Saturday 28 October 2023 Cuttagee after the bushfire

 Our first chance to paddle since the Coolagolite fire, 25 days ago.

We drove through devastation on our way to the lake and were happy to find the scrub lining the shoreline of Little Cuttagee hardly touched by the fire.

It was a different story however when we made the turn and looked up the lake.

After the 60mm of rain it was difficult to tell the track of the fire - the dark green of the new growth being the only indicator.

At the Far End boundary - it burnt 'cool' through here.

Another shot a little further into the park.

We poked along the shoreline quietly observing - the fire having burnt with greater or lesser intensity in different spots - the silt jetties at the entrance to the creek having been particularly hammered.

After stopping for breakfast up the creek (where we had the pleasure of watching a kingfisher repeatedly dive for fish) we returned to the big bend and headed up the backwater for a looksee - how did that house survive? We saw our first Sea Eagle since the fire - I'm guessing from its plumage, a 1-3yo. Unlike our previous paddle, beside the occasional swirl there was not a fish to be seen.

As we returned down the creek we found the forecast wind had arrived and decided to skip paddling to the top of Cuttagee and crossed the lake to return home by the most sheltered route possible.

Here's the vid. Rather long, I'm afraid (and boring for those who don't know the lake) - even with L being ruthless and cutting my edit down by half. The couple of roos we saw got the chop, as did most of the swans and other bird life. I think the glimpse of the wombat went too. Though Aafke will be pleased to hear that Rob's Seat survived - the fire and the cutting room!

Looking south from Far End, taken on 26th October.

11.3kms

Tuesday 17 October 2023 Putting Out Hotspots: Getting Water

 A stiff southerly blew up today. With windborn soot and leaves blowing about it was a day to remain inside.  Around 1.45pm the whomp whomp of a helicopter drew closer. Since the Black Summer fires, and especially now, the response to the sound of a helicopter flying low overhead is no longer - oh look, a helicopter; now anxiety levels immediately rise and the first thought is 'shit, what's happening'. 

Going out onto the verandah I saw a helicopter filling its bucket in Cuttagee. As it flew, with it's load, straight toward me, another came in from the south and cut to the east behind the first. As the first flew away to the south the second was descending over the big dam next door.

From then on both helicopters filled from the dam in a constant cycle for the next two hours or so. Each helicopter returned for a refill approx every two minutes - they weren't flying far!

Here is some raw, unedited, shaky video of the activity overhead:

What was going on? Should I be worried? Had the fire sprung up again? The hazards ap showed nothing, the RFS radio was silent on the subject. Finally I rang L's nephew, a member of another local RFS who assured me I had nothing to be concerned about, the heat reading helicopter having flown the area to the south of us earlier in the morning, the 2 helicopters were now dumping water on the mapped hot spots.

Somewhat relieved, the continual whomp whomp of the helicopters not allowing complete relaxation, I remained in a state of "alert, but not alarmed".

The neighbours had a ringside view:

Finally, at 4.15pm on the orange helicopter's second last run of the day a bucket of water was dumped on what was left of the oldest tree on the property.

Sunday 9 October to present Aftermath of the Bushfire Pt.2

Other than the helicopters carrying buckets of water to the south - the RFS Chinook was a sight to behold - all was quiet. We decided to drive out the track to view the damage.

Wow, what an eye opener. Less that a kilometre away the fire had crowned as it roared through parts of the forest. The rain forest gully to our south had been hammered in its western end.

We drove up the road to where the 2019/2020 fire had reached.  We could see that this fire had burnt through the area again. As the road beyond this point looked dicey we decided not to proceed further in our quest to find the western edge of the Coolagolite fire. Suffice to know that some of the area burnt 3 years and 8 months ago, during Black Summer,  which was still recovering was burnt again.  So, the question is, does a forest have to burnt less than every three years for a fuel reduction burn to be effective in providing protection? If this is so, what are the implications for the wildlife and the forest itself? How long before the fabric of the forest has been changed forever and how many species would be driven to extinction?  There must be a better way.

