Barbelith Underground > Conversation

I don't know if anyone has seen anything about this on the news, but my hometown of Canberra, Australia has been severely burned in the bushfires that are still raging out of control.

I'll try to encase it in a nutshell. As far as I can make out, about two and a half weeks ago a fire started from an electrical storm in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales. It took two weeks to burn it's way to Canberrra cutting a swathe of destruction through thousands of acres of national parks, and numerous small towns and farms. The fires are still burning in the ski resort areas of New South Wales and Victoria in the Kosiosko National Park (all part of the same mountain range) and a number of regions around Canberra and the ACT (Australian Capital Territory).

The main destruction in Canberra came on Saturday/Sunday from several different fire fronts meeting simultaneously in several suburbs across the southern part of the Captial. Huge fireballs literally ripped through people's homes giving them very little time to escape. My dad saw one hill "just explode" (he's not one for getting too excited) and also saw what looked like a fire tornado charge across the hillside towards the houses built on it's slopes. According to most reports no one had ever seen anything like it. "The perfect firestorm" to quote a London evening paper.

The fires are still burning, although cooler weather has made things a little easier, but Northern Canberra is now under threat and with no prospect of rain (some places have been in drought for at least a year) things are not looking good.

It's been a very strange experience, hearing about it all second hand and knowing that so many of my friends and family are scared and exhausted and that some of them have lost everything. That no one we know has died is nothing short of a miracle.

One other piece of sad news is that Australia's oldest working observatory, Mt Stromlo Observatory, has been almost completely destroyed. All of it's telescopes, it's internationally acclaimed electronics workshops (providing everything from telescope mirrors to spectrometers and anything else they might need), it's heritage buildings ... just about everything. Only the new Visitor's Centre and an office block (for scientists and students) and a handfull of houses have survived. I lived on the mountain there for two years and to think of it completely destroyed is desparately sad.

I've been reading the news reports on local and international sites with tears running down my cheeks. It is so hard to be away from home, on the other side of the world at this time. I know I couldn't have done anthing to change things (boy I am not quite that stupid) but it feels wrong to be somewherelse at a time of such crisis.

Just needed to share my sadness.

Canberra's Burning