possible firebug in the Warrandyte area. I honestly thought we’d never know for sure how that fire started, so I’m really thrilled to be able to tell you it wasn’t a firebug, it was a campfire.

This is the comment I received from Andrew, a member of the CFA :

‘Hello All, For your information, This fire started as a result of a campfire that was not extinguished properly. The fire Started along side the Yarra river and burnt 4 hectares of bushland south east up steep terrain in Warrandyte State Park not far form the Clifford park scout center in Wonga Park.

VERY fortunate the weather conditions were favorable for firefighting.

Regards Andrew (CFA Volunteer)‘

Thanks Andrew, not just for providing that welcome information, but also for doing such a great job keeping us all safe. The CFA volunteers put their own lives on the line in so many ways : they fight bushfires and give up huge chunks of their time every summer. All without getting paid or receiving much thanks.

You guys [and girls] are much appreciated even if we don’t say it enough.

-hugs-

Meeks

Firebug? Or some kind of stupid?

CFA map, 26/1/2013

Warrandyte earned its first ‘Watch and Act’ this morning thanks to two separate bushfires in the Wonga Park area. The CFA map shows the position of the last fire to be brought under control. It’s still not completely safe but as rain is predicted for tonight, we can all start breathing again.

The reason we were placed under Watch and Act was, I think, because both fires are located in state parks/reserves that follow the Yarra River as it snakes its way towards Warrandyte. If we had had an easterly wind, it would have pushed the fire right at us. Thank goodness it’s a cool day with very little wind.

But how did two separate fires begin in parkland on a cool day with no lightning?

That is the question, especially in view of the Kangaroo Ground fires of recent weeks. I hate to sound alarmist, but my money is on a firebug who thinks it’s great fun to watch people shitting themselves.

I may be wrong but if these fires are not the work of a nutter, then we must have some very stupid people lighting campfires and letting them get out of control. Either way I hope the authorities find the person or people responsible and give them hell. I’m not a violent person, but even I would be tempted to knock some sense into them with a very big stick!

I’m sorry to rant on like this but I’m angry.

This whole area is a tinderbox thanks to a long, dry summer and the negligence of those who should know better. Most residents are not prepared. Warrandyte has one ‘Safer Place’ * of last resort in a building adjacent to a football oval. I know that spot and I wouldn’t like to trust my life to it.

Why is commonsense in such short supply? How can we live in a place like this and not take the threat of bushfire seriously?

My only hope is that these dress rehearsals will shock some people into reassessing the danger… and taking some responsibility for their own lives and those of their neighbours. I’m not holding my breath.

*’The signs, [for Safer Place] are on Taroona Avenue in Warrandyte, … and point to two brick buildings at Warrandyte Reserve.’ This information appeared in  theage.com.au. You can read the full article here.

Meeks

Battening down the hatches – updated at 10:15pm

I just checked the weather and it’s still 36C [96.8 F]… at 10 o’clock at night. What happened to the cool change we were promised?

I know I sound like a whiny little kid but,  after a day sweltering in 41C [105.8 F ] temperatures, I’m finding it hard to be grateful for a 5 degree drop. I am, however, VERY grateful that we had no fires anywhere near us today.  I am also very grateful to the nice repairman who came out and serviced our air-con yesterday. It is struggling now, after a day of constant work, but it got us through. So thank you Amon and thank you to  whoever invented air-conditioning!

Sleep tight,

Meeks

The weather bureau has predicted a week or so of hot weather, and it seems they may be right. It was stinking hot yesterday – 37C in the city but more out here – and today is meant to be even worse, with 41C temperatures and a hot north wind to fan the flames of any bushfires that do start.

The whole state is on high alert and I’ve been doing my bit. Critical areas of the garden have been watered and now all that’s left is to start up the fire-fighting pumps to make sure they’re working properly, clear the back deck of flammable deck chairs, drop all the fire-resistant shutters and turn on the radio.

Radio, you ask? Why would that be part of any bushfire plan?

Well, it’s not just any radio station I’ll be listening to today. ABC 774 is the official bushfire warning channel and during fire season they broadcast alerts whenever they arrive. This is critical because back during Black Saturday, 774 provided the only real information that any of us had about where the fires were, and where they were headed.

To be honest, the official warnings broadcast by 774 during Black Saturday were pretty useless as the authorities had no real idea of what the fires were doing. Nonetheless 774 was invaluable because of the listeners who rang in and provided anecdotal information about what the fire was doing in their area.

