My family up in Queensland thought the fire situation here in the Clarence Valley had settled down since they weren’t hearing anything on the news any more. I can tell you that it hasn’t!!! While some communities are onto the clean up and rebuild phase, others are evacuating or cut off by fires. This was the situation early Wednesday morning (27th Nov)
A number of fires merged into one big fire and now that fire is spreading in opposite directions. It’s gone right out to the coast on one side and further inland on the other. All the main roads north and south have been cut off now and again, depending on the state of the fires and sometimes the only way through is to take an extra 3 1/2 hour detour inland. Yamba, on the Coast is completely cut off. They were told to evacuate a couple of days ago and now they’re cut off from the fires to the north, the river to the south/west and ocean to the east. Other communities have been encircled with fires but were saved thanks to fire fighters, but they can’t get in and out to buy food because the roads are still dangerous with falling trees and sections still burning.
Our nephew Pearce works on our friends farm. They have been preparing their property for weeks for the fires that have been burning close to them. The fire reached them over a week ago. They thought they had it contained, but after a scorching 37 degree day on Tuesday the fire intensified again. The fires are right down the back of their property, not close to their house thank goodness. But because of that, their fire isn’t a priority for the fire brigade when there are other communities in the path of fires. They did get help from the national parks and services people though. They came with all their equipment to back burn the mountain next to them. This was to stop the fire from spreading closer to their house and to stop it from spreading closer to other communities closer to Grafton. Karl went to help and got to see it all in action. These pictures are of the back burns of the mountain.
Here are the current fire maps where you can see how much fire has ripped through the North Coast of NSW.
Map 1: NSW North Coast, Map 2: Close up of Grafton, we’re at the Binoculars
What can we do? We need RAIN and lots of it! We had 1.5mls Tuesday night which was welcomed but it was just enough to dampen the ground. Other parts of NSW have gotten a good drenching which is great…but we’re still waiting for our turn.
So the First Nation People of Australia are holding a special dance on the 1st December where all the Aboriginal groups around Australia will dance at the same time in their various locations to heal the Country.
We don’t know their dances but our contribution will be to hold a special fast and prayer on the same day. Sunday 1st December, the first day of Summer and the first Sunday of the month. All the congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in NSW have been asked to hold a special fast on that day and pray for the drought to break. Please feel free to join in and partition our Father in Heaven to break our drought and give us relief from all these fires. We do have rain forecast for Sunday, but we need some good consistent rain to break the drought!
I can’t wait to write a post about our raging creek!
Off Grid Maori 