I will endeavour to take a few pics of different parts of the forest floor every few months to see how long it takes for the litter level to build up again.

We've heard that the Cuttagee Sea Eagles nesting tree has succumbed to the fire. If their offspring are about the same age of those in the Sydney Sea Eagle live cam, they too will have perished. As have the offspring of countless birds and animals who are in the middle of raising young. No doubt many of the birds and animals that are left will try again - but what are they going to feed their babies, let alone themselves?

A generation lost thanks to humanities selfish unwillingness to tackle climate change.

Depressed, we returned home and did some more work on getting documentation together for the Assessor.

Needing a break we walked down to our eastern neighbours to check some of our aged sheeps for signs of oozing and cracked hooves.  No signs so far.

A happy moment to see this beauty has survived.

Apologies for the jerks. This was my 4th go. The three proceeding goes, so tall it is, I never made it to the top  before video stopped.

Walking home, these lovely specimens should survive.

And then there was this, just of the track and because of the undergrowth, never seen before.  What is going on? It looks like a case of 'get off me'. I wonder if the rock is called Harvey?

Except for the call of Currawongs, it was a silent walk home. However, later that afternoon two Yellow Robins, a Lewin's Honey Eater and a lone thornbill visited the bird bath and I noticed a few Jacky Winters flitting from fence post to fence post.

Monday morning saw us busy with paper work. One of the blokes from the Local Land Services Dept rang for an update on the sheep  - how good is that! 

We were delighted to receive a call from our very dear friends from Mallacoota. They were in Bega and would like to come out for a quick visit before returning home.  They had survived the Black Summer fires, having with one neighbour, fought the fire for 6 hours and saved not only theirs and the neighbours house but two others as well. 

They arrived with lunch, bless them, and we sat down for a good natter and debrief. Lunch was delayed when the insurance assessor arrived early. L took him for a drive around the property to look at fences, the burnt sheds and dam pump and our meeting with was not the painful process we thought it would be.

Lunch resumed after the assessor departed. P&G's visit lifted our spirits and we were reluctant to let them depart.

Late that afternoon our spirits plunged again as the second last of our est. 150yo plus habitat trees came crashing down. :( :( 

On the 13th, the fire was declared under control.  Some 7,380ha (18236acres) were burnt. This was final RFS map issued.

Today we had an unexpected return visit from the RFS 'live' tree specialists who had put out the fire in the big Spotted gum at the bottom of the garden. They had come to check the tree had not reignited and to reassess its health.

I pointed out the stump still burning across the gully (see pic below). They assured me it was safe to let it burn itself out. :(

Interestingly, some of the trees and shrubs in the garden that had looked unaffected by the fire now seem to be turning up their toes. I guess it must of been the heat. We will have to wait to see if they cark it or sprout new leaves. 

Tomorrow our neighbours who lost everything are receiving a visit from our local State MP, Dr Michael Holland.  As there has still been no offer of help from the Bega Valley Shire or the State Gov't (e.g. waiving tip fees for the dumping of burnt fencing and sheds etc would be an enormous help to everyone affected by the fires) it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

To end on a more encouraging note. This evening I found worms alive in the melted compost bin (isn't there some saying like its the small things in life that make one happy) and as I was guddling about in said compost bin I saw a male and female Superb Blue Wren hopping about the lawn. :)

And as of the 14th still no sign of burnt feet in the sheep flock :) :)

Wednesday 4 - Saturday 7 October 2023 Aftermath of the fire

 

To be honest the next few days are now a bit of a blur. So many different crews came and went, so much was happening that my memory is all of a muddle. 

Here goes:

Early Wednesday morning, as we did our last garden patrol, we noticed, other than the noise of more trees coming down, the silence - no bird song. The only garden kangaroo that hadn't fled, a half blind old doe with a pouch joey, who had sensibly parked herself under the kitchen window and therefore under the house sprinklers and stayed there for the duration, had disappeared sometime during the night.  Stumps and fence posts, which I had sloshed water on repeatedly throughout the night, had reignited. Most annoying. For the first time we really took stock of the damage:

Then we saw our small flock of aged sheep hobbling slowly up the hill, coming for their morning feed. Dreading what we might find we went out to greet them. Upon close inspection they seemed physically unscathed, but were bug eyed and very jumpy. As we fed them we heard in the distance the clanking and rumbling of the Bobcat as it worked its way toward our track.

