02-01-2020: Bushfire

As you’ve all seen on the news the bushfires in Australia this year have been devastating. Millions of hectares of forests, hundreds of homes and outbuildings and over one billion animals, reptiles and birds have been burned. The loss of human life has been significant, including the 3 U.S. airman who died in their water tanker crash.

Being here at Tony and Liz’s at Nana Glen has given us an up close and personal look at bushfire devastation and we have learned the horror of homeowners fighting to save what they have worked all their lives for. But being here at Tony and Liz’s has helped me to understand the value of planning, preparation, maintenance and good hard work. For the Caruanas, Tony’s planning from the start made the difference. The key things necessary to survive a bushfire are water, electricity, and the maintenance of property and buildings.

Early on, Tony created what we call ponds, what Aussies call dams. He has excavated and constructed earthen dams to hold water. He has six dams around his property that are connected by ditching so that water can collect and flow down through the dams to fill them. Of course the drought has impacted the water level of all the dams, but Tony’s dams enabled him to fight the bushfire.

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The second important component is electricity. You can’t run pumps to pump water without electricity or generators. Tony’s Bert and Ernie setup, the huge solar panels, enabled him to have electricity throughout the 3 days of bushfire fighting last November. The area suffered a 5-day electricity outage and Tony didn’t even know that because he had electricity. He also has pumps and generators at the dams and miles of pipes and hoses to get water to where it is needed.

Water collection systems are also key. There are a number of tanks around the house, sheds and property that capture rain runoff from roofs. With all the wonderful gardens and vegetation close to the house, Tony and Liz have created sprinkler and irrigation systems that use about 1,000 gallons per day from the water collection tanks. These systems are on timers during the day and come on and off as programmed. You can bet that all sprinklers and watering systems were running 24 hours a day during the fire to keep the vegetation and house wet. Pumps pumped water up to the house to keep the roof wet.

Maintenance of property and around the house are vital. Tony drove me around his property in a buggy. It was so very clear how affected Tony was in seeing his burned timber and talking about the whole ordeal. But I learned through very vivid imagery the importance of keeping the brush, grass, downed limbs and other debris cleaned up under the trees. I know in the States we have had significant controversy, as they do here, related to planned burning to eliminate underbrush in forest. Well, I’ve now seen what a difference it made around Tony’s property.

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Tony has a machine that he runs through the timber lots that rakes up debris including leaves, small brush, downed limbs, etc. He puts the debris he rakes up into big piles and when it is safe to do so, he burns the debris. The cattle also play an important role in keeping the grass short in order to prevent fire from spreading. This property maintenance prevented the fire from enlarging and made it easier to control because there was less fuel in terms of debris that feeds the fire.

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Driving through the timber with Tony showed me how much he loves the land. It really pained him to see the timber charred and the ruin of beautiful woodlots.

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Tony owns 100 acres and he reckons about 60-80 acres were charred. The flames got fairly close to the house, but Tony, his family members, and other helpers and firemen were able to pump water to the places needed to keep the fire under control.

As I mentioned, the fire burned for 3 days starting November 12, so a little less than 3 months ago. What is absolutely amazing is to see the beginnings of regrowth. Many of the trees will die and fall, but even very charred trees show signs of new life.

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A few houses on the road up to Tony and Liz’s place burned completely to the ground. Tony believes that this happened because of debris collecting in the eaves, gutters and around the house. The embers from bushfires are a major threat and when there is severe wind, often associated with the bushfires, the embers fly miles and ignite any little bit of debris they land near. Tony and Liz work hard to maintain the areas around their house and roofs to eliminate any bit of debris that is potential fuel for embers.

A bit after the fire another disaster hit the area causing significant flooding. They got a storm that dropped 7 inches of rain, a good thing considering the need to totally put out any remaining hot spots. However, there was so much rain in a short period of time that the dams overflowed and caused many of the culverts to washout. That created a new problem. The culverts needed to be rebuilt. A guy Tony hired to bring heavy equipment in to rebuild the culverts used some of the trees that had to be cut down as the pipe in the culvert. This was amazing to see! A huge gum tree was cut into three long pieces and was perfect for 3 culvert pipes because the tree trunk was hollow. Gum trees are incredibly dense and so even hollowed out are very, very strong. What a perfect use of a resource that was a casualty of another disaster. This is the resourcefulness of people who know their land and make use of what it has to offer.

I am going to try and get some other photos from Tony because he documented all these events. He is an amazing man, and again I’ll say he is the hardest worker I’ve every know. But his foresight in planning and preparing for all sorts of disasters has really paid off. He managed to save his wonderful oasis.