Skip to main content

AUSSIES WORST FIRE SINCE ‘83

By
Adelaide, South Australia finally overcomes the biggest fire since the bushfires of Ash Wednesday in 1983.
The fire known as the ‘Sampson Flat’ fire started at around 10am on Friday the 2nd January 2015, welcoming the New Year with terror for all of Adelaide’s citizens. The fire quickly spread burning approximately 30,888 acres of the Adelaide Hills.

Over 700 South Australian Country Fire Service volunteers fought the blaze, alongside with members from fire crews across the nearby areas and a record breaking 31 aircraft. The fire was finally put out completely on the 9th of January, after eight days, thanks to the sudden appearance of the heaviest rainfall in Adelaide and South Australia in 30 years.

Ian Tanner from the South Australian County Fire Service, during the fire, said: “There is not a fire service anywhere in the world that could put out this fire at the moment.”

The fire ate through 32 homes and 125 outbuildings, tearing through people’s homes and destroying livestock. There were 134 injuries but amazingly there were no fatalities. Throughout the week long blaze campaigns were launched to save the wildlife which had been run from their homes because of the blaze, ‘How to feed a Koala’ and ‘How to save a baby Kangaroo’ were some of the main campaigns. The destruction has left most of the local wildlife without a home, and the continuing campaigns help them and the people who lost their homes.

Tanya Edwards, 48, who lives in Adelaide, South Australia, had to leave her home at one point because her “house is filling with smoke”, she was on the edge of the fire throughout the past week.
The fire, which was contained on Wednesday was finally put out by the rain on Friday, bringing relief to the entire community, and allowing the fire crews to return home.

Tanya Edwards, said: “As of Wednesday night the fires were contained and are now out.
“We have been blessed with some serious rain which has helped put an end to the fire.

“But the more amazing facts are the fact that no one died in the fire and the amazing community spirit that this disaster brought out.

“People went out of their way to help each other and pitch in to help. It was heart-warming to see the Aussie spirit shine so bright.”

During the disastrous fire which devastated most of the Adelaide area, fire crews were fighting the flames 24/7, and throughout that time many of Adelaide’s citizens were displaced, depending on the fire-fighters to protect their homes.

Tanya Edwards said: “The CFS [Country Fire Service] are volunteer fire fighters, they are unpaid. Some of them lost their own homes while they were out fighting for others. Volunteers came from NSW [New South Wales] and VIC [Victoria] to help fight our fires.


“I couldn’t sleep. Even though I was in my own bed, I couldn’t stop thinking of those that weren’t. Whether it was because they had lost their homes, were displaced or out their fighting the fires for us. A truly terrible and terrifying time for South Australia.”  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why We Need To Make Politics A Mandatory High School Topic

By
Basic politics is easy to grasp, but trying to teach yourself politics, in an unbiased manner, is very difficult. In my high school Social Education was made a mandatory subject, taught once a week, for the entity of the high school education, And while repeatedly learning the same things about sex and drugs is SO important there is no education on basic politics to speak of. Also I was never taught how to write a cheque, pay bills, or set up insurance, but those are separate issues. The recent run of elections, and referendums, and the poor youth turnouts are a huge sign that the populace is not receiving any understanding of basic politics. However, making it a mandatory topic within high school education, such as embedding it into already existent classes like social education, could prepare the future generations for making strong, well educated decisions when it comes the the governing of our country. With most parents not even having the most basic grasp of unbiased pol...
Post a Comment
Read more

Employment At Record High In Scotland

By
Employment levels in Scotland during January to December 2016 reached a record high of 2,579,700, reflecting a huge improvement to the Scottish labour market. Scotland's Cheif Statistician published statistics on Regional Employment Patterns in Scotland from the Annual Population Survey on Tuesday. This publication presents annual estimates for a wide range of labour market indicators across local authority areas in Scotland for 2016. The report found that the employment level for men, aged 16 and over, has increased by 13,900 over the year and is at the highest level since 2008. While the youth unemployment rate decreased by 2.3% over the year, with the you employment rate also decreasing by 0.7%. Worryingly the trend reflected across the nation of pensioner workers has been reflected in the report, with the employment rate for people aged 65 and over increased from 5.2% in 2004 to 9.1% in 2016. Over half of workers over state pension age in Scotland said they has not ye...
Post a Comment
Read more

Roads Opening On M8, M73 and M74

By
Keith Brown has announced the opening of the M8, M73 and M74 as part of the £500 million M8, M73 and M74 Motorway Improvements Project. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair work said all daytime lane restrictions on the M8, M73 and M74 will be removed progressively over the coming days, freeing up capacity on the key part of Central Scotland's motorway network. This will allow road users to experience the benefit of the widened motorways and help deliver the full journey time savings of the new M8 motorway opened in April and the M74 Raith Underpass opened in February. As part of the Motorway Improvements Project, a range of improvements have been built over the last three years, including a new M8 motorway, significant improvements to Raith and Shawhead junctions as well as widening of the M8 M73 and M74, with new lanes providing an increase in motorway capacity. Mr Brown, said; £We are just a few days away from seeing the last of the lane restrictions bein...
Post a Comment
Read more