 Having eaten their pellets and after a long drink we let them into the garden - after surviving the fire we didn't want them squished by a falling tree. It took them a long time to settle. Watching them leap up and run at the sound of every falling tree we realised they were probably stiff and sore from dodging and darting all afternoon and night. When they eventually slept they were so out to it I thought the two 12yo's had carked it. For the next 5 days they wouldn't leave the garden and spent most of time sitting or sleeping.

Coming in for breakfast L realised he was out of some much needed drugs - what to do - our driveway was blocked, the neighbours track had more trees across it and it was anyone's guess what the road out was like.  While pondering the problem, a crew from RFS arrived - the first of many to appear that day. 

Upon being asked it there was anything we needed, L explained his dilemma. After a bit of discussion we were told that as soon as the road was cleared L would be escorted out, but could not be long as he may not get back in. Rang G in Bermi, could he pick up pharmaceuticals, talk his way through the roadblock and get to Cuttagee Bridge?  Rang the chemist and explained the situation. Yes they would give the drugs to G.  Within an hour L was on his way. He returned without mishap with not only the pills but 2 much appreciated food parcels from G - I bag containing milk, bread and healthy stuff, the other decidedly unhealthy stuff - chocolate, in a variety of forms - bliss.

While he was out I recorded some more of the damage:

The downed power lines between us and the neighbours.

Looking across to said neighbours - now we can actually see them!

The SE side of the garden was the hardest hit. I hope the lyrebird residing in the gully survived.

Soon after L's return crews began arriving and departing in a endless stream  - RFS, Forestry, National Parks, RFS housing assessment, Parks professional tree inspection/felling crew, the Police, RFS in trucks, RFS in utes, more Parks - I'm sure I've forgotten some.  So many we didn't get a chance to check out the rest of the property.

An aside:  While explaining L's pill problem to the RFS lady we asked if there was any chance of getting our track cleared of the still smouldering trees lying across it.  She replied that her crew were not allowed to deal with live trees however she would alert the professional team. This struck L and I as rather odd - some RFS crews not being able to deal with trees that are alive? And what an odd thing to say - to us they were definitely now dead trees. It finally dawned on us - in bushfire speak, live trees are trees that are burning or smouldering (even if down and actually dead or soon to be dead). Our confusion wasn't helped by having just 2 hours sleep in the past 24. But it did make us chuckle.

Around 3.00pm the RFS housing assessment team dropped in. As they were leaving their vehicle here (yet another tree had come down across the neighbours track) to walk to the neighbours I asked if they would check on the chooks and if still alive give them a feed.

A half hour later they returned: the three chooks were unharmed and had been fed. The house and shed intact. Joy, some good news to pass on to neighbours.

 They were off to the burnt out neighbours next. Emboldened by their kindness I asked for one more favour and explained:  A sweet little pet piglet going by the name of Lola had been left behind in the vegetable garden. Could they please check on her. If badly injured, please dispatch her, if not catch her and bring her back here.  Well, I think it might have been too much of an ask because I got a phone call about 5 mins  after they left saying they couldn't get to the property and were therefore unable to help with the pig! :(:(  We did get word that evening that Lola was alive and unharmed.

Another aside: We checked on Lola yesterday (11/10) - we haven't seen her for 8 weeks, - she's grown from the size of a small Jack Russell to that of a short legged rottweiler - watching a couple of RFS chaps chase her round the vegie garden and wrestle her into a car would have been a sight to see :) :) no wonder they piked.

At 4.00pm it started to rain - a drizzle at first, increasing overnight; by the next morning we had 60mls in the gauge. What a relief but sadly our big old habitat trees were still smoking and smouldering.

