A sad day for Victoria

It's a sad day here for Victoria today as the full impact of the fires that began yesterday during our hottest day on record (47.9 degrees where I live) is revealed. The death toll is currently 65 and rising and the number of homes lost is approximately 700. The damage is breathtaking and the stories of struggle and survival have brought tears to my eyes on several occasions.

My thoughts are with those affected as well as those fighting the fires. I have been involved in fighting bushfires (I was a support person, not actually fighting them) and it's painstaking and exhausting work. All resources are thrown into the fight leaving little in reserve.

A friend of ours has a house near to an area that is affected and they evacuated last night. They've gone back today but are still in danger so we have everything crossed that they will be safe.

There aren't any fires near us at present - we hope too that it stays that way.

An eerie smoke filled day.

Victoria and our neighbour Tasmania are both experiencing some horrific fires at the moment. The fires are some distance from us but we've been getting the smoke and it's eerie and heart-renching. On the weekend Geelong (where I live) was pretty smokey (i measured the visibility to be abou a kilometre) but Melbourne got the worst with only a 300-400 metres visibility. Today the smoke is really thick and I reckon there's only a couple hundred metres visibility. The sun has been a bright orange (like you can get on a sunset) for most of the day. Here are a couple of pics that I took today. Unfortunately I don't have any smoke-free pics to complare but I'm sure you'll get the idea.

This is the sun this morning from the Spencer Street train station in Melbourne at about 7.30am

My view from this train station is usually a clear view of the city buildings. Today you can barely see the outter ones (you'l have to look closely).

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This is a lookout in Geelong. Usually much clearer and quite pretty.

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And for something totally different, this is B's car - for those that know us, his car is precious and rarely leaves the safety of the garage (and definitely NOT if it's raining). This is proof that the care does get out - it's the white one in the front.