There's no chance a swimming pool would get to boil with a bushfire, I have seen elevated steel tanks getting pretty hot but that was a metre away from a house that burnt down.
You don't need to shelter for hours, the fire front where all the heat is passes in minutes, that's unless your house catches fire.
Usually there is a lead time, unfortunately these fires were unprecedented. Some watch and act warnings turned into to late to leave within 20 minutes.
Additionally, Australian rural towns aren't exactly like the rest of the world. My mum has one dirt access road surrounded by trees. If a fire starts on that road she is stuck. 5 minutes from a start of a fire and no alert to too late to leave. Many of these stories have come from similar circumstances. Sometimes there is no choice. If there is a warning, you should go immediatly without delay. We should however understand sometimes it was not a choice to stay.
The main town with over 10,000 people. 2 roads in and out. Surrounded by forest and national parks. These fires, this hot and this fast left many people with the possibility of being stranded. Watching and monitoring closely even if no fires in your area were changing within the matter of 30 minutes to it's too late.
We also got switched to NBN. Great but now no one had internet, home phones and mobiles weren't working. People had no access to information and were literally left in the dark.
os400 on January 16th, 2020 at 00:43 UTC »
Do you have at least 10,000L of water on hand and a diesel or petrol fire pump with appropriate hoses, branches etc, and know how to use them?
If not, get out early.
scumotheliar on January 16th, 2020 at 01:03 UTC »
There's no chance a swimming pool would get to boil with a bushfire, I have seen elevated steel tanks getting pretty hot but that was a metre away from a house that burnt down.
You don't need to shelter for hours, the fire front where all the heat is passes in minutes, that's unless your house catches fire.
I have been a fire fighter for 40 years.
bluecheesywheel on January 16th, 2020 at 01:23 UTC »
Copy to main thread from reply chain:
Usually there is a lead time, unfortunately these fires were unprecedented. Some watch and act warnings turned into to late to leave within 20 minutes.
Additionally, Australian rural towns aren't exactly like the rest of the world. My mum has one dirt access road surrounded by trees. If a fire starts on that road she is stuck. 5 minutes from a start of a fire and no alert to too late to leave. Many of these stories have come from similar circumstances. Sometimes there is no choice. If there is a warning, you should go immediatly without delay. We should however understand sometimes it was not a choice to stay.
The main town with over 10,000 people. 2 roads in and out. Surrounded by forest and national parks. These fires, this hot and this fast left many people with the possibility of being stranded. Watching and monitoring closely even if no fires in your area were changing within the matter of 30 minutes to it's too late.
We also got switched to NBN. Great but now no one had internet, home phones and mobiles weren't working. People had no access to information and were literally left in the dark.