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Eastern Australia is burning

You've got secure water? If you can keep your pumps going if the grid goes out, run sprinklers on and around structures and in trouble area's, like your copse of napalm trees. It'll take a run to an irrigation supply, or somewhere you get 1" canvas sprinkler line(hose) with metal sprinklers, metal 'Y' and 'T' fittings that won't burn through. The idea is to keep the humidity up around area's you want protected; structures, roofs ect. Physically clear back ground fuels. Can you get a Cat in to drive through firebreaks? Some of our IA crews used sprinkler arrays to great effect at Yellowstone in '88. I'd be a moon scape after it burned over with a green bubble around a building when it worked.
You have to keep the pumps going, which means manning and being set for a siege, including fireshelter and fire fighting equipment to cope with any problems.
It takes some doing and gear, which may not be available. Some fire services may keep stocks of gear on hand for that.
It's got to be fire-fighting gear, though. You can do it with 'garden' stuff' in a pich, but the hoses must be protected, and it's dodgy if your gear can melt (plastic consumer crap) and not recommended unless it's last resort, and you must have secure pumps and secure power.
But, if you have any doubts, can't make the minimum equipment list; run, and run early. Do not wait or half-ass it. That's a force of nature that won't stop or slow down until it wants to. You can always buy new stuff, you cannot buy another life.
Good luck, mate. I'll petition Lono for clemency, but that's not worth much. Fire-gods are notoriously fickle.
 
Living on a former Dairy Farm on the Southern Coast has big benefits including acres of cleared land, few trees within 500+ metres of the house and three springs.
Power is not a problem, we have a community funded wind turbine servicing our location, enough solar to keep going for a lengthy period and a battery 'farm' to store considerable power.
And if it all goes down the crapper two forty foot buried containers are a pretty decent last resort.
The Flinders - Cape Schank zone is not known to be fire prone but 99% of those of us who live there take our fire plans very seriously.
:encouragement:


 
Yer apples then, mate. Having a cleared glacis helps enormously, though the radiant heat from a big burn will flash over stuff at an impressive distance from the flame front, and it won't help if it's as dry as a nun's nasty. That's where a sprinkler set makes the save.
Just don't come a gusty. If in doubt, pull the handle and bail out.
 
And if it all goes down the crapper two forty foot buried containers are a pretty decent last resort.
Click to expand...
For saving inanimate objects, yes. For living creatures, including humans, no.
Fires, especially very large ones, suck the oxygen out of the air. If you can't seal the containers airtight, at least, you have got problems. Or you need a good oxygen/air supply to last until the fire goes by. And that includes sealing the containers airtight, so that the fire doesn't create a vacuum inside. How fast it moves is a highly variable...variable, I guess you'd say, so the time you'd need to supply air for might be a few seconds, or it might be a lot longer.
Bear in mind as well, the human body doesn't react well to vacuums at all. It doesn't take a very great drop in pressure, really, to drop the boiling point of water, which we are largely composed of, to well below 98.6° F. So again, an airtight capability on the containers is critical to maintain the air pressure surrounding the bodies within, or that's all they'll be, is bodies. Just supplying oxygen to masks might not be adequate to the task of keeping you alive. :pop4:
I guess pressure suits, with integral air supplies, to wear in the containers, would do the job, as well...
A little expensive, but a possibility. Early aviators used hard-hat diving suits during early high-altitude tests, IIRC. Always a possibility, if you can find one you can afford, I guess.

Better to run, IMO. Far, far away...:running:

Good idea, though. Some small creatures survive fast moving grass fires in burrows, so the same principle might apply.
Good luck to you, no matter what you choose to do!
Pat☺
 
And now Southern and Southern Eastern Australia is being hit.
Temperatures have reached high to mid 40 degrees C, with Wednesday the 7th being the hottest day on record for the entire Continent!

And just an FYI, we sunk the containers under 2 metres of earth in the middle of a 10 Hectare cleared paddock.
:encouragement:
 
Nephew in Balmoral is ****ting it. They evacuated with stock last week, and are hoping the Wattle Creek fire will go down behind their place. 3 neighbouring houses gone so far. Fingers crossed.
 
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