It was lightning, dickhead

Yesterday's tower day began with me driving my new 'tractor' with Southern Cross tattoos to the carpark early. I'd been expecting some drama after a night of lightning strikes in the area. I always take the bush roads in as a short cut that involve crossing the Weld River bridge (more about that later) so I was suitably dusty on arrival.

A kangaroo watched me as I walked up the trail. Can you see her? She has a joey in her pouch.

 

Later in a quiet moment in the tower, I was on the phone to a man from the Shire about the condition of the road I drive every day. 'I'm in tears halfway along the track,' I said. 'The corrugations are so bad now, they are getting dangerous.'

He was one of those people who make you feel like a confidant. An Olympic version of a public servant on the phone to some random woman complaining about roads. His voice was calm and friendly. He promised to have it fixed 'by Wednesday next week.' 

Not long after that, with a trashy thriller audio book thrumming from my phone, I looked over to the west and spotted a tiny white smoke that looked like a cloud on the horizon. Except that it didn't quite look like a cloud. Sometimes clouds over that way stand up like smokes, depending on atmospheric pressure. This one was different. I thought about the lightning strikes, the ones that had sent me scuttling down from the tower the afternoon before, and then I started plotting it on the map.

By 1215, I'd radioed in a Bravo Two One Two (medium density, columnar, white) and given the coordinates. It was kinda freaky, moving around the map table and trying to work out exactly where it was. As the wind increased, the smoke began to change. The wind turned suddenly from a mild north westerly to westerly and quickened. I rang the duty officer. 'Smoke description is now a two three three.' (Medium, billowing, brown) They knew exactly what I was talking about. This fire was taking off.

On the radio channels, I could hear the DO calling all trucks in the area to head out there and summoning the spotter pilot from Manjimup to give us the exact coordinates of the fire. First and Second crews from our district have been away at other fires in the north, so it was a harried response of gathering up returning fire crew and managing fatigue levels to assess who could go to this new fire.

After all the excitement, I rattled home along the corrugated track to see water bombers flying overhead and smoke touching the karri canopies. There were two Coulson water tankers dropping water at the fire, plus the nimble bombers and crew, who I knew were working all night on foot.

This is why a facebook post from someone who should know better sparked my interest. He is part of a group that thinks we shouldn't mitigate fire, only respond to fire. Apparently, yesterday's response to the fire I've talked about so far was not up to his expectations:

His 'summary' is problematic. The date is wrong for a start. It was the 18th. I called the fire in at 1215 not 1245. The decision of it being a Donnelly fire was a collaborative one, being a border country fire. Frankland district trucks were first responders anyway. Everyone worked together after that and today there are fire fighters from Albany, Manjimup and Walpole.

Old mate's post served his MO of early detection, early suppression. (Yes,that is my job and I did my job well on Thursday.) We are working to contain a wild fire in difficult country and that's why they put so many fire bombers onto it, because it's hard to get trucks in there. That's why we are are back burning. It's a big-ass fire, caused by a lightning strike. It's in country where there are no roads, so they can't just drive up to the fire and put it out.

This afternoon I was ready to leave my other job in the office when an email came through.

'Yep. Always a 4pm on Friday,' The DO sighed. 'Main roads have decided the Weld River bridge on Beardmore road is unsafe to the public. They've told us to shut the road immediately.'

'But that's my bush road short-cut to the tower,' I said, shaking my fingers with anxiety. I always drive this road to work. It goes through jarrah, marri and karri country. This is my track.

Pete looked at me. 'Unless you're planning on river fordings, you're a highway woman now,' he said.