Fires in Australia
This year has been a devastating fire season. Not even finished, it’s already burned 50+ million acres! Other than smelling some smoke on our second morning in the country, we haven’t seen an impact so far.
Volunteer Fire Service - RFS
Australia is unique in that the majority of their fire fighting capacity comes from volunteers in the Royal Australian Fire Services. They are rightly heroes in this country.
During our time in Kangaroo Valley, we saw evidence first hand how the country has gotten behind the RFS. Signs like this one were common in business windows.
Mega Fire Out!
One of three mega fires this season was in and around where we were staying in Kangaroo Valley. The fire ravaged a huge area and much of the surrounding area of the valley. We had 48 hours in Kangaroo Valley with our friends Trisha and Ben; during that time it poured rain like we’ve never experienced before. It dumped Kangaroos & Wallabies ;)
The good news...it finally extinguished this particular fire! We’ve never been so happy to have a weekend rain out!
Pack Your Esky
An Esky is a cooler. In Australia, they are encouraging Aussies to spend their holidays in the country and in particular near the impacted areas that have been devastated by the fires. Tourism has dried up so much so that communities have been impacted economically in addition to the fire. The campaign encourages you to buy local products in the impacted areas and put them in your “esky”.
Animal Heroes
Wombats, an iconic Australian animal, have become animal heroes during the fires. Wombats build extensive underground tunnels and are by nature hyper territorial. Despite that nature, they have been seen letting other animals take cover in their tunnels as fires raged overhead.
It’s nice to be here as Australia sees some light at the end of the tunnel in this horrible fire season...however temporary that may be.
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