High temperatures over 40°C and strong dry westerly winds drove fire into new territory.
The tourist town of Mogo just to the south of us was first to suffer with many buildings lost.
This part of the fire then got into the suburban and out lying areas of Batemans Bay with numerous house losses. It burnt to the beaches there.
North of us the community of Lake Conjola was devastated. People were forced onto the beach and into the water to avoid the inferno. A huge number of homes were lost.
Further south, the town of Cobargo was decimated. In Victoria, just over the border, huge fires consumed east Gippsland. Thousands of holiday makers were forced into the water at Mallacoota and are being evacuated, as I write, by the Australian Navy.
In east Gippsland, a very large rural area, there has been loss of life, loss of property and homes and huge livestock losses.
Despite being warned to stay away from the south coast, huge numbers of tourists flocked to the area for their summer holidays. The fire situation has caught them all with nowhere much to go. Power has been cut, communications are, at best, patchy. Major roads have been cut and as a result there is a lack of food and fuel supplies in all the major centres.
Today the government declared a state of emergency and ordered all non residents out of the area.
Obviously with so much fire around, the major road to the south and north had been opened and closed numerous times. The traffic jams trying to get out of the area are horrendous. We cannot get into town for supplies at all. Our highway between Batemans Bay and Ulladulla is a 55km parking lot. People were sleeping in their cars last night on the road. A normal journey from our area to Sydney is four hours. For many it is taking 24 hours!
This brings us to this weekend.
Conditions are predicted to be worse than New Year’s Eve so we are girding our loins once more.
Theoretically we are safe due to our area being burnt out a few weeks ago. But we have been warned once again to be alert for secondary fires caused by flying embers from the distant fire fronts. Lots of dead fallen leaves are now on the ground and many trees are still smouldering.
So that’s the situation to date.
Obviously there will be more to come.
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