When we did get to inspect the rest of the block, early Thursday morning, it was a bit heart breaking to see the devastation and injured kangaroos whom we could do nothing for.  When we got back to the house, we found more crews loitering around (none of which, I might add, seemed at all interested in putting out the still smouldering trees either in the forest just outside our boundary and opposite the house or on our property) and I asked them advice re the injured kangas. They said ring WIRES (a voluntary wildlife rescue mob). I did and explained the situation and within a couple of hours 4 of them in two cars arrived under RFS escort – 1 shooter, 1 dart gunner and two helpers – and they spent the next four or more hours poking around our property and next door, dispatching kangas and wallabies beyond help, darting and treating some and rescuing what abandoned joey’s they could find. 

Janine and Gary at work.

Thursday also saw the return, under escort, of  our eastern neighbours, tailed by G&R who had brought out lunch and much needed supplies (Wednesday had been our scheduled shopping day). The neighbours in question have the same fire sprinklers as us but their system is automated (Embar) and they left about 1.00pm on the Tuesday. (Ours are meant to be automated but we have a glitch in the system which the installer is still trying to figure out). Their sprinkler system worked a treat and as reported by the chook feeding RFS house assessors, their house was unscathed as was their shed. After lunch G&R left to take the faulty house pump into Bega for us.

Also on Thursday we saw the first birdlife return to the garden - a lone Willy Wagtail, a few wattlebirds, a couple of Eastern Spinebills and unusually a male blackbird.  

A tree below the shed on the day after the fire

The same tree 24 hours later, lost its top.

Friday morning two blokes turned up from Local Land Services - they had come to check our livestock. Our huge herd of 10 geriatric sheep! Now that is service! As most of them were still stiff and sore it was a bit hard for the blokes to tell if their hooves at been burnt. The blokes told us to watch the sheep carefully, looking for worsening lameness and to get them in again on Sunday and check their hooves for signs of cracking and or oozing around the coronet band and if there was, to ring them and they would return on Monday to euthanise any so effected. 

G&R reappeared with the now fixed pump, having got it fixed on the spot (and another lunch - how good are they) and G helped L reinstall it and we lifted the lids on the water tanks to check the water levels. After the 60mls or rain they were both nearly full. Another huge relief.

Another housing assessment team turned up looking for a house marked on their map.  We looked at their map and after a few moments of puzzlement realised it was our shed down the paddock they had marked as a house . They were happy to find the one less house had been destroyed, updated their file and promptly departed.

While we were having lunch a specialist crew from RFS had been working their way down our driveway clearing the 'live' trees that had fallen across the driveway.  I asked them to have a look at the big spottie still smouldering at the bottom of the garden. Three of them studied the tree, did some measurements with a couple of twigs, and said 'yep, if it falls this way it will hit the house'. They brought in a tanker and thoroughly doused the smouldering scar and went closer and studied the tree some more. Final opinion: the scar is very old, the wood beneath the burnt stuff looks healthy and strong, it's got a good chance of surviving. If it falls it will break somewhere along the old scar, thereby shortening its length so it won't hit the house. Two scenarios, they can drop it now and we will be left with a huge clean up or leave it as and if it falls down at a later date we will still have a huge clean up. Hoping it will survive we chose the latter option. 

In the afternoon we got a call from the insurance assessor, he would be with us on Monday afternoon.

Once everyone had departed we started the process of documenting the stuff lost to, or damaged by the fire. After the excitement and anxiety of the last few days it was a tedious task and we were easily distracted by the redneck wallaby and joey that had returned to the garden as had a male Satin Bower Bird, a magpie and a few currawongs. Worryingly there is still no sign of the Superb Blue Wren family, nor the thornbills and Red Browed Finches that call the garden home.

The other thing that happened on Friday morning was the arrival of two Essential Energy crews with some impressive machinery. The two crews worked hard all day, one at each of our neighbours, replacing the destroyed power poles and infrastructure and rehanging the lines.

