Good post Harry.
Good post Harry.
I had a compass, but without a map, it's just a cool toy to show you where oceans and ice are.
Rep point sent Harry, You nailed it 100% perfect.
Two years back in Feb 2009 we had what is now known as 'Black Saturday' in Victoria, Australia.
This was a disaster waiting to happen. 173 people died in The Great Divide in an inferno that reached an estimated 200,000 kilowatts of heat per lineal metre. Alloy engine blocks melted, alloy wheels melted, the road to Kinglake was littered with hundreds of burnt out vehicles. Houses looked like they had been nuked, with just the roofing iron and concrete stumps remaining. It reminded me of pictures of Hiroshima. Whole families were wiped out in seconds. In most cases there was little remaining to bury. That amount of heat destroys bone like a crematorium, in many case just the teeth or surgical implants were left to identify the dead.
Thousands of houses, businesses and properties were destroyed. Infrastructure vanished in seconds. Telecommunication towers, power-lines, water supplies, hospitals, Police stations, all gone in minutes.
I was up there with a CFA Strike Team from Region 15 the following morning to patrol the fireline which was still burning and threatening more houses and lives. It would be another couple of weeks before the fires finally went out.
What went 'wrong'?
Well 15 years of drought for a starter. The bush was bone dry from decades of low rainfall. In that time hundreds of people had moved into the mountains to buy cheap land and a 'rural lifestyle'. Councils got greedy and opened up house blocks on 40 degree slopes in areas known to have had devastating fires in recent history.
Too most of the people moving there were/are 'city slickers' with little or no knowledge of what is involved in living 'in the Bush'.
Greenies dominated the local Shires and Councils bringing in 'regulations' severely limiting 'land clearing' and demanding that newcomers plant only 'native species'.........i.e. 'eucalypts'. Now eucys are nice trees and make good timber, but due to the volatile oils in the leaves they burn like a blast furnace once things get going. If the fire 'crowns' (as this one did) you're in deep doodoo..............and you sure as hell don't want to be within a hundred miles if it does !
So what did we learn from this? Most people up there 'survived' even though their houses and properties were wiped out. A small few with a large amount of common sense and forethought, had built themselves 'fire bunkers' and shelters. One feller, knowing the fire was headed right at him from 20 miles away climbed into his dozer and pushed back a firebreak right around his property some 200 yards deep, right down to mineral earth. He then pushed through his neighbours fence and did the same there. Those were the only two houses in the street to survive! The Council is taking him to Court for 'clearing land without a permit' !!
Many people up around Kinglake and Marysville have left forever, the trauma was too much. Others have remained and are or have rebuilt. New building regulations have come in to make houses 'safer'.........but a Major Fire is like a Tsunami, not too much you can do about a Force of Nature of that extent!
As with the recent Tsunami in Japan, many died, but many times more 'survived'.
So what does this tell us as 'survivalists'? My take on this is; in any so-called 'major disaster' the vast majority of people survive, even at the 'epicenter' of events. For sure property and assets get destroyed and many people are physically maimed and mentally scarred for life. But most people 're-build' their lives in one form or another, somewhere.
Two, the ones who came out of this Inferno the 'best' were the ones that were 'prepared for the worst'...............One fella we took the trucks down to had about 60 acres on a steep North facing slope (bloody dangerous in Australia !), but he had cleared most of it and had cut filled a house block into the side of the hill, with a tall stone retaining wall on the downhill side.. His house was built on a concrete slab out of stone and brick. He had numerous fire dams on the property and fire pumps working spray systems onto his buildings. That saturday night when the fire came over 60 people from the surrounding area came and 'camped' in his house............because they knew it was the only 'safe place' in the area. He showed us a 'summons' from the council to appear in Court for refusing to plant 'native species' on his property. The fact that over 50 houses in the same valley as he, had been immolated gave lie to the Councils position.
My 'take' on this event is that; NEVER trust ANYONE........particularly Government bodies with YOUR own health & safety. I work on the basis that; "this is MY property and MY life...............I will decide what happens here.............you sonsa*****es want to make the rules??? YOU can pay my Mortgage !!
and finally "Hope for the best, but Prepare for the Worst".
if you follow this tenet, you have a better than even chance of coming out alive.
Harry
Last edited by Bushman; 07-06-2011 at 03:05 PM. Reason: syntax/spelling
"use enough gun......"
That's a good story H, and I agree with you when it comes to doing what you personally think is right for you and yours. Ultimately, we alone bear the responsibility for ourselves and we suffer the consequences accordingly.
Harry - One of the things that used to be pretty common on the prairie here in the states were underground bunkers. They were little more than an earth covered room that you could take shelter in during a wild fire. A few timbers and some planks to hold back the dirt then all covered with earth except for a small opening. Hugely effective against fires because it protected you from the heat and the actual fire. Since wild fires travel so quickly it was usually over in just a few moments but that fire bunker saved a lot of lives. With all of our modern conveniences today and almost no prairie land left the fire bunker has become a thing of the past but it was very useful once upon a time. Perhaps something like that would be helpful where you are. Good post by the way.
Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.
Harry, did you ever do an introduction? Hahaha
You haven't, I looked.
I had a compass, but without a map, it's just a cool toy to show you where oceans and ice are.
In English?
I had a compass, but without a map, it's just a cool toy to show you where oceans and ice are.
I think as a species we have taken a lot more than we NEED.Nature provides enough.Usually.Man has asked too much of his environment.
I think that the resource crisis we face-and we do face one-means we will go back.Back ,I suspect to a lower standard of living.I suspect initially a standard of living like the 60's.
I think our exploitation has been a learning process like anything else. Everyday we invent new materials to move us forward. Nanotubes that can take the place of steel, hybrid carbon fiber for batteries, aluminum foam, concrete cloth, magnetic sponges, self healing concrete, and on and on. It's a pretty amazing time that we live in.
If you have a commodity in front of you then you use it. Once that commodity isn't there any more then you go look for it and finally figure out some way around it. We'll never go backwards. No one would accept it. Why on earth would I want to return to a world of free love, drugs and rock and roll. Hmmmm. Let me think about this a bit more.
Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.
That's why I decided I had to think about it. The free love..........I'm not THAT old.
Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.
Now that right there is funny. I don't care who you are.
It's not free love , Rick, if you have to buy a pill to do it.
I had a compass, but without a map, it's just a cool toy to show you where oceans and ice are.
Uh, no. I get the going rate for husbands. New shoes, new dresses, new handbags, new shoes, new belts, new shoes, new jewelry, new shoes......It would be cheaper on the street.Originally Posted by B
Winter - At my age I have to buy a pill to do just about everything. I need a pill to remind me what the rest of the pills are for. I even take a pill for my memory but I only take half of one. Some things aren't worth remembering.
Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.
He washes the h....................oh never mind.
thanks for the "just do it" prompt....however, I have been doing it for about 20 years...i've built my own cabin, built my own business that is sustainable and allows me non-stop outdoors time, live on 22 acres surrounded by wildness, and feed my family with what I kill. However, in order to do that legally in Montana I have had to work hard in the cash-economy to finance the property etc...In this area you can't just live off the land unless you own it....you cant build dwellings unless they are up to code, etc...
The way of the canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten- Sigurd Olson
Give me winter, give me dogs... you can keep the rest- Knud Rasmussen
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