There Are Sounds You Do Not Want To Hear

on a day when the temperature is already over 33° C and you live in a suburban area that has large tracts of bushland. This is the house shaking thwup thwup of a very low flying helitac overhead which means there's a bushfire very close by. This is what happened here this afternoon.

We were just finishing lunch when suddenly two small and noisy planes started making very low circles overhead. They were joined fairly soon by two helicopters. We couldn't see anything or work out what was happening so I went onto our local Facebook community page and discovered that a fire had started about a ten minute walk from here at Star Swamp. This is a bush and wetland nature reserve which adjoins a primary school and houses as well as Marmion Avenue which is a major highway. Calling this a swamp is somewhat unfair as it consists of a combination of a pretty semi permanent four hectare freshwater lake (substantial enough to be used for watering camel trains back in the day) and ninety two hectares of bushland with walking trails.

It turned out the small planes were water bombers and they were soon joined by the sirens of fire crews. We still couldn't see anything - luckily for us, the school and the houses surrounding the reserve the wind was blowing away from us. This was not so lucky for the bushland, though, which was right in the path of the fire. Soon the small planes and helicopters (we assume the last were news crews since they were simply circling) were joined by a larger and even noisier helicopter and finally two very noisy helitacs arrived, swooping low over our house, sirens blaring, on their way to dump their water and return to refill nearby. 

The loud noise and vibrations were enough to send Mr Puss from his snoozing spot on my bed to shelter under it - and I can't say I blame him. It was quite overwhelming. By this time we were being told on the government emergency website to close all doors and windows and to shut down evaporative air conditioners and to be watchful as the fire was not contained. 

Then, as suddenly as it had started, everything went quiet which was something of a relief. When I checked the emergency website again the advice now was that two hectares had been burned out but the fire was now controlled with fire fighters patrolling the area and mopping up. The huge and quick response had obviously been effective and for that both Pisces and I are very grateful.