I just wish someone had been listening to, and co-ordinating all this anecdotal information at the time. Perhaps then 173 people might not have died.

I’m still angry about Black Saturday, and I’m still angry about the way Nillumbik Shire Council weaseled its way out of all responsibility for their negligence. I don’t care what anyone believes, be that religion or conservationist policy, but when it comes to lives, the only deciding factor should be facts. Ignoring those facts is criminal.

I don’t want to get into a major rant here, but it’s time we accepted realities, and one of those realities is that Australia is not a gentle place. If humans want to co-exist with native flora and fauna here, we have to accept the dangers and take sensible precautions. The policies still being enforced by most local councils are not… sensible.

I doubt that anything horrible will happen today, but fire season has just begun, and this year Warrandyte [as well as the rest of Victoria] is much dryer than it was at the same time last year. By February the whole state will be a tinderbox again and we could see a repeat of Black Saturday.

If you live in a fire-prone area, and that includes all of Warrandyte,  please, PLEASE get your property as fire-proof as possible. Chest high scrub and dry grass on one property will only make the spread of the fire worse for other properties. So even if your plan is to get out early, do your maintenance first. Not only will it help your own house to survive, it may help your neighbour’s house survive as well.

Last but most definitely not least, my thoughts are with those people who are still living in the areas devastated by Black Saturday. I can only imagine the fear you must feel on days like this. I pray you remain safe.

-hugs-

Meeks

Fire season, alpacas – and the things that burn

A few weeks ago I did a series of burns to prepare my block for fire season. I kept these bonfires very small for fear they’d get out of control, even with everything so damp. As a result, I had to struggle to keep my fires going, yet even so I learned some interesting things about what does, and does not, burn in my part of Australia.

As expected, the dry leaves and twiggy branches of gum trees burn very nicely, thank you very much. However I also discovered that even relatively fresh gum leaves will burn. As these leaves contain highly volatile oils, I should not have been surprised by this either.

Still on the subject of leaves and volatile oils, I threw some lemon tree prunings onto the fire and took a big step backwards, expecting the branches to explode into flames. The leaves did burn quite nicely but the branches seemed to burn no better than any other green wood.

Next I tried the dry stalks and flower heads of agapanthus. [Picture courtesy of wiki]

Once these flowerheads and stalks dry off, they burn like paper. The green leaves however took a long time to dry out and eventually burn. For me, the lesson here was that clumps of well maintained agapanthus may help extinguish embers. At a certain temperature, however, anything can and will burn.

While cutting out the dry agapanthus stalks, I also trimmed back some branches of a very hardy, invasive and hard to eradicate shrub whose name I don’t know. I remember finding pictures of it  once, as part of a listing of ‘weeds’ in the Warrandyte area.

I took the two pictures below in the hope that someone would recognize it and name it. [Thanks for the camera tip Metan!]

The reason I want to name and shame this plant is that it snap, crackles and pops on the fire… even when it’s fresh and very green. This thing seems to burn even better than gum leaves, and in a bushfire I can imagine it merrily shooting off burning embers in all directions.

I know Nillumbik Shire Council considers it to be a noxious weed because it is not indigenous to the area, but they have done nothing to force residents to eradicate it. Nor have they, themselves, eradicated it from roadsides and other public places. This stuff should be attacked without mercy because it burns so well, not because of any airy, fairy conservationist principles.

Now that I know how dangerous this unnamed plant truly is, I’ll be blitzing it with a vengeance. If you know what it’s called please let me know asap!

The most welcome thing I learned from my burning off was that I can discourage the alpacas from pooping close to the house by :

a) relocating their poop piles and

b) burning off on the spot where the piles used to be.  I suspect the smell of the ash and charcoal masks the smells that tell the alpacas  ‘Here be  the toilet’.

For those who haven’t been following my adventures with alpacas, these big, woolly lawn-mowers like to leave their poop in neat piles. Unfortunately a couple of their preferred toilet spots are rather close to the house. That is a problem because, although the smell isn’t really all that bad, the green volcanos that grow up around them are both unsightly and difficult to mow by hand. Trust me, you do not want to accidentally mow into a pile of wet poop.

