Fire And Flood
Not a sight which would fill anyone with confidence when filmed from one's own house! This is a fire lit by our then next door neighbour one July. He was trying to burn gorse and broom in a gully and the fire got away on him and headed for the hills. His own few horses galloped uphill into the fire and through it and got well singed as the nor west gale took hold and the flames roared away. This is our neighbour closer to town whose two year old plantation was going up in smoke. This is the secondary front of the fire , burning back into the wind because at the same time it was rushing across our own hill.
We live in an all wood house liberally coated with an oil based preservative and the fire brigade is at least twenty minutes away, so every time I get the merest whiff of smoke I am out and about like a bloodhound trying to find the source, in fact I can't relax until I find out where the smoke is coming from. In summer we keep the four smaller flat paddocks eaten out and bare. To the north we have these paddocks and the river between us and our hill. To the south there is our own closely mown forecourt and roadside mown verge and the road between us and the next nearest hills. When each fire is definitely coming our way we muster the horses off the vulnerable hillside and into the eaten out paddocks, where they are shut in and live on hay until the danger is past.
We live in an all wood house liberally coated with an oil based preservative and the fire brigade is at least twenty minutes away, so every time I get the merest whiff of smoke I am out and about like a bloodhound trying to find the source, in fact I can't relax until I find out where the smoke is coming from. In summer we keep the four smaller flat paddocks eaten out and bare. To the north we have these paddocks and the river between us and our hill. To the south there is our own closely mown forecourt and roadside mown verge and the road between us and the next nearest hills. When each fire is definitely coming our way we muster the horses off the vulnerable hillside and into the eaten out paddocks, where they are shut in and live on hay until the danger is past.
Boxing Day Fires 2000
The fire that broke out on Boxing Day 2000 made headline news and burnt rapidly across a huge area, fanned by a nor west gale. Rod and a lot of other people spent days fighting the front. After it was finally put out we took to the car to see how far the damage had spread. These photos are taken in Redwood Pass on our way back to town after a long circuit. At home the fire had gone past and round our property but burnt other places and stock en route. As ever it was the local farmers and stock men with their knowledge of terrain, and tracks and water sources who saved the day with their truck loaded spraying gear and sheer determination to stop the fire at all costs.
Burnt!
This was husband Rod's efforts at setting fire to Marlborough. All year round we heap all our tree prunings and garden debris on our Bottom Flat paddock and, in the Winter, we obtain a Fire Permit and set fire to the whole heap. On this particular year Rod was unaware that a barrel of an oil based substance had rolled off a truck on the road and buried itself in the scrub outside the boundary fence. The bonfire was going really well when there was an almighty BOOM and the oil exploded. By the time Rod had regained control, after a lot of frantic to-ing and froing I might add ! , the whole roadside was burnt. It did a very good job on gorse, broom, bracken and barbary management, but, viewing it from the house, I was having kittens!
