Blaze in Blue

This post comes to you later in the day than usual.

In the Blue Mountains, Sydney, it has been a day of warm temperatures, terrifying bushfires and billowing smoke, all whipped into a merciless, random and cruel fury by strong, gusty winds.

This photo shows smoke expanding black and angry in Springwood, where there has been a devastating loss of property, but I hope and pray, a minimum loss of life.This was taken a mere 30 minutes after the bushfire started. At this point, Police and Fireys were still whipping down the highway trying to get to it.

Later the same day as the sun sets, further west where there are two separate bushfires, three water-bombing helicopters work in controlled convoy. They drop low to scoop up water, they fly low overhead and around in a tight circle to dump the water onto an eastern ridge that is less than one kilometre away, and from where a new smoke plume has started concentrating.

Just out of sight on the ridge, the flames are obviously being fuelled by the evening change in wind direction.

The helicopters repeat this circuit one after the other, over and over. The ridge remains smeared with orange clouds all night, but the flames do not appear.

The previous night, flames had been visible on another hill, but that had at least been futher away from the township, and that had been before the winds had picked up.

Tonight, many of the surrounding hills are pockmarked with golden embers, each of which hold the cruel potential to flare up - all the more frightening for their glowing visibility in the darkness.

It is time to sit and make our plan, and to wait and see.

ReeDaBee