drive by post: the NSW bushfires
Some quick images (not mine) about the current bushfires.
A map of the Blue Mountains. The red dot near Katoomba is approximately where I live (I have since reevaluated this image and realise I live about 2 milimetres to the left of the red dot). The fire over at Springwood is the worst in terms of damage, with nearly 200 homes destroyed, another over 100 damaged.
The fire with the greatest range is of course that massive black outlined one, which started at Lithgow (left side of the screen) and has been moving steadily towards the right, and now has crept back down towards that road there marked B59. To give an estimation of things, it would take about 45 minutes to drive from Lithgow to Bilpin. And this isn't even an updated map, this was what it was more than 12 hours ago. It's mostly bush that has burned, but a fair few residences, particularly recently as the fire moves back south, that have been affected.
The fire that is of most concern is that one on the left at Mount Victoria - reports have it now moved into the valley where it's all green, which means it's moving towards Katoomba (depending on wind conditions), and in particular, my side of Katoomba.
This is a photo of the back of my friend's parent's house - in Yellow Rock, south east of Springwood. It was one of the houses spared in the blaze, but you can see how close the fire got to their back porch - it destroyed their cubby house.
This is actually an unrelated image to me - sort of. The smoke was so huge in Springwood on Thursday that I could see it from my house over half an hour away. I forgot to get a picture of the smoke cloud before smoke spread thin over Katoomba and made it impossible to see far, but it looked very similar to this one, so you can have this picture instead to get an idea of what I saw and how large the fire was then.
The entrance to my high school in Springwood - the driveway up to the school actually goes for a kilometre until you reach the school itself, but the primary school and church were almost opposite this. This image was taken on Friday, I think. On Saturday, though the fire had receded from this point, it had swung around to the back of my high school, and it was only due to backburning efforts in the hours before that that the school was actually saved from burning.
This is the front of the school when the fire had reached the oval at the back.
Out the back of the school.
A map of the Blue Mountains. The red dot near Katoomba is approximately where I live (I have since reevaluated this image and realise I live about 2 milimetres to the left of the red dot). The fire over at Springwood is the worst in terms of damage, with nearly 200 homes destroyed, another over 100 damaged.
The fire with the greatest range is of course that massive black outlined one, which started at Lithgow (left side of the screen) and has been moving steadily towards the right, and now has crept back down towards that road there marked B59. To give an estimation of things, it would take about 45 minutes to drive from Lithgow to Bilpin. And this isn't even an updated map, this was what it was more than 12 hours ago. It's mostly bush that has burned, but a fair few residences, particularly recently as the fire moves back south, that have been affected.
The fire that is of most concern is that one on the left at Mount Victoria - reports have it now moved into the valley where it's all green, which means it's moving towards Katoomba (depending on wind conditions), and in particular, my side of Katoomba.
This is a photo of the back of my friend's parent's house - in Yellow Rock, south east of Springwood. It was one of the houses spared in the blaze, but you can see how close the fire got to their back porch - it destroyed their cubby house.
This is actually an unrelated image to me - sort of. The smoke was so huge in Springwood on Thursday that I could see it from my house over half an hour away. I forgot to get a picture of the smoke cloud before smoke spread thin over Katoomba and made it impossible to see far, but it looked very similar to this one, so you can have this picture instead to get an idea of what I saw and how large the fire was then.
The entrance to my high school in Springwood - the driveway up to the school actually goes for a kilometre until you reach the school itself, but the primary school and church were almost opposite this. This image was taken on Friday, I think. On Saturday, though the fire had receded from this point, it had swung around to the back of my high school, and it was only due to backburning efforts in the hours before that that the school was actually saved from burning.
This is the front of the school when the fire had reached the oval at the back.
Out the back of the school.