Australia has its bad points too :(

[tonkatiel]

I'm not sure if its made it on to the news for the rest of the world but thought I'd let everyone know what's been happening in my part of Australia in the last week...
In Victoria we've broken records for the amount of consecutive days over 40 degrees (104 degrees fahrenheit), today was the 6th day, but luckily tomorrow is meant to be a lot cooler :)
There are currently over 100 fires burning throughout the state and a lot of towns and communities have been evacuated. So far 1 human life has been lost - I don't even want to think about what the wildlife death toll would be :(

Here is a map showing all the current fires... *
[Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]
The red diamonds are 'emergencies' (too late to leave), the orange diamonds are 'watch and acts' (leave now), the blue diamonds are a bit harder to categorise - some are 'no threat to communities' while others are 'be prepared to leave'.
Our firefighters have been doing an amazing job and have put out a lot of fires in the last few days, I can only begin to imagine how hard it must be! Unfortunately there is only so much they can do though with conditions being so bad :( *
So far I have been extremely lucky. I live in an 'Extreme Fire Risk Area' but there have been none. My family who live a few hours away are also in a bad spot, but again no fires. *

There are also fires burning in South Australia and Western Australia at the moment.

[Honesty]

Oh Wow Emma. It is so hard to visualize just how hot Australia is at the moment, especially as we are having it so bad here in the UK :(

I am glad it is forecast a bit cooler for you tomorrow. Stay Safe!

[tonkatiel]

Our worst fires seem to hit in February, I'm desperately hoping that isn't the case this year and right now will be the worst we get.

On 16th February 1983 we had what is known as the 'Ash Wednesday Bushfires', which burned 5200 square kilometres, destroyed over 3700 homes and killed 75 people between Victoria and South Australia.

As if that wasn't bad enough, on 7th February 2009 we had what is known as the 'Black Saturday Bushfires' which continued until the 14th March.
They burned 4500 square kilometres, destroyed over 3500 homes and killed 173 people. This was all in Victoria.

And the weather is only getting worse each year :( the only difference between the weather conditions on those occasions and the weather we're experiencing right now is that we don't have the 110kmph winds to go with the extremely high temperatures...

[spiritbird]

I am praying for everyone's safety including the wildlife.

[coltfire]

Emma, we are supposed to be in the flood season up here in Qld, but we will be getting the heat as you have down there, we hit 45c(113f) last week and been told that is nothing to what is coming, i pray you all stay safe down your end, we dont need another ash Wednesday or Saturday.

[Blancaej]

Oh wow Emma! Everyone will be in my thoughts and prayers. Stay safe.

[Debra]

I have a friend in the "watch and act" warning area. She's preparing to leave by getting her most precious belongings and her two birds and dogs ready. I worry about her every year around this time. Now that I've met ya'll on here, I've got more people to be praying over. Please, please be safe! Fires are nothing to mess with. Get out before something happens to you and yours.

[Maddy]

Stay safe!! :th_hug8:

[Turquoise]

I do hope it gets better for all of ya'll down under instead of worse as Feb approaches. That is so sad to think about all the wildlife that loses their homes & lives in disasters such as you are experiencing. :th_hug8:

I can so relate to the over 100F temps with living in Texas. I think it was summer before last that we had a relentless blast of over 80 days of 100+F days of heat. It is not uncommon for us to have 110 to 115F days, but not for that long of a stretch without a few under !00F days to break up the heat. It was blamed on "La Nina" hovering over us and would just not go away! Working in a facility that does not have air conditioning and very little for air flow was very tough. I was so glad this past summer was a very mild one for us. It was a blessing to say, "Oh yeah, we got up to 99F today." "Ain't it great!!" :)

[tonkatiel]

Thanks everyone, today was a much better day, all emergency fire warnings have been downgraded and a lot of them have been put out altogether :)
Temp today was only 20 (68F) so a very welcome change! The first day in over a week I haven't spent the day showering my birds and attempting to give them some relief from the heat!
Hopefully it won't get any worse this summer and we can look forward to a drama free year - until next summer of course ;)
Steve I don't have tv reception where I live so know little about whats going on in the world unless someone tells me and I then go looking for info, so hadn't heard much about what's going on in QLD at the moment. I have friends who lost their home in the floods up there last year, hoping and praying it doesn't get that bad again this year xx

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

[Honesty]

I am pleased to hear your high temperatures have subsided for you :)

Emma... It must be awful for you not having TV reception where you are! Could you have some sort of aerial put in that would give you a signal?

[tonkatiel]

Oh we could get it fixed easily enough, I just prefer to not have it lol... My partner (when tv is available) never gets off the couch and its just a permanent noise that I can't stand so I haven't bothered lol...

It annoys me sometimes that we don't get to watch the news, but for the most part the news is just a whole lot of depressing information that makes zero difference to me whether I see it or not (other than to make me depressed about things I can't do anything about) ;)

We watch a lot of movies still, but it's not a non stop kind of thing - and its been GREAT for my kids! They actually have to get up and do stuff if they're bored instead of sitting in one spot the entire day :)

[coltfire]

Emma funny you say that about tv, i have not had tv since oct, i live in a black spot so i need to buy a black box from government and it's $320, and im the same as you i dont need to see whats going on out there, i have the hard drive to watch movies and series.it was like a mate come over last night and told me about a siege down the road i knew nothing about.