I’ve tried sprinkling lemon oil over these unwanted piles but it didn’t work as a deterrent. The burns will work, so long as you repeat the process until the alpacas ‘forget’ and move on to somewhere else. They can be rather stubborn so even this is not a magic bullet.

As always, I would love to see my fellow residents taking a more proactive part in keeping Warrandyte safe[r] from bushfires.

cheers

Meeks

Meeka is a real name? Oh…:(

About ten years ago when I started playing mmo’s (massively multiplayer online [games]) I chose the name ‘Meeka’ for my second character on Final Fantasy XI because I liked the sound of it. I had been pouring over maps of Australia and had discovered a place a place in Western Australia called Meekathara. Being lazy I shortened it to Meeka and I have been using it ever since, never guessing that it was a real name!

Meekathara is an aboriginal name meaning ‘place of little water’ – rather appropriate for Western Australia. Apparently the town has been through a succession of small gold rushes which is probably the only reason it  survived with a rainfall counted in the low double digits – 7.9 – 20 inches for the whole year! So there is not a great deal of significance to Meekathara but I really fell in love with the sound of that name.

It seems I have not been alone in my love of indigenous place names. For most of our short history white Australians have either ignored the indigenous peoples who were here before us or we have treated them as less than human. Yet despite this, indigenous place names have crept into our vocabulary and have stayed there.

When I arrived in Australia at the age of four, my parents and I spent our first year in New South Wales, living in an inland town by the name of Wagga Wagga. Wagga Wagga means ‘place of many crows’. We boarded with an Australian family whose house was a stone’s throw away from the Murrumbidgee river which means ‘big water’. After moving from NSW to Victoria we settled in Melbourne and eventually moved to a suburb called Eaglemont, very european, but the house I grew up in was called ‘Awaba’ which comes from the indigenous word for ‘a flat place’. Now this was a little strange as the word itself comes from NSW and the house is in Victoria. Stranger still, the house is on top of quite a steep hill in a suburb that is nothing but hills. We used to speculate that the man who built the house must have originally come from NSW or have some connection to it.

Right now I live in an outer suburb of Melbourne  called Warrandyte [more gold rush history] which is bisected by the river Yarra. Apparently the man who named the river, John Helder Wedge, was with two aboriginal trackers at the time and they called out ‘Yarra Yarra’ when they saw the waterfall but Wedge thought they were talking about the river so that was what he named it. Bit of mistaken identity there that was very common at the time. The real name of the river was Birrarung (something like ‘endless flow’) but the name Yarra stuck. The township of Warrandyte is itself an indigenous word linked to a dreamtime myth :

“In Australian Aboriginal mythology (see dreamtime), a Wurundjeri dreamtime story tells of a great eagle; “the all powerful, ever watchful creator of the world” named Bunjil, who “once gazed down upon his people from the star Altair and saw their wrong doing. Awaiting their return, with a mighty crash of thunder, he hurled down a star to destroy them”. Where the star struck created a gorge in which much of the town today is located. Bunjil’s people remembered the spot, and referred to it as Warrandyte speculated to mean “that which is thrown”.”
Wiki

I’m sure that if I googled Victorian place names I would find hundreds of place names that owe their origin to the people we displaced. And dispossessed. I’m just glad that something of that rich heritage has survived.

But if my lovely made up name is real then where did it come from? And what does it mean? My thanks again to wiki for the following definition :

“me(e)-ka\ as a girl’s name is a variant of Dominique (French, Latin) and Mika (Japanese), and the meaning of Meeka is “lord; beautiful aroma; beautiful increase”.”

When I read this I just had to smile. Not at the meaning, although that is rather nice but rather at its provenance. French and Japanese are my two favourite languages and, not surprisingly, when I was a teacher back at the dawn of time, those were the languages I taught! So despite my disappointment at not being the creator of the name ‘Meeka’ I am more than happy to remain connected with it.

Perhaps I should just change my name to Meeka by deed poll – Meeka Flory has a nice ring to it. I am tempted as I’ve never liked my given name of ‘Andrea’. It sounds nice in Hungarian – On-drey-oh. It even sounds nice in Italian – Ahn-drey-ah. In aussie English though – Ann- dree-ah just sounds… nasal.

Oh well, I am who I am and I guess that includes the name but if anyone wants to call me ‘Meeka’ or ‘Meeks’ I’ll smile and say ‘You rang?’

Cheers,

Meeks

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!

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.