Out in the paddock there was a stand of gum trees. The horses (when they were still alive) sheep and kangaroos loved to stand/lie under them on warm summer days. The trees cast afternoon shade just where a cool sea breeze blew through. Originally there were 10 trees. Over the years the power line tree people have insisted on cutting them down, one by one. On Friday they cut down three more and now only 2 remain  :(  However at 5.30pm, electrical stuff inside the house dinged and pinged - the power was back on.

Saturday morning we had a sleep in and woke up to an unusual silence - Since Tuesday afternoon we had lived, during daylight hours, with the continual womp, womp, womp of helicopters flying low overhead, most taking water to the fire still burning to our south and then returning for more water.

After breakfast it was silent so L nipped out to fly the drone.  And here is the result.

From RFS site 6 OCT.: "Our building impact assessment teams have completed their ground inspections this afternoon of more than 120 properties affected by the Coolagolite Rd Fire near Bermagui on the NSW South Coast.

The assessments found that two homes were destroyed and further two damaged. 14 outbuildings (sheds) were destroyed with a further 5 damaged. 105 structures were unaffected by the fire.
After initial aerial assessments indicated that possibly more homes had been lost, our ground teams were able to thankfully confirm that these were in fact sheds."

The second home destroyed and one of the damaged ones were a little further up the road.

And finally a pic I found on an RFS website, also taken a little further up the road.

Tuesday 3 October 2023 Coolagolite Bushfire

Unlike the 2019/2020 bushfire that had us on tenterhooks for 6 weeks as it slowly burnt to within 4kms,  this one came fast and passed through quickly, burning 80-90% of the property. 

The morning was temperate but the temperature rose quite steeply around noon to 32oC and the wind picked up.  G rang at 12.39pm to alert us a fire was headed our way.  We did the L version of leaping into action, and got busy putting sprinklers onto the most vulnerable (as in danger to the house) parts of the garden, turning on the dam pump to keep the garden water supply tank full, sweeping up leaves, pouring water into and all around the bags of horsepoo in the sheep race,  putting flammable stuff into the shed and house, hosing down the stable area and outside of the shed etc. Unfortunately the pump on the one of the house water tanks had ceased to work a few days earlier so we were unable to access that tank full of water and had to conserve the other big tank for the house sprinklers and that was worrisome.

Once we had done what we could to prepare (it was exhausting and we left lots more undone) we came inside and studied the fire map, wind forecasts etc (Windy had the wind coming from the NW but starting to curl to the S as it neared the coast)  and made the decision to stay and defend and made a plan. We continued to prepare – filling up buckets, tubs, bins and anything that would hold a decent amount of water and placed them around the inside and outside of the house (the former incase fire got inside the house and the latter for mopping up outside if we lost power or the plastic 5000gal garden water tank). 

2.51pm: we think the fire is approaching the top of Cuttagee Lake and it was time to don our firefighting outfits. Note to self for the future - ski goggles don't cut the mustard.

3.51pm: As per the plan when the first spot fire started in the garden, L went out and turned on the house sprinklers and I turned off the 2 sprinklers on the two dangerous garden beds (which would now be covered by the house sprinklers) and turned on two more that I had positioned earlier on the northwestern corner of the house and lawn and western sides of the garden.

4.18pm: With the house sprinklers on we look out through a watery cascade as the fire builds.

Luckily, for our peace of mind, the smoke was so thick that we couldn’t see the flames roaring up the gullies on either side of the garden, and so we felt quite safe and calm inside.

4.36pm:  The last of the fire was roaring through the forest behind the house. 10 or 20 minutes after that we felt safe to go outside and start mopping up. The horsefloat, upon inspection later, wasn't even heat damaged.

L turned off the house sprinklers as embers were no longer blowing our way and started putting out bits of fire near the shed. I checked the garden tank to find it only half full – the dam pump had burnt.  So we had to be even more careful with water.  I put out some fires in the garden, but left others to burn that weren’t so much of a threat to the house, ditto with the forest just over the fence from the house. 

