First fire

First fire for the season. As you can see it still isn't quite dry enough for the pyros, but it is along the lines where the new saplings were put in. Lots are burnt. The total are isn't as big as it could have been, probably because it isn't dry enough for it to spread fast. It looks as if it was the grass left lying after it was mown down for the planting that actually burnt. I wonder how the rest of autumn will go?


Oh yeah, in the post about the planting I gave the saplings a year ... someone else gave them 3-4 months? She won, it's 3-4 months since that post.....

Upset from Fire

I seem to have upset someone with my previous post. So, firstly, I'm sorry it's taken so long to respond, I haven't logged in for a few days. I'm not going to publish your comments because I think you may have unintentionally revealed too much about yourself and my publishing them might result in your privacy being breached more than you'd like. Secondly, it was never my intention to cause hurt, that being said it's all too easy to do so by being too light about a subject. But, being light about a subject is a rather Australian thing to do, especially when it's a scary subject. It's a natural defense. We all do it. I'm sorry you feel you copped the rough edge of it on this occasion. But it was a scary subject, everyone thought the fire was caused by a vandal, they were scared for the fellow and his kids and they were scared for their own homes. I know the person I was talking to was scared enough that she couldn't sleep most of the night. She kept getting scared there was going to be a fire bomb come through her front window. It wasn't until next morning that the other story started circulating. If it isn't true then it was a defense against the fear too.

So, when I read through my post again there's one bit I would change. Instead of "... by the next morning, someone had found out ..." I would write that "by the next morning people were saying". I agree that saying 'found out' makes it sound like someone knew something real, and I am now acknowledging that it is all word of mouth and passed through a few people before I got it so it is just as likely a theory someone made up.

The other point is that I doubt very much that it's actually incriminating, otherwise everyone who's ever been the subject of a bad news article would end up in gaol! And who knew you or any more than a half dozen people ever read this blog! I'm sure the cops or the magistrate or the psych involved in all this don't read my blog, and they are all intelligent enough to recognise that post for what it was, which is a post about something scary that happened in Tregear, that is identified in the article as being word of mouth, and probably badly worded to top it off.

I know that happenings of the last few days have been shocking and traumatic for you. I can't really imagine all of what you are feeling, but I think you are probably taking on way too much and you probably think who else is going to do it, and you're embarrassed and defensive and wanting the think the best of the fellow involved and not give up on him. But I can tell you that in a quiet suburb such as this, something as hugely visible as a house fire doesn't remain private business. It's impossible for it to remain private business. People could see it for a long way, people close up were scared, and they are all talking about it. I also know it will all blow over and no one will care very much at all in a very short time. If anyone actually said anything that put the blame on the kids you'd be well within your rights, and with a whole suburb full of backup, to tell them they are morons. No one I could think of would have anything but sympathy for all the kids involved. Their lives are going to be changed by this, in one way or another, probably in lots of ways. I know I have nothing but sympathy for all the kids. We all just want to live a quiet life without too many stresses, but most of us end up going through something traumatic sometime.

I hope everyone, those who witnessed and were so badly scared by it, and those who were all involved, can relax and enjoy what they can of the silly season without anything else going wrong!

Bit early yet, but Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

House Fire

It hasn't come up in the Tregear news alerts yet, but a house up on Nella Dan was burnt down night before last. Someone a few doors up from it told me. She was woken by the noise and jumped up to call 000. It took some time to work out what happened, but apparently a bloke was living there with his kids and no one knew for sure if they had got out for a while. Somehow, by the next morning, someone had found out that the fellow had taken his kids over to his older daughters place and left them there, and then come back to poor petrol all through the house and torched it! He left. He wasn't suiciding. He's been arrested and gone to court and it's said they are going to psych assess him. At least one person is of the opinion that he didn't want to clean up...

Now for those of you who weren't involved the other night you've seen it here first! It isn't coming up on the Google news alerts, and it isn't on the rss feeds from the local papers. It might be on the police news site, but I can't get the site to load. I know it wasn't on tv...

Weather

Yesterday was so warm! I watched a softball game up at Glenmore Park. They don't have any shade there so I can see it being too hot later in the season. It was lovely yesterday. Of course the warm weather couldn't last, today it's raining. Not cold yet, but very raining.

Big bangs around here last night. Everyone thought it must be fire crackers. Hoping so at least. And the fire over in the reserve? Just over the hill so I couldn't see what was actually burning. It seemed quite big.

btw, I did get to the festival, heard a young woman with a remarkable voice singing on stage by herself. It was her last song of course, only got to hear part of one. Don't know her name but I hope she keeps going with her singing. Good voice, and doesn't just sing, she uses her voice.

The Coles in Ropes Crossing is open, just in case you hadn't noticed. There's been a few good specials.

Burnt Reserve

This is what happens when the local fire brigade decide to do a cleanup of what they consider a fire hazard. They burnt off the long dry grass in Tregear Reserve, in itself not a huge problem, except they never control it properly - all the trees in the long grass area ended up on fire too. I don't think the trees were a fire hazard. I'm not even sure the long grass is, especially as that is where all the new tree saplings are, but when our local pyromaniacs are in full swing they do burn the grass. Funny enough there hasn't been any pyromania in the reserve for ages. My cynical side says maybe there wasn't enough work for the local fireies and maybe they were missing their regular hit of flames....