YOU READ IT! Yes, the cats do indeed make it :) they're found at the back door when we got home and scurried inside, a little sooty, but no worse for wear. I've been waiting for someone to leave this comment!
I have a good friend who was living in Canberra at that time. He had a similar experience, coming back to find that his home had almost been destroyed. His cats also made it. Aussie cats must have a knack for it!
Thank you for this sobering account Nicholas. I haven't had the fireline as close to my house as you have, but I know that eerie telltale flavor of the sickeningly orange light that filters through the smoke traveling from the fire zones, and the hazy smell that permeates your skin, prickling your consciousness... never letting you forget that what you're smelling is someone's home.
We have had our own fire tornadoes here in California, with equally shocked reactions from the public and the authorities. I find it telling how surprised some officials are that these phenomena 'aren't in the literature.' We're way behind Mama Nature, and our "literature" is kindergarten level still.
Dobry den Birgitte, děkuji! (Just trying out my Czech)
What's amazing is that it took many years before we actually knew a true fire tornado had occurred. We've often seen fire whirls, which are anchored with the ground, like dust devils. But there had never been a known pyrocumulus-anchored tornado generated by a firestorm before. In fact, before Canberra, natural firestorms - those which generate their own storm clouds, and sometimes, lightning - were extremely rare, the most recent one prior to that having been in the 1980s, an event we called "Ash Wednesday", more than 20 years prior. But then 2009, 2012, 2018, 2020. California even had that Carr fire in 2018 which was the second time a true fire tornado was ever recorded.
Thank you for reading and commenting! Stay safe out there <3
Appreciate the accent marks! Those are enough to break an unsuspecting tongue :)))
I imagine Mama Earth has seen plenty of massive cataclysmic fire behavior, long before we humans walked the land. To us it's hell unleashed, but for the planet it's just a stronger sneeze...
Did the cats make it?
YOU READ IT! Yes, the cats do indeed make it :) they're found at the back door when we got home and scurried inside, a little sooty, but no worse for wear. I've been waiting for someone to leave this comment!
Yay! I was scared to ask, just in case...
I have a good friend who was living in Canberra at that time. He had a similar experience, coming back to find that his home had almost been destroyed. His cats also made it. Aussie cats must have a knack for it!
What a hair-raising story.
Thank you for this sobering account Nicholas. I haven't had the fireline as close to my house as you have, but I know that eerie telltale flavor of the sickeningly orange light that filters through the smoke traveling from the fire zones, and the hazy smell that permeates your skin, prickling your consciousness... never letting you forget that what you're smelling is someone's home.
We have had our own fire tornadoes here in California, with equally shocked reactions from the public and the authorities. I find it telling how surprised some officials are that these phenomena 'aren't in the literature.' We're way behind Mama Nature, and our "literature" is kindergarten level still.
Dobry den Birgitte, děkuji! (Just trying out my Czech)
What's amazing is that it took many years before we actually knew a true fire tornado had occurred. We've often seen fire whirls, which are anchored with the ground, like dust devils. But there had never been a known pyrocumulus-anchored tornado generated by a firestorm before. In fact, before Canberra, natural firestorms - those which generate their own storm clouds, and sometimes, lightning - were extremely rare, the most recent one prior to that having been in the 1980s, an event we called "Ash Wednesday", more than 20 years prior. But then 2009, 2012, 2018, 2020. California even had that Carr fire in 2018 which was the second time a true fire tornado was ever recorded.
Thank you for reading and commenting! Stay safe out there <3
Appreciate the accent marks! Those are enough to break an unsuspecting tongue :)))
I imagine Mama Earth has seen plenty of massive cataclysmic fire behavior, long before we humans walked the land. To us it's hell unleashed, but for the planet it's just a stronger sneeze...
True! I bet she has seen it all and more! I wonder what weather must have been like during the age of Pangaea, cyclones must have been intense!