Dozens of homes lost as more than 90 fires around New South Wales blaze most of today
 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-1...cebook/5029766
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-1...rgency/5028762

Bushfire season has come early this year with high temps and winds up to 90km/h today. More than 2000 firefighters are battling more than 90 blazes around the state. Friends of mine who live near Springwood where one of the fires is have confined they are OK but it looks like there are possibly hundreds of people who may have lost their homes.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWwow7HCUAEWzFI.jpg
I work in the building with the pyramid on top of it on the right of this picture. This is about 50km as the crow flies from the seat of the blaze that caused the smoke plume.

Stay safe, all of you :salute:

I know that well, every summer we have it here also! A few times I manage to be on Kripton, do to the Sun being red because of the smoke cloud.
Hope that the fires will be control and extint:salute:!

+1 :salute:

You best bring our meeting forward a little then :)

Take good care, I'm sure the wife and girls will look after you :cool:

Been looking at some pics on GenoMariners facebook page, she can see some of the fires from her place but it's still a way off. Hopefully the change in conditions over the coming couple of days will give fire-crews a chance to push the blazes back and rebuild the defences.

Very early this year, and quite large for NSW indeed, worst in a decade. Normally it's Victoria that seems to cop the big ones lately.

I hope these fires have nothing to do with evil intentions of people that like to start fires.

The USA has had an unusual amount of forest fires this year and some were very deadly in Arizona with fire fighters that jump into the fires being consumed by one.

I have often wondered how they get started and the reasons are varied from lawn mowers to weed eaters to chain saws to illegal camp fires by hunters to marijuana growers to the most common cause of lightning strikes.

Can you imagine what it must have been to be a North American Indian back in the old days and a fire was started by lightning? My God how would they've put it out?

All they could do is make a run for it.

The budget in America was one billion dollars to fight these fires and they have well gone over that amount.

Hope yours get put out soon and everyone can get back to a normal life :yep:

No cause for alarm where I live but I've a number of friends in some of the affected areas. Luckily all are safe and so far only one has been evacuated. He lost a shed and some outbuildings apparently. He won't know the full extent of the damage until he can get back home.

No word officially on the causes but you can be certain that some of the fires were deliberately lit. Why these idiots do it I can't fathom.

One of the fires was caused by high winds bringing down power lines in bushland near Mt Victoria. Still not much being reported on causes of other fires. We had much cooler temps today which gave some relief and people were able to get back to their homes to survey the damage.

Unfortunately one death occurred with a 63 yo man who collapsed whilst fighting the blaze near his home on the Central Coast north of Sydney.

Temperatures are expected to get back into the high 30's C over the next few days so with 20 fires still uncontained in the state there is likely to be more damage to property before the end of the week.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-1...y-live/5030288

My friend in Raymond Terrace said he may have to evac again on the weekend :doh:

As long as I don't get a Catastrophic message from the RFS again, my area should be okay. It's just bad enough that I don't have a horse truck considering my family got a couple of horses plus my own if I have to get the hell out of there. Keep safe everyone!

You too.

If you use this map and zoom in to the Blue mountains area immediately west of Sydney you can see the extent of the burn so far.

http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=683

The "State Mine" fire looks like its taken over 1/3rd of the same area as Sydney's metropolitan area. That's about the same size as London North of the Thames to the M25!

Stay safe all :sunny:

Posted this on Cybermat's thread.

https://www.facebook.com/nswrfs?directed_target_id=0

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-1...nesday/5039260
According to this report the fire near Lithgow was caused by explosives on a Defense firing range.