Coming inside for a breather we were pleased to note that we still had power. That was to change around 1.00am when the power pole next door finally succumbed to the flames. 

Sadly, during our breather we noticed, through the drifting smoke, a glow coming from under the verandah of the house to the northwest of us. I vetoed L's idea of trying to go over - parts of the forest and paddocks were still blazing, a tree had fallen across our driveway and we could hear trees coming down all over the place - it was way too dangerous.  An hour or so later the fire took hold and by the time a helicopter arrived (around 5.45pm) with a bucket of water flames were already shooting out from under the roof. Another bucket was dropped at 6.01pm, to no avail. Our new neighbours who had only purchased the property 4 months ago, lost everything except an old caravan down on the lake shore. He is a FIFO and was in Darwin and she was there on her own and rightly fled, with just the cat and the dog, leaving behind the chooks and Lola, the pet pig, all of whom we later found out, miraculously survived and like our sheepies, are thoroughly traumatised but physically unhurt. What a horrible, horrible introduction to a tree and sea change.

7.53pm: Two of the big spotted gums in the bottom of the garden aglow. Even if we'd had the water to spare a garden hose would have made no impact.

7.53pm: Looking directly west across the top of our place.

7.54pm: The two spotted gums again and looking north across the valley to the neighbours. In the distance to the right of the glowing spotted gums are the smoke reflected, burning remains of the new neighbours oregon pile, shed and house.

The next danger was to be at 4.00am when a southerly wind change was forecast which could blow the fire back over us. So conserving water was a priority.

We spent the rest of that evening and night patrolling around the house and cleaning up more stuff on the southern side of the house and shed. The dilemma was what to do with leaves, branches and twigs that had fallen while the fire driven wind and flames that had swept past? I had a look around - the pile of butted logs (ready for splitting) were still burning just outside the garden gate so we just kept adding stuff - problem solved. 

As we patrolled and rested the frequency of trees crashing down all around us - out in the forest and in our paddocks and gullies - increased until it seemed that every 5 minutes another came down. We were especially tormented by the sound of the huge old habitat trees and their inhabitants falling down.  The house and earth vibrated when the biggies struck the ground - a flare up of fire marking the spot.  

Around 10.00pm, L feeling faint with hunger realised we hadn't eaten all day and microwaved a couple of frozen little quiches. I don't know how long he microwaved them for but the crust was like concrete - he bravely ate his and mine. I think they would have been more edible if we'd put them outside for the fire to heat up. :)

Sometime around midnight we heard machinery and went outside to find a big bobcat coming down the eastern neighbours track, clearing the track as he went. Behind him was an RFS truck followed by a Parks ute. The people in the parks ute stopped when they saw the house lights and came and checked we were okay, and they told us the fire had made it down to the Murrah and beyond. Over the next two days the bobcat had to come down the neighbours track 3 more times to clear it of fallen trees. I don't know how many times they had to clear the other tracks. 

Thankfully the wind change wasn’t as forecast and was just a gentle breeze so apart from falling trees,  we were safe. Thanks to the house sprinkler system we had installed after the 2019/20 fires the house was unharmed and filthy, caked in rapidly drying wet ash, and somewhat surprisingly the shed survived with only minor damage. L has declared our next big spend will be to install another water tank and the same sprinklers on the shed.

Friday 29 September 2023 Wallaga - Merriwinga Creek and Serendipity Lunch

Events of early next week necessitate this post be a truncated version of our most salubrious outing.

Setting off from Payne's Island at 9.20am 

we circumnavigated Wallaga to the east of the Bridge reaching the limit of our paddle up Merriwinga Ck exactly 2 hours later. 

On our last paddle up this creek the water level must have been 2 or 3 inches higher. We were then able to slide over the footbridge.

Paddling back past Serendipity (where our old neighbours are currently housesitting) R & I pulled in as the others, not wanting to exert themselves after lunch, paddled back to Payne's Island.

K and A provided a splendid repast for us all and it was wonderful to catch up with them while they are back in the